A Great Step Further but Still More to Go - The U.K. Sustainable Development Commission Report: Shows Promise. But Must Try Harder

摘要

All in all, the report rightfully claims that the United Kingdom has made considerable progress toward sustainability. Having said that, SDC is just as right to point out the discrepancy between need and deed, and it is also justified in its criticism that the government has downplayed the immense (and partly still growing) size of future sustainability challenges, has lacked ambition and coherence, and is missing a set of teeth that would give sustainability plans a cutting edge in key policy areas. In its call for a more ambitious, vigorously implemented sustainability strategy—particularly regarding the prominence given to rethinking the central role of traditionally defined economic development for government politics—it touches upon one of the key obstacles for sustainable development. However, although SDC addresses the issue of resource productivity, it falls short of suggesting similarly comprehensive policies for satisfactory employment and income distribution. Similarly, where it has addressed sustainable consumption, it refers only to a part of the environmentally dominant consumption patterns. SDC's appraisal represents a major step forward, stressing the need to engage the whole of U.K. society. This is especial-ly true of its policy recommendations. The commission rightfully urges to overcome the strategy of small, undemanding, incremental steps, which it recognizes as the strategic basis of the government's sustainability policy. Nonetheless, even SDC's suggestions do not comprehensively cover the essentials of sustainable development with detail and rigor, and some crucial sustainability demands are hardly touched upon at all. We must try still harder.