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Executive Summary

1. The UK Round Table on Sustainable Development was established in early 1995. It aims to encourage discussion on major sustainable development issues and to build consensus between people who have different perspectives and different responsibilities.

2. This report reviews progress on the recommendations made in the Round Table's first annual report, published in April 1996, on

• Freight Transport;
• The Domestic Energy Market: 1998 and Beyond; and
• Environmental Management and Audit; and in the separate report, published in June 1996
• Defining a Sustainable Transport Sector.

3. This second annual report summarises, and includes the full recommendations from, five new topics completed recently:

• Making Connections This report considers the barriers to transfers within passenger and freight journeys, and how these might be overcome, as a contribution to sustainable development. Only by making such journeys "seamless" can journeys with several components compete effectively with door-to-door car and lorry trips.
• Getting Around Town This case study has been based on the Northampton area. In consultation with the local authorities and others, the Round Table has been looking at obstacles to introducing more sustainable transport policies on the ground.
• Housing and Urban Capacity. The Government's projection is that 4.4 million additional households will form in England between 1991 and 2016. The Round Table's report recommends setting an aspirational target for 75% of new housing to be built on previously developed land.
• Freshwater. This report looks at the national water resource from the perspective of sustainable development. Water is a bounded resource: although water is renewable, it is not present all the time in all the places and in all the quantities that the environment may require or people may want. A sustainable policy must involve a knowledge of demand, and hence the measurement of usage, as well as taking full account of water quality issues.
• Energy and Planning. This short study of land use planning controls over energy developments looks at two main areas: the environmental assessment of power stations and consequential impacts, and the authorisation procedures for renewable energy projects.

4. The report also draws together the Round Table's general conclusions from its first two years' work and describes the Round Table's working methods as these have evolved.