Looking back on nine years at the SDC (Jonathon Porritt)

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Looking back on nine years at the SDC

My final blog as chair of the Sustainable Development Commission – this being my final day!

It has been an extraordinary nine years. Back in June 2000, when Michael Meacher persuaded John Prescott to persuade Tony Blair that I would (despite all the obvious downsides!) be a suitable candidate for the SDC’s first Chair, we didn’t really have much to go on. There were various initiatives that had arisen out of the 1992 Earth Summit (a round table, a high-level advisory group reporting to the prime minister, a decent but largely ignored strategy and so on), but zero understanding across government that sustainable development was anything other than environmentalism by another name. Our budget was small (around £350K), our welcome was muted, expectations were low (‘just another government-sponsored talkshop’) – but our ambitions were large!

It’s all a bit different now. We have got a real job, reasonable resources, a good ‘inside track’ with much of Whitehall and with the governments of Scotland and Wales, a genuinely independent persona, the inevitable mish-mash of respect, irritation, disregard and enthusiasm for what we do, both within and beyond government, and a reasonable portfolio of serious interventions, publications, watchdog reports, policy breakthroughs and constructive engagement with departments that has helped make a real difference.

Though it may not always see this as a blessing, the UK government has earned a lot of credit internationally for setting up a body like the SDC, as well for formulating what is still a cracking good SD strategy (Securing the Future) in 2005. The ‘mainstreaming’ imperative that drives all our work (“to make sustainable development the central organising principle of everything Government does”) may not as yet have got as far as we would have liked, but it has got a lot further than many may once have thought possible.

Getting the balance right between our advisory and capacity-building work on the one hand, and our watchdog work on the other, remains something of an art form – and it has to be said there have been several ministers (and even more senior civil servants!) who have been pretty angst-ridden about that balancing act over the years.

But though it’s bound to be frustrating for any government to have a body like the SDC commenting on weaknesses as well as strengths (the media, of course, are only ever interested in the former!), I suspect the conclusion amongst most of them is broadly supportive. At least, I very much hope it is!

So full marks to the government (and to DEFRA in particular) for some serious process innovation here, and to that cohort of SD champions inside the system working away indefatigably to improve the performance of their organisations, often invisibly and usually unloved. They have been amazing.

But the real strength of the Commission lies in that combination of experienced, passionate and totally committed Commissioners, working closely with an extraordinarily professional and equally committed Secretariat. It has been an unbelievable privilege to be part of that – and, in true SD style, to leave things at least a little bit better on quitting the post than they were on arriving!

Posted by Jonathon Porritt on July 27, 2009 2:09 PM | Permalink

Comments (6)

Jonathon – your unique leadership qualities as Chair of the SDC have inspired the high quality performance of the team and its work for nearly a decade.

I note your description of meeting much of the challenge as being ‘something of an art form.’ As you know, in my modest experience as a sustainability practitioner, delivering sustainability is inevitably – since we are dealing with irrational human beings! – both a science and an art and we forget this at our peril!

Many congratulations on the achievements made during your watch at The SDC.

Posted by Leslie Watson | July 28, 2009 9:50 AM

Hi Jonathan

I heard you had a great party too!

I'm struck by what you say about the strategy which was in place when the SDC was set up - "decent but largely ignored". The more recent one is "still a cracking good SD strategy ...The ‘mainstreaming’ imperative that drives all our work ... may not as yet have got as far as we would have liked, but it has got a lot further than many may once have thought possible."

Working with admittedly smaller and less complex beasts than an entire Government, my experience is that a strategy can't be described as good unless it is mainstream - that is, if people don't support it, then however good its analysis and solutions, it won't be implemented.

What's your insight into what's made the mainstreaming of the SD strategy work better this time around?

Cheers

Penny

Posted by Penny Walker | July 29, 2009 12:50 PM

I think differentiation is required between turbines that produce very little power (2 households), are put up for personal gain, giving wind a bad name, and effective big schemes that will produce real power.
My son is not being nimby when one of these has caused a £60000 drop in the value of his mortgaged property - why should he disastrously lose this amount of money for his neighbour's (subsidised by us) profit and minimal gain to the environment.
The carbon footprint of these is gross for their output, steel, concrete and especially carbon fibre.
Stop the small ones, and resistance to the big ones will diminish.
I think it is just a government ploy to be able to say that x number of turbines have been erected (partly paid for by owners), regardless of the fact they are in the main useless rich man's toys. But it looks good.
Please be aware of this and the injustice that is happening in the name of profit.

Posted by Anne Menneer | August 21, 2009 9:29 PM

Dear Sir Jonathon,

Earlier today I listened to Any Questions on Radio 4, on which programme you were a panel member. I have to congratulate you on your robustness in the debate on anthropogenic climate change and windpower that you had with the mendacious and ill-informed James Dellingpole.

However, I have to take issue with you in your support for the Severn Barrage - in the form in which I think you and others envisage it. Harnessing the tidal range of the Severn estuary is essential. However, as custodians of this planet, we have a distinctly patchy record when it comes to the messes we make when trying to clear up our earlier mistake.

Geo-engineering and other large scale projects are the big clunking fist response to climate change. They tend to ignore important details, nuances and minority interests. In general, the capacity of our lords and masters to see only big solutions to big problems - and thereby create an even bigger mess - is quite alarming. By all means harness tidal power in the Severn Estuary but do it in a manner that has the least negative impact for the most environmental gain.

If we do not stop this ill-conceived barrage - and replace it with a more sensitive means of capturing the tidal range which I believe could generate even more power - we will have an environmental disaster on our hands. It will be our own Soviet-style Aral Sea.

Best regards,

Jonny Holt.

Posted by Jonny Holt | August 22, 2009 6:36 PM

I think we all need to understand something very important. It is called money, and its use, and indeed abuse can lead to all sorts of problems with limited resources. If businesses, and indeed massive corporations were given huge financial incentives (electronically monitored)to go green (especially in areas where there is no commercial viability) things would change. This could be done COMPREHENSIVELY on a scale presently unimaginable, and "impossible" with the present financial system.

What I am referring to in the above is Transfinancial Economics which I believe holds the key to the future.I am becoming increasingly convinced that we have to work with the "big boys" in such a way as to achieve global transformation otherwise we are heading down the road to disaster.

TFE can be presented as something pro-capitalist, pro-corporation, and pro-green. More importantly when the subject is understood the rich, and super-rich would be INCENTIVISED to lobby democratic governments to introduce TFE. Otherwise the present economic ideology, and the present day politicians are going to do little in order to seriously deal with environmental, and resource issues.

Small grassroots movements to achieve economic/financial reform are probably not going to go far....and moreover time may not be on our side if global warming is true which I suspect it probably is...

A new understanding of capital is the key, and it can work for the rich, and indeed, the poor because there would always be the finance to help them as far as TFE is concerned. This would not always come from governments but also from reformed banks whose computers could also be electronically monitored to prevent fraud by an independent body.

My p2pfoundation entry on Transfinancial Economics explains more.

Posted by Robert Searle | August 28, 2009 10:40 AM

There is still too much fragmentation, with different groups concentrating on single issues without taking the whole picture. Reducing carbon emissions without healing the land to absorb more of the atmospheric carbon, reducing population without increasing education.
My main work over the years has been in managing ecosystems back to health, restoring plant cover resulting in water cycles recovering, wildlife at all levels thriving, and sustainable farming even in brittle, desert environments being achieved, both on a commercial and peasant level od production. A management system too often overlooked, developed by the biologist Alan Savory needs greater recognition due to the high level of sucess; http://www.holisticmanagement.org/

Posted by Andy Hope | December 20, 2009 5:34 PM

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