Leadership on sustainability

Sustainable development improves the quality of people’s lives while not damaging our local and global environment. It requires policies and programmes that support economic, social and environmental goals at the same time. These pages will help you to make sense of your council's role as a leader on sustainability.

• Global and UK action
• The role of local authorities
• Policy
• Resources and links

Global and UK action

In 1992, the UN Conference for Environment and Development – widely known as the Rio Earth Summit – recognised that integrating economic and social development with environmental protection was essential to safeguard our future.

The UK, along with most other nations, signed Agenda 21 – 'Agenda for the 21st Century' – at the conference. This was a commitment to develop a national sustainable development (SD) strategy and regularly report on progress to the UN Commission for Sustainable Development. The Rio summit also agreed several other landmark international agreements on climate change, biodiversity and forests.

The UK’s first sustainable development (SD) strategy was published two years later in 1994 and two more have followed. The current SD strategy, 'Securing the Future', was released in March 2005. It highlights five guiding principles for sustainable development:

• living within environmental limits
• ensuring a strong, healthy and just society
• achieving a sustainable economy
• promoting good governance
• using sound science responsibly.

'Securing the Future' also lists four shared priorities for action throughout the UK:

• sustainable consumption and production
• climate change and energy
• natural resource protection and environmental enhancement
• sustainable communities.

There are many national policies that are driving progress on these priorities, but local authorities can make an important contribution to the first three and have a pivotal role in the fourth. For more on what is happening nationally on sustainable development, see the government’s website on sustainable development.

UK Government Sustainable Development website

The role of local authorities

Agenda 21 recognised the crucial role of local authorities in sustainable development, as have all of the subsequent UK SD strategies. Councils can help drive sustainability by:

• acting as a community leader
• supporting sustainable communities
• delivering sustainable services and operations.

Community leadership

Councils' community leadership role is enshrined in 2008 statutory guidance to local authorities, 'Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities'.

This placed a statutory responsibility on councils to provide:

“...strategic and political leadership in developing and delivering a shared vision for their area.”

Local authorities must work with local partners to develop a sustainable community strategy (SCS). The guidance notes that:

"The purpose of a sustainable community strategy is to set the overall strategic direction and long-term vision for the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of a local area... in a way that contributes to sustainable development in the UK."

Local authorities also have a duty to consult – in collaboration with partners – the local community on the SCS. The SCS should integrate social, economic and environmental objectives and provide an overarching framework for councils’ own programmes and those of local strategic partners. In particular, the SCS should inform local area agreements (LAA) and the core strategy of the local development framework (LDF).

The guidance also highlights the vital leadership role of elected members.

"Executive members in particular have a vital role in leading LSPs through the negotiation and definition of priorities and in overseeing delivery. In addition, senior councillors can play an important leadership role in thematic partnerships. They also have relevant leadership roles in other agencies such as police authorities, and regional development agencies, who are also partner authorities...

"...Frontline members have a key role in engaging the public and feeding in the views of local residents to council decision making. They can also have significant influence through the scrutiny function."

Creating Strong, Safe and Prosperous Communities – on the website of Communities and Local Government

Sustainable services and operations

There are many ways that local authority services and operations can support the remaining three shared priorities. For example:

• sustainable consumption and production – council procurement policies, household waste policies, advice for local businesses
• climate change and energy – improving energy efficiency of the council’s operations, strenthening the resilience of council assets to the impacts of climate change and promoting public transport, walking and cycling
• natural resource protection and environmental enhancement – protecting and enhancing biodiversity and landscapes on council land and through planning policies.

Sustainable purchasing and procurement

There has been a great deal of work by central and local government to encourage sustainable purchasing and procurement. It has the potential to improve the sustainability of not only the council’s own operations, but also encourage sustainability among sub-contractors by including social and environmental criteria as part of the process for selecting suppliers. For example, your council could specify that:

• contractors use refuse vehicles that meet strict environment emission targets
• food supplied in schools is from local and sustainable sources
• energy efficiency measures installed in managed housing stock meets best practice
• Indicators of sustainable development.

The UK government measures our progess towards sustainable development with 68 national sustainable development indicators. The Local Performance Framework contains many similar indicators that can be used to assess progress towards local sustainability.

The UK Sustainable Development Commission developed the Sustainable Development Lens. This will help you work out which of the national indicators (NIs) could be used to track local progress on sustainability.

National Sustainable Development Indicators – on the website of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra)

Local Sustainable Development Lens: Final proposal – UK Sustainable Development Commission website

Policy

Securing the future and Creating strong, safe and prosperous communities are the overarching policy drivers for local authorities on sustainability, but there are many others.

Leadership on sustainability: policy

Resources and links

Leadership on sustainability: resources and links

You may also wish to see the publications section of the environmental sustainability and climate change (ESCC) resource.

Publications on environmental sustainability and climate change

Page updated May 2010.