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Section 2. Recent Topics

Integrating Biodiversity into Environmental Management Systems

2.1 As a follow up to the work published in January 1996 in the report Environmental management and audit, the Round Table chose to develop the study further by considering one specific environmental aspect in detail. This was the role that environmental management systems can play in enhancing biodiversity. Although certain commercial activities have a very major role in terms of biodiversity management e.g. forestry and agriculture these sectors were already well aware of the issues and therefore efforts were targeted at wider business sectors for whom biodiversity links are less obvious.

2.2 In January 1994 the UK government launched Biodiversity: The UK Action Plan (BAP). This came in response to the UK's commitment given at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992, and in accordance with the Convention on Biodiversity. It draws together existing instruments, programmes and information on a range of habitats and species. It also provides the overall framework programme for actions related to UK Biodiversity over the next 20 years, key components of which are:

• the development of costed targets for most threatened and declining habitats and species;
• improving accessibility and co-ordination of biodiversity data, including that required to monitor progress towards agreed targets;
• increasing public awareness and involvement through the targeting of key sectors.

The BAP is to be implemented at local level through Local Biodiversity Action Plans (LBAPs). These will interpret the BAP through a local review and will therefore take into account geographical variations related to both habitats and species.

2.3 The Round Table makes the following recommendations:

Aspects of Sustainable Agriculture and Rural Policy

2.4 This study was undertaken in response to concern that many agricultural practices in the UK were not sustainable. It addressed only a limited number of the many aspects of agriculture and rural policy. In particular, it did not address in any detail the need for reform of the EU Common Agricultural Policy, though recognising the pervasive influence of that Policy on UK agriculture.

2.5 The study concluded that a combination of regulation, advice, information and incentives had resulted in a reduction in some of the adverse environmental impacts of agriculture, but that others, notably the loss of biodiversity, continue. Government should now adopt an approach seeking to promote environmental 'goods', based on best practice and positive management, rather than merely tackling environmental 'bads'. In this context, it recommended the development of a 'duty of care' upon landowners and land managers, underpinning other regulation.

2.6 The report concluded that the culture and organisational structures of those Government departments charged with delivering agricultural and rural policy were ill-suited to promoting sustainable agriculture. While some change was taking place or was under consideration, the report urged further progress, in order that the agriculture departments could become more fully involved in partnership approaches to promoting the sustainable development of agriculture and rural areas.

2.7 The likely future direction of the Common Agricultural Policy towards greater subsidiarity should allow a range of issues to be addressed as part of a national strategy to make the agricultural sector more sustainable. In particular, greater co-ordination of the forward planning mechanisms for agricultural areas would allow the environmental, economic and social elements of sustainable development to be more successfully integrated.

2.8 Food retailers and marketers see sustainability as a major selling point, and, in recognition of this, have instigated a number of assurance schemes. Such schemes must go further than mere compliance with existing codes and legislation, and, together with farm assurance schemes, provide a potentially valuable tool in the promotion of sustainable food production. The role of the proposed Food Standards Agency in commissioning food research and setting standards for food labelling and customer information will be crucial. Supporting a diverse variety of food suppliers, ranging from the global market operators to speciality and regional markets, will remain central to maintaining a sustainable, competitive but flexible food retailing sector.

2.9 The Round Table puts forward the following recommendations. Some refer only to the position in England, but the principles are applicable throughout the UK. We urge the Government, and in due course the devolved institutions in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland, to consider how they apply in their territories.

A Stakeholder Approach to Sustainable Development

2.10 The Round Table operates on the basis of seeking consensus between people with different viewpoints on issues of sustainable development. It believes that a similar approach could usefully be applied in many areas of business life. At the present time, some businesses already engage in one form or another of stakeholder dialogue, but there is much room for progress. In particular, there is a need for such dialogue to be extended to cover all three elements of sustainable development: environmental, social and economic.

2.11 There is no one blueprint for a process of dialogue which will best suit all situations and the report discusses a number of different approaches. A large business with significant social or environmental impacts will need to take a different approach from a small business whose impact is much more localised. But in all of these situations it is important that companies should reach out to stakeholders in an open and positive manner to explore opportunities as well as problems, to seek solutions and to reduce the potential for conflict. At the same time, all parties must appreciate that, in any of the approaches, final decisions will remain the responsibility of the company. Those who wish to make the most of stakeholder dialogue will need to consider how the process should be managed and which stakeholders should be involved. Companies will also wish to be aware of existing initiatives which can lead to better reporting and improved environmental performance.

2.12 Stakeholder dialogue is an ongoing process which will promote awareness of social and environmental issues which can lead to innovative and cost-effective solutions. Clarifying problems and working together to reach solutions will help create mutual trust and will also limit the effect of adverse media coverage. The report includes examples of good practice.

2.13 The Round Table has recently issued a leaflet based on this report in order that the main concepts of a stakeholder approach can reach as many businesses as possible. The Round Table will review, at an appropriate stage in the future, progress on the level of participation in stakeholder dialogue and the development of best practice

2.14 The Round Table's recommendations are as follows:

Sustainable Development - Devolved and Regional Dimensions

2.15 The establishment this year of a Scottish Parliament, Assemblies in Wales and Northern Ireland, and eight new regional development agencies in England, represents the most significant constitutional revision ever undertaken at one period since the formation of the United Kingdom. These measures offer unique opportunities for the inclusion of sustainable development as a fundamental principle in the devolved and regional governance of the UK.

2.16 The report highlights the different initiatives being taken forward in the different parts of the UK so that policy makers can draw on this diversity to learn from others and to gain confidence to innovate and develop effective policies. The report also raises a number of issues about the international environment in which the UK Government, including the various devolved governments, must act. Although the UK will ultimately have responsibility and authority in international agreements, there will need to be co-operation between Westminster and the devolved governments if the UK is to continue to take a progressive lead in these matters.

2.17 The preparation of strategies is key to providing leadership, vision and accountability in the transition to sustainable development. The report sets out important aspects of the process of preparing strategies, including consultation, indicators, targets, review and accountability. Strategies should address issues such as the integration of economic, environmental and social issues, and the potential dangers of competition for jobs between different areas. Sustainable development strategies will also need to reflect, and contribute to, the policies of the UK as a whole. The report also sets out the lessons learned from case studies of individual projects. These studies, discussed at a conference in Belfast, show the importance of an open process of decision making which focuses on meeting strategic objectives, and the dangers of high profile development projects dominating the agenda.

2.18 It will be vital to the continuing progress towards sustainable development that devolved governments and regional administrations go forward with the help of the many existing bodies which are doing so much work throughout the UK. It is also important that this spirit of consultation involves as many as possible, including at a local and community level.

2.19 The Round Table's recommendations are as follows:

Response to Government Consultation Paper - Opportunities for Change

2.20 The Round Table warmly welcomed the consultation paper, as a significant advance in furthering progress towards sustainable development in the UK. As the consultation paper acknowledges, the development of a meaningful strategy for sustainable development will centre not on this document, or even on the eventual strategy document itself, but on a wider and continuing process of participation and consultation. That process must build the trust necessary for integration of policy at every level; the Round Table is pleased to see itself as playing a part in that process of building trust.

2.21 The Round Table sees the strategy document as the starting point of a long-term and inclusive consensus-building process, seeking to hasten changes in both culture and attitude. One of the key aims of this process must be to make acknowledgement of sustainable development second nature in choices and decisions at all levels, much in the same way that equal opportunities and health and safety are now viewed as everyday considerations. The Round Table would be willing to help the Government to devise such a process.

2.22 Above all, what is required from the Government is leadership. Movement towards sustainable development may sometimes involve loss as well as gain, and public opinion will often be divided. Clearly, a democratic Government should not seek to go further or faster than can be supported by public consensus, but Ministers can point in the direction they believe to be right and seek to build the consensus which will allow action to be taken. The Round Table can help to identify and extend the areas of consensus.

2.23 The document's recognition of the importance of the social aspects of sustainable development accords with our view that sustainable development involves the integration of economic, environmental and social elements, with none of these considerations more or less important than the others. In giving equal recognition to the social aspects of sustainable development, the Government will provide an opportunity for the wider public to relate their everyday lives to this often complex area. One particular example of this is human health, where sustainable development has impacts with regard to key issues of transport, freshwater, energy and housing. It is vital that this message should be accepted and put into practice across the whole of Government.

2.24 The Round Table is keen to see that development of the revised strategy should apply to the UK as a whole. The issues of sustainable development do not recognise regional or national boundaries, and it is vital that a co-ordinated approach is achieved.

2.25 The Round Table is also keen to promote the wider European dimension to policy development in sustainable development. The UK Government strategy should give full recognition to this, including the implications of the Agenda 2000 process, and should be set firmly in the EU context.

2.26 The remainder of the response addresses the questions posed in the consultation paper, drawing heavily on recommendations and observations made by the Round Table in its previous reports, and identifies areas where our ongoing work will be of significance.

Monitoring and Reporting on Sustainable Development

2.27 Sustainable development will involve major change and although the direction of change is in many aspects clear, there is by no means agreement as to where such change will lead society. Monitoring and reporting, therefore, will play a key role in the transition to sustainable development by both informing and facilitating change. At the request of DETR, the Round Table convened a seminar to discuss and give advice to the Government on monitoring and reporting in the context of the Government's revised sustainable development strategy.

2.28 The seminar was designed to encourage participants to express their views and challenge the views of others in order to reach consensus. For this reason, plenary sessions were complemented by two sessions in which the seminar was divided into working groups. In the morning, all the working groups (in which participants were grouped according to their interest in environment, social, economic and public policy making issues) discussed the objectives of monitoring and reporting. In the afternoon, the working groups (which were a mixture of participants from different interests) discussed different questions designed to raise concrete suggestions as to how the various objectives could be met.

2.29 The report first sets out the objectives of reporting, which were discussed by the seminar in order to provide a clear strategic framework. This section includes commentary on reaching different audiences. Recommendations on the objectives of reporting are set out below. The report then raises the key points from the working groups on the following questions:

• How can monitoring and reporting contribute to learning about sustainable development (both among the public at large and among policy makers)?
• How can monitoring and reporting help hold Government and others appropriately to account for progress towards sustainable development?
• What should be the scope of reporting (eg. UK only or international)? Which players, other than Government, should be involved and how can these tie in?
• How might reporting reflect sustainable development as a whole - ie economic, environmental and social - and how these elements might be integrated?

2.30 The recommendations of the seminar were as follows:

2.31 The Round Table discussed the draft report at a plenary meeting in September 1998. As well as endorsing the recommendations emerging from the seminar itself, the Round Table added a recommendation of its own, arising from the seminar. This is that:

The Government should establish some ongoing mechanism, separate from the Round Table, to do detailed work on the scope and means of reporting. The body should be independent (though its members would be appointed by the Government), in order to establish and maintain the credibility of reporting. It should receive input from several departments, and from statutory agencies, either as members or as observers. It should be adequately resourced, and have access to detailed, objective data.

Headline Indicators

2.32 Following the seminar on monitoring and reporting (above), and in the light of the Round Table's earlier work on indicators, a response was made to the Government's consultation document on headline indicators Sustainability Counts. The response is reproduced at Annex D.

Chemicals in the Environment - Transparency and Public Involvement

2.33 The Government's consultation paper Sustainable Production and Use of Chemicals sought views on future strategy in relation to chemicals in the environment. It recognised the considerable public concern about the risks to health and the environment caused by the manufacture and use of chemicals, and as a consequence, the importance of greater transparency and easier public access to information. The Government invited the Round Table to comment on issues arising from the consultation and to provide advice on the mechanisms that might be used to improve transparency public involvement.

2.34 The Round Table's recommendations are as follows:

Indicators for the Domestic Energy Market

2.35 The report Indicators for the Domestic Energy Market, though approved in principle at a plenary meeting in December 1997, required a substantial amount of redrafting. It became delayed and is now out of date. A greatly truncated report was prepared, focused on the recommended indicators themselves, and has been submitted to the Government. It is as follows.

Introduction

2.36 In 1995 the Round Table undertook a study of the implications for sustainable development of the introduction of full competition between suppliers of electricity and gas to domestic customers, then due in 1998. In January 1996 it published a report The domestic energy market: 1998 and beyond. The conclusions of the report were as follows:

"Liberalisation of the domestic energy market in 1998 is only one small factor in long-term energy policy of this country. However, the changes will affect over 20 million customers and are likely to dominate any consideration of domestic energy issues for some years. The Round Table has therefore sought to assess the extent to which the changes are likely to be consistent with sustainable development and to provide opportunities for advancing sustainable development policies.

"Liberalisation is unlikely to have a significant effect on the consumption of energy resources. Increased competition should promote efficiency of production and supply. It should also generally provide benefits of reduced prices and higher standards of service for customers.

"However, unstructured, the market cannot meet all the economic, environmental and social objectives of a sustainable energy policy. The Government and the regulators will need to set the framework within which companies operate. They will have a continuing role to ensure that licence conditions and market rules are set to deliver the environmental and social as well as the economic objectives of energy policy in ways set out in this report. Since the future shape of the market is unknown, the Government and the regulators should set specific objectives against which success can be judged, monitor the outcome and be prepared to use economic instruments, subsidies, incentives and regulation to alter the system in the light of experience."

2.37 The subgroup which had prepared the report was re-established to take forward the last point and consider how to assess the impact of the liberalised domestic energy market from the perspective of sustainable development. The subgroup devised indicators which could be used to monitor the economic, environmental and social implications of the domestic energy market during the current process of liberalisation and beyond, over a period of five to ten years. This time frame was selected to ensure adequate time for corrections to be made if liberalisation were not achieving its objectives. In assessing possible indicators, the subgroup decided to concentrate on a small number which focused on the key implications for sustainable development of the liberalised market.

Recommended Indicators

2.38 The earlier Round Table report identified the following objectives (in a different order) for the liberalised domestic energy market, against which to judge its success or otherwise in contributing to sustainable development:

1. To maintain a competitive market for energy and energy products
2. To ensure that the needs of all consumers are met efficiently
3. To protect the needs and interests of all consumers, particularly vulnerable sections of the community
4. To minimise any risk to the health and safety of the population, through the supply and use of energy
5. To ensure the continued availability of long-term energy resources
6. To minimise the use of resources in the production of energy
7. To minimise emissions of greenhouse gases and pollutants during production and consumption, and to meet internationally agreed standards
8. To ensure that the energy sector does not impact adversely on priority species, habitats and sites, and to minimise the impact on landscape.

2.39 This report recommends indicators by which to assess the achievement of these objectives. They are in the table below. In selecting the indicators, consideration was given to the availability of data, whether the indicators could be used to show trends and the ease of setting relevant targets and 'alert zones'. (Targets and alert zones should be set, but following a wider consultative process.) In some cases no indicator appeared to be appropriate, mainly because domestic energy liberalisation seemed unlikely to have a significant impact on those objectives within the 5-10 year time frame chosen.

2.40 Some of the objectives set out in the earlier report could, inevitably, conflict. For example, the promotion of competition might lead to the relative detriment of vulnerable sections of the community if the cross-subsidies previously in place were not replaced by some form of benefit. It is therefore unlikely that all the recommended indicators can show positive trends without Government intervention.

2.41 Not all the recommended indicators are ideal, but they are the best that could be devised against the criteria. They are intended to be used together to give an overall impression, not in isolation. The indicators have been devised to inform Government, the gas and electricity regulator, the energy supply companies, non-governmental organisations and consumer groups; they are not targeted at improving public awareness, though they may have that effect. Information on data availability is included, but this may not be comprehensive.

Small and Medium-sized Enterprises

2.42 A subgroup is considering the contribution that small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) can make to sustainable development, with a particular focus on smaller firms. A report will be published later in the year. The subgroup's emerging conclusions are as follows:

• Widespread public education, and raising awareness of the issues surrounding the environment and sustainable development in general, are the most effective ways of encouraging small firms to take action to promote sustainable development.
• There would be merit in offering a tax incentive - funded out of the proposed tax on the business use of energy - for SMEs to reduce their use of energy and water.
• Simple guidance to regulation is essential if small firms are to get to grips with the environmental legislation with which they have to comply. This should come from a neutral source, such as the Environment Agency.
• Care must be taken with the implementation of public sector procurement policy, in the context of sustainable development, if it is not to disadvantage small firms. Practice in the private sector will also be assessed.
• A great many organisations are involved in encouraging SMEs to increase their contribution to sustainable development, in particular by reducing their impact on the environment. There is a need to co-ordinate this effort to avoid confusion and possible alienation of SMEs.

2.43 On the basis of discussion of the emerging conclusions at a plenary meeting in January 1999, the Round Table Chairman sent a paper to the Chancellor of the Exchequer, outlining options for the tax incentive referred to above.

Carbon Dioxide Emissions

2.44 At the plenary in January 1999, the Round Table received a report from the Rt Hon Michael Meacher, MP, Minister for the Environment, about the Conference of the Parties to the Convention on Climate Change held in Buenos Aires in November 1998. As a result of that, and of discussion at an earlier plenary meeting, the Round Table Chairman wrote to the Chancellor of the Exchequer urging the Government to make an early commitment in principle to action in the area of taxation, including for instance a tax on the industrial use of energy as recommended in Lord Marshall's report. With the letter, he sent the paper on a tax incentive for small and medium-sized enterprises to reduce their use of energy and water (paragraphs 2.42 & 2.43).