Building a Better Scotland
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
In April 2002, we reaffirmed our commitment to sustainable development - development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs - in Meeting the Needs... Priorities, Actions and Targets for Sustainable Development in Scotland. This set out the vision and principles to be applied across the Executive and our main priority areas for action: resource use, energy and travel. It also identified twenty-four indicators to help us monitor our progress, on which we report annually (most recently in February 2004 1).
Following the last Spending Review, Building a Sustainable Scotland explained how sustainable development was to be delivered across the Executive. This chapter provides an updated summary of our plans following the 2004 Spending Review, in which sustainable development was a cross cutting theme alongside Growing the Economy and Closing the Opportunity Gap, which are covered in other parts of this document.
Embedding sustainable development principles
As part of the Spending Review, we looked at portfolios' performance in delivering sustainable development and their plans for taking it forward in their work over the next three years. A staff seminar involving external members of the Cabinet Sub-Committee for Sustainable Scotland explored the implications of sustainable development across the Executive's work in general and, in more detail, for the significant spending areas of transport, housing and education.
Building on that work, the Minister for Environment and Rural Development will lead a programme of meetings with his Cabinet colleagues this autumn to ensure sustainable development principles are effectively driven forward through each portfolio's operational planning and delivery. In parallel, we will continue work to raise staff awareness of sustainable development and develop their capacity to put it into practice.
New requirements on public bodies, including the Executive and its agencies, to take account of sustainable development in their work will help to drive a more consistent approach across the public sector in Scotland. In particular:
- the duty of best value requires public sector bodies to have regard to the need to contribute to sustainable development in carrying out their work;
- strategic environmental assessments, to ensure that the environmental dimension of sustainable development is more consistently taken into account, will in due course be required for all new strategies, programmes and plans developed by the public sector; and
- additional obligations will be introduced from January 2005 on public bodies and some privatised utilities to increase the public availability of environmental information, in line with the Aarhus Convention.
Specific policy initiatives and approaches
Within this Spending Review, we are targeting resources on the Meeting the Needs... priorities of resource use, energy and travel.
Resource use
Environment and Rural Development portfolio target: to increase the proportion of waste collected by local authorities which is recycled or composted to 30% by 2008. In 2002-03, local authorities recycled 9.6% of municipal waste, up from 7.4% in 2001-02.
We continue to generate large amounts of waste, the bulk of which end up in landfill sites, wasting resources and blighting nearby communities.
The Environment and Rural Development and Enterprise and Lifelong Learning portfolios will continue to work with local authorities and businesses to prevent waste arising, to encourage increased recycling and to encourage business to be more resource efficient, which reduces environmental impacts and business costs.
- The Executive will spend an additional 8/15/23m raised from Landfill Tax increases over the Spending Review period on initiatives to help business and local authorities deal with waste and, in close consultation with business interests, to improve business resource efficiency.
- Part of this will be spent on the Strategic Waste Fund for local authorities.
- We shall continue to invest in supporting the community recycling sector.
Energy
Enterprise and Lifelong Learning portfolio targets: to work towards our target for 40% of electricity generated in Scotland to be from renewable sources by 2020 (rising from 18% by 2010) and to improve business and public sector energy efficiency. In 2002, renewable sources provided 10.3% of electricity generated in Scotland.
We shall continue our work to improve energy efficiency and combat the excessive use of fossil fuels, which depletes scarce resources and is a powerful driver of harmful climate change, by supporting a range of initiatives aimed at improving the energy efficiency of the business, public and domestic sectors and promoting the take up of low carbon and carbon free technologies. For example:
- Our Public Sector Energy Efficiency Initiative will provide 20m funding over the next two years to local authorities, Scottish Water and health boards to improve energy efficiency. Our aim is to realise carbon savings of some 100,000 tonnes a year after five years.
- Renewable energy will be promoted and supported by continuing suppliers' obligation to supply electricity from renewable sources, and through the European Marine Energy Test Centre in Orkney, and the Scottish Community and Household Renewables Initiative, which provides a one-stop service for individuals and communities seeking to develop renewable energy projects.
- The Communities portfolio is working to improve the quality of Scotland's housing, including through higher energy efficiency standards for new buildings and programmes to upgrade existing buildings and tackle fuel poverty.
Travel
Transport portfolio targets: to direct 70% of our transport spending to public transport over the period of our ten year investment plan and to transfer a further 2m lorry miles per year from road to rail or water between 1 April 2005 and 31 March 2008. In 1998-99, 23% of transport spending was on public transport, compared with 67% budgeted for 2004-05. Freight grant support has so far been given to projects which will remove over 25m lorry miles per year from Scotland's roads once fully operational.
Travel is a major source of congestion and pressure on energy and other resources. The continuing rise of car use in particular presents a major challenge: the estimated total volume of traffic on Scotland's roads in 2003 was about 1% more than in 2002 (about 42bn vehicle kilometres).
At the same time, reliable and efficient transport which meets the needs of individuals and businesses is central to a thriving economy and strong communities. Meeting these needs while protecting the environment needs more sustainable ways of travelling - cycling, walking and public transport.
We are continuing in this Spending Review to devote considerable additional resources to investment in public transport and other forms of efficient and sustainable transport which minimise emissions and consumption of resources and energy. Over the period of the long-term investment plan, we are radically refocusing our transport expenditure, with the funding devoted to public transport rising by over 50% from 627m in 2004-05 to 973m by 2007-08.
To ensure these very considerable sums are spent in ways which maximise their contribution to sustainable development, all transport spending proposals are rigorously assessed for their impacts on the economy, accessibility and social inclusion, environment, safety and integration, in line with Scottish Transport Appraisal Guidance.
Other policy initiatives and approaches contributing towards sustainable development
Sustainable development is not confined to the three Meeting the Needs... priorities, and its principles are being applied widely across the Executive. For example:
The April 2004 National Planning Framework for Scotland recognises the importance of sustainable development as one of the key issues and drivers for the change which the planning system needs to deliver in responding effectively to the economic and social challenges of the next 25 years. The Communities portfolio will continue its wide ranging programme of work to modernise the planning system. We will publish a consolidated package of proposals in advance of a new Planning Bill, which we expect to introduce during the present session of Parliament.
The refreshed September 2004 Framework for Economic Development in Scotland recognises the need to pursue our economic objectives consistently with sustainable development. This will be reflected in the refreshed version of Smart Successful Scotland, which sets the strategic context for the Enterprise Networks.
We are consulting on a new Green Jobs Strategy aimed at making the most of new and potentially lucrative opportunities in the developing environmental sectors, such as waste management, recyclates and renewables, and encouraging businesses across the economy to adopt working practices and technologies which use resources better and cut waste.
Regional Selective Assistance grants of 2m or more are now subject to a requirement for companies to engage constructively with the SEEO on the environmental, waste and resource issues raised by their projects, and applicants for grants of more than 250,000 are offered free energy audits.
We shall continue work to improve health for all and tackle health inequalities, in line with the programme set out in Improving Health in Scotland - the Challenge. We will integrate action on the determinants of health inequalities with wider Closing the Opportunity Gap work to tackle poverty and promote educational attainment and employability, and we will promote healthier lifestyles, including actions to encourage more walking and greater use of local food in school meals.
Next year sees the start of the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable Development and Scotland hosting the third World Youth Congress on the theme of A Caring Society in a Sustainable World. Reflecting the important contribution which education for sustainable development can make by raising awareness, understanding and engagement among the decision makers of the future:
- the Executive is working with relevant organisations about education for sustainable development and this will be progressed as part of the current review of the curriculum.
- over 1,350 Scottish schools are participating in the Eco schools programme, which gives young people an opportunity to learn about sustainable development, put it into practice and share their ideas and experiences with young people around the world; and
- SHEFC, the Scottish Higher Education Funding Council, is working with Higher Education Institutions on a range of initiatives such as SUNS, the Scottish Universities Network for Sustainability, to progress sustainable development throughout the higher education sector.
More generally, the Education and Enterprise and Lifelong Learning portfolios' work to ensure that people have the education and training they need to reach their potential contributes towards the economic and social aspects of sustainable development.
Greening Government
Reducing our consumption of energy and resources contributes towards improving our environmental impact and our value for money, in line with the aims of the Efficient Government initiative.
Our Greening Government policy sets out objectives and targets for improving the environmental performance of the Executive's own operations, for example by improving the energy efficiency of our estate and vehicles, reducing the waste we generate and factoring environmental considerations into our procurement of goods and services. We report annually on our progress against these 2. Thirteen of our larger buildings, which account for 90% of our environmental impacts and staff, are now covered by environmental management systems. The system for Victoria Quay continues to be successfully operated and maintained in accordance with ISO 14001, the relevant internationally recognised standard. We are also working to apply the principles of greening government across the public sector as a whole, including in schools, the NHS, local government, prisons, courts and the police. We are doing this through a range of initiatives aimed at increasing recycling and reducing waste and energy consumption. We will use investment programmes to renovate existing buildings and ensure that sustainability is built into new ones from the outset. Many other agencies and public bodies have their own environmental management policies and systems but some still do not. We are following up and extending the early work done on environmental audit by tourism and culture bodies following the last Spending Review. This will be applied to all the Executive's agencies and sponsored executive public bodies, with the aim that all should have environmental management policies and systems in place to implement them by the end of 2005. |
1www.scotland.gov.uk/library5/environment/isds04-00.asp
2www.scotland.gov.uk/environmentalmanagement