Defra secretary Caroline Spelman today opened a consultation on markers which would facilitate measuring moves towards sustainability in the UK. The Environment Secretary said the Sustainable Development Indicators would help plot a path towards long-term economic growth and social wellbeing.

Defra’s consultation on the new Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs), which it claims will provide an overview of the UK’s progress towards a more sustainable economy, society, and environment, come as part of a worldwide drive to move beyond GDP as a means of measuring development and adopt a more holistic approach.

The department has promised the indicators will make it easier for the public to monitor whether the UK is developing in a sustainable way and prompt government to act where more work needs to be done. Updates will be published annually with a scorecard showing whether progress is occurring “in the right direction.”

Defra said the new set of measures will, for the first time, measure "capital," meaning indicators will show how much of a service, resource or area is left, instead of how much has been used. This is expected to drive moves towards greater sustainability through measuring areas such as fish stocks.

Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman said today on unveiling the SDI consultation, “We want to help our economy, our communities and the environment to grow and flourish in a sustainable way for the benefit of future generations. At Rio+20 we successfully argued for the need for countries to look beyond their economic performance as a measure of progress. These indicators along with the measures of wellbeing underline our own commitment to going beyond GDP to measure the health and wealth of the UK.”

However, the government may have a long way to go if it wishes to meet sustainability goals. In the past, controversial decisions including the recently resolved forests sell-off and the government’s export drive, which will see Defra supporting the producers of meat, dairy and luxury items including alcohol and chocolate for export to developing economies, have been heavily criticised by environmentalists and even government watchdogs. Watchdogs including the Environmental Audit Committee have called for moves to be made towards promoting sustainable and responsible diets, through a more cohesive policy approach.

Therefore, the Environment Secretary’s assertions that “We have put sustainability at the heart of everything that the Government does, and these new indicators will help us take stock of our progress and give the public the means to chart our success,” have been greeted with a degree of scepticism.

Reactions to new indicators

WWF questioned the weighting of the new markers. The environmental organisation suggested that the revised SDIs undervalue environmental health to people’s wellbeing; of the 41 measures of wellbeing, only 5 are environmental. WWF said this potentially downplays the importance of maintaining healthy environments for the future.

The organisation’s policy development office, Luke Wreford, commented, “It’s great that the government is adopting broader measures of progress beyond GDP – this was one of the few useful things that governments around the world committed to at Rio. However, we’ve now got two overlapping frameworks, when really wellbeing should be seen as an integral element of sustainable development.”

As with the resolutions agreed upon at the Rio+20 Summit last year, the lack of goals and targets in the government’s approach has also raised concerns. Wreford added, “This is the real test – especially when the Treasury is currently derailing the green policies that would get us on track for a sustainable future.”

Breakdown of SDIs

The SDIs consist of 12 principal indicators, supplemented by 25 secondary indicators. The 12 headline indicators are economic prosperity, long term unemployment, poverty, knowledge and skills, healthy life expectancy, social capital, social mobility in adulthood, housing provision, greenhouse gas emissions, natural resource use, wildlife and biodiversity, and water availability.

The revised Sustainable Development Indicators will be used alongside the national wellbeing measures developed by the Office for National Statistics, Previous SDIs have been widely used outside of Government by academics, NGOs and businesses.

The consultation on the new Sustainable Development Indicators can be found on the Defra website here

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