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Section 4. General Conclusions

4.1 This section of the report draws together some general conclusions from the Round Table's first two years.

The value of roundtabling

4.2 The first two years of the Round Table's existence have shown the value of a body which brings together different interests in the search for sustainable development. Evidence from other countries supports this conclusion. Members therefore welcome the Government's decision to continue the Round Table for at least a further two years.

The need for new approaches

4.3 Sustainable development poses new dilemmas and requires different ways of thinking. In its own work, the Round Table has tried to demonstrate, and use, new approaches. It has sought at all times to take a holistic view, and to consider the economic, environmental and social objectives of policy in an integrated way. This is particularly apparent in the Round Table's report Defining a Sustainable Transport Sector - which also provides a framework for considering other policy areas - but is evident too from other work the Round Table has undertaken. In its Freshwater study, for example, the Round Table has tried to address what it believes to be a shortcoming of other recent reports by considering all aspects of the freshwater resource.

Sustainable development and competitive markets

4.4 The present Government's general approach is to pursue policies through competitive markets wherever possible. The Round Table supports the benefits that competition can bring, but is concerned that, in some areas of policy, more account needs to be taken of environmental and social objectives, which will not be achieved through an unstructured market. This was a key finding of the Round Table's report The Domestic Energy Market: 1998 and Beyond. As it makes clear elsewhere in this report, the Round Table is extremely disappointed that the Government has not yet accepted the main conclusions of this report. In its report Making Connections, the Round Table similarly drew attention to the fact that competition between public transport providers makes it more difficult to operate a network of services - including coordination between services and the provision of comprehensive information and through ticketing. This reduces the ability of public transport to compete with the car for any but the simplest journeys.

The role of the regulators

4.5 In energy, transport and water - three of the main policy areas that the Round Table has considered in its first two years - there are sector-specific economic regulators. In each case, the regulator's primary responsibility is to promote competition and efficiency, a duty which contributes to some elements of sustainable development. The regulators also have social and environmental duties, but these are secondary.

4.6 In addition, all three sectors are covered by the competition authorities - the Office of Fair Trading and the Monopolies and Mergers Commission. The key test that the competition authorities are required to operate is that of the public interest. This goes wider than competition, but the extent to which environmental and social factors can be, and are, taken into account in determining whether something is in the public interest is unclear. Making Connections and Getting Around Town show that one result of this uncertainty is that public transport firms are inhibited from cooperating, in ways which would have benefits for sustainable development, for fear of being investigated for anti-competitive behaviour.

4.7 If sustainable development is to be the touchstone of policy, then it is at least as relevant to the work of the regulators and the competition authorities as to other areas of policy. In addition to the specific recommendations elsewhere in this report, the Round Table therefore looks to the Government to review the role that the economic regulators and the competition authorities should have, and to make any necessary changes to their powers and to the frameworks within which they work so that they are contributing fully to the achievement of sustainable development in competitive markets.

Achieving sustainable development

4.8 Sustainable development is hard to define, except in the most general terms. It is also nearly always much more difficult to deliver than unsustainable development. For example, the Round Table's Housing and Urban Capacity and Getting Around Town reports show that it is far easier to develop a greenfield site than to take on a previously developed site - perhaps with several owners. At a more mundane level, the Round Table's report on Making Connections starts from the recognition that it is nearly always much simpler to use the car than to make the same trip by a combination of modes.

4.9 The fact that sustainable development starts with these disadvantages makes intervention inevitable. That intervention will usually take the form of a combination of sticks (penalising the unsustainable activity) and carrots (encouraging the sustainable). As much as anything, however, it will involve making sure that information is available - not just information about such things as energy efficiency and public transport services, but advice about techniques that can be used to make sustainable development easier. In its Environmental Management and Audit report, the Round Table drew attention to the importance of environmental management systems. It is concerned that the take-up of schemes such as EMAS remains low - only 23 sites had been registered in the UK by the end of 1996 - and particularly by the lack of participation among smaller firms.

4.10 Sustainable development indicators provide another useful tool for measuring progress and identifying where changes are needed to present policies. The Round Table commented on the Government's proposals for indicators when these were in preparation; it welcomes the publication of these indicators, and the work that other organisations are carrying out - including the indicators prepared by Local Agenda 21. As the Round Table found when looking at indicators for its Freshwater report, information is often not available at present to produce the indicators which are needed. These gaps need to be filled - otherwise we risk an incomplete (or, at worst, misleading) picture as a result of relying on information that happens to be collected. As well as continuing to improve the indicators that are available, it will also be important to set thresholds below which indicators are not allowed to fall without corrective action.

The use of economic instruments

4.11 A market-based approach to delivering sustainable development needs to recognise that the benefits of environmentally-damaging activity usually accrue to a different - and often a much smaller - group than those who face the wider costs. A good example is contained in the Getting Around Town report. By relocating from Northampton town centre to an edge of town site, a major employer is making very substantial annual savings in its running costs. Against that should, however, be set the environmental and social costs to the community that will result from the development. Whether those costs outweigh the benefits is unclear - no-one has attempted the calculation. An environmental assessment should be a matter of course in such cases. In addition, a way needs to be found of making those who are causing the environmental damage meet the cost. An economic instrument may be the best way of achieving this. The Round Table has recommended greater use of economic instruments in several of its reports, including The Domestic Energy Market: 1998 and Beyond, Freight Transport and Defining a Sustainable Transport Sector. Progress so far has been slow. Much more attention needs to be given to work on economic instruments in support of sustainable development.

The land use planning system

4.12 Whatever the scope for economic instruments, it is clear that regulation will continue to have a role to play. The Round Table's work on Housing and Urban Capacity, Energy and Planning, Freshwater, Making Connections and on Getting Around Town underlines the importance of the land use planning system in delivering sustainable development. The full potential of that system is not being realised at present. That is particularly apparent from the Round Table's experience in Northampton.

4.13 It is important that sustainability principles are fully reflected in development plans and individual planning decisions. In some cases the consequences will be uncomfortable - they may mean radical changes in the planned pattern of development for an area. But it is far better to overturn previous plans than to press on blindly with land use decisions that will take us further in an unsustainable direction.

4.14 Part of the importance of the land use planning system lies in its scope to prevent unsustainable development. This might, for example, be highly traffic-generating office building on the edge of town, or new housing in areas where the environmental cost of meeting the additional demand for water would be unacceptably high. The planning system also needs to play a larger role in facilitating sustainable development - for example by identifying and safeguarding sites for intermodal freight terminals and the land round public transport interchanges as suggested in Making Connections, and undertaking urban capacity studies as recommended in Housing and Urban Capacity.

The social dimension of sustainable development

4.15 In all its work, the Round Table has attempted to take account of social as well as economic and environmental objectives. In general, the Round Table believes that insufficient attention is being paid to the social dimension of sustainable development. In its report Defining a Sustainable Transport Sector, the Round Table advocates analysis to identify the Best Practical Environmental and Social Option. That report also emphasises that meeting people's basic needs is an essential pre-requisite of achieving sustainable development. The report on Freshwater similarly emphasises that water (and wastewater removal for treatment) must be available at affordable prices to all members of the community at all times for basic domestic requirements; and that although uses such as garden watering are sometimes regarded as discretionary, sustainable development should aim to meet such needs wherever possible, in ways that do not prevent other objectives being met.

4.16 Social and environmental objectives may pull in different directions. For example, as part of its work on Getting Around Town, the Round Table was told that many people commute long distances into the Northampton area to work in relatively low-paid jobs. They buy cheap cars to make the journey. Putting up petrol prices and taking polluting cars off the road makes excellent sense from the perspective of meeting environmental objectives; it makes sense in terms of sustainable development only if other policies are adopted simultaneously to make sure that job creation and labour mobility - which are vital for social as well as for wider economic reasons - are not damaged as a result. This means, for example, better public transport, and land use planning decisions which do not allow major developments that are accessible only by car.

Continuing as before is not an option

4.17 Because sustainable development is difficult - both as a concept and in implementation - there is a strong incentive to avoid changing behaviour. That inclination is increased if there is a hope that others may be willing to take action and so spare us the need to do anything.

4.18 This phenomenon is by no means limited to public sector bodies, or high-level international negotiations. Many private sector companies have still not grasped that going on as before is unacceptable not just because it will have ill-defined environmental disadvantages, but because it will fundamentally affect their businesses. Transport policy is again a telling example. For retailers to assume that most of their customers will continue to arrive by car, and distribution companies to plan to serve much of England from one depot on the outskirts of Northampton, is self-defeating. Unless we reduce the number of journeys by road, congestion will become intolerable over much of the network for much of the time. That will mean - apart from other problems - a dramatic rise in costs for businesses. Companies therefore have as great an interest as anyone in ensuring that sustainable transport policies are implemented.

Education for sustainable development

4.19 Sustainable development is an elusive, yet all-pervading, concept. That combination means that it is still neither widely understood nor widely practised. To the extent that its importance is beginning to be recognised, sustainable development continues to be thought of primarily in terms of direct effects on the environment - water and air pollution, for example, and industrial and domestic waste. In fact, as the Round Table's work demonstrates, decisions on the location of homes and businesses are equally important, because they affect the demand for land and the amount of travel (especially by car). The framework within which decisions are taken - whether by public or private sector organisations - is also vital in determining whether development is sustainable or not.

4.20 This report argues for new policies and new approaches, so that development will meet economic, environmental and social needs now and in the future. To achieve that, there will also need to be a programme of education for sustainable development. This must include the workplace and the home as well as schools and further and higher education. At one of the Round Table's recent meetings our Co-chairman, John Gummer, described the objective as being "to create the right circumstances for a fundamental change in lifestyles". That is indeed the challenge.