Transcript Peter Davies presentation

Mind the Gap – Top Down /
Bottom up
Peter Davies
Sustainable Futures Commissioner for Wales
Chair of the Climate Change Commission for
Wales
The Sustainable Futures
Commissioner
• establishing the practical actions that Welsh Assembly need
to take to deliver its legal duty to promote sustainable
development
• building consensus on the action that is needed across all
sectors and communities in Wales
• reporting back to the Assembly Government on the blockages
and recommending solutions for the delivery of policies and
programmes to make Wales more sustainable.
• providing advice on the long term arrangements for the
provision of independent advice on sustainable development
•
Hosted by Cynnal Cymru
The Sustainable Futures
Commissioner
•
Build up, share and use expertise and evidence in support of sustainable
development, in particular through drawing on best practice and lessons learnt
from other parts of the Uk and internationally
•
Liaise with UK Government, Scottish Government and Northern Ireland Executive
concerning ways in which sustainable development is being promoted in other
parts of the UK
•
Provide commentary and feedback to the Assembly Government on the progress
being made to a more sustainable Wales, including on the blockages and
impediments to action and solutions to these
•
Provide independent commentary within the Assembly Government’s statutory
Sustainable Development Annual Report
Climate Change Commission for Wales
Build consensus across
sectors
Mobilise action across
sectors
It is widely acknowledged, six years on, that
Wales has established the strongest claim to
leadership on Sustainable Development
within the UK”
The Greenest Government Ever”: One Year
On - A Report to Friends of the Earth
Jonathan Porritt May 2011
Mind the Gap
Rhetoric and Reality
Mind the Gap
Learning from past experience
• Raft of consultations – responses from usual suspects
• Policy decisions –a lag at worst a gap to implementation
• Lack of focus on engagement – the golden thread – cannot be left
to chance or others
• Top down – parachuting in of programmes and plans with
programmes reaching the ground as discrete projects disconnected
• Challenge of short term funding programmes
• Lack of bottom up long term capacity building – Need for trusted
intermediaries
• Lack of engagement with the private sector
• Importance of the gateway issues – eg local environmental quality
• Connect major initiatives eg single use carrier bags ; technology
- broadband, smart metering
How do we want the rest of the world to
see us?
“Wales has the advantage of
being one of the most
picturesque places in Europe
and it is bang on people’s
doorstep. If it could be viewed
as the New Zealand of Europe
[with] a clean, green and safe
image… it would have a huge
impact on its future”
Learning from New Zealand?
“Sustainability is very important to Kiwis, but it’s sustainability in its broadest
possible sense. It includes its communities, language, culture and produce as
well as its environment.
So, can the sustainability agenda in Wales also take this approach, with a focus
around its communities, language, culture and produce? In other words, get to
the heart of the people, the way they live, feel and think?
People:
• For a sustainable Wales to develop, the people
of Wales have to be at the heart of the agenda
• But how do we make it something that the
Welsh people feel passionate and proud of,
and how do engage their spirit and the spirit
of Wales in the agenda?
• How do we develop a truly Welsh agenda?
Follow up
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