A Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland

January 5, 2012

In one of the most significant policy initiatives that will be undertaken by the Government, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government has just published a draft Framework for Sustainable Development in Ireland. The draft is now open for consultation with submissions being sought for return to the Department by close of business on Wednesday 29 February 2012.

The Framework, the Minister has acknowledged, will form a central element of Ireland’s contribution to the UN Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20) which takes place in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil in June 2012. It was at the first Rio conference that the concept of sustainable development was advanced and adopted generally across the globe. Twenty years on much remains to be addressed at global level and, in fairness to the draft framework, there is the recognition that there remains some distance for Ireland to travel to move towards a more sustainable future. Critically, the draft Framework recognises that the past decade has brought good progress in addressing sustainable development objectives through the policy and legislative commitments of successive Irish Governments. More importantly, the draft casts a cold eye on many of the less savoury aspects of Ireland’s development in the past twenty years and notes the very real relationship between a vibrant economy and the natural environment. This, it could be argued, was something not generally appreciated in many of the decisions taken in the country over the course of the so called “Celtic Tiger”.

The draft Framework thus provides a solid grounding on many of the challenges confronting all aspects of the Irish position on sustainable development. There is a realistic interpretation of many of the policy challenges which will arise from the move towards a sustainable policy platform on which the re-orientation of both society and economy has to take place. Equally, there are substantial targets set out which, importantly reflect the current economic conditions and the fiscal and monetary policy arena in which much of the actions will take place. Importantly, the draft is grounded on a set of principles which reflect the thinking of Comhar SDC, son to be fully integrated with NESC.

The draft Framework clearly addresses the need to integrate policy across sectors and to ensure a more than adequate linkage into the international policy arena. This will be a welcome change from the relatively disjointed approach of the past decade where at times it was difficult to see any tie in between environmental policy and political priority.

In this context the draft Framework, as the Minister’s Statement acknowledges ” broadly follows the thematic approach of the EU Sustainable Development Strategy and includes:
• Sustainability of public finances and economic resilience
• Sustainable consumption and production
• Conservation and management of natural resources
• Climate change and clean energy
• Sustainable agriculture
• Sustainable transport
• Social inclusion, sustainable communities and spatial planning
• Public health
• Education, communication and behaviour change
• Innovation, research and development
• Skills and training
• Global poverty and sustainable development”

There is clarity in acknowledging the significance of vertical integration across the levels of government policy. However, more consideration clearly needs to be given to the need for diagonal integration, something which is essential when it comes to the design of sustainable public service delivery at the coalface. Here the on-going challenge of having policy implementation which has multi-sectoral impact needs further examination and clearly needs to be placed within the overall move towards a more integrated public service as envisaged by the Programme for Government and the Public Service Reform Programme.

The role of local government and local development in developing sustainable communities is highlighted, as is the particular role of the County and City Development Boards to ensuring greater coordination at local level. This will be a welcome re-iteration of the significant role which the Boards could play if, like their Scottish counterparts, they could actually enforce such coordination by way of local area agreements and other options for ensuring that public bodies generally operate to a shared sustainable development agenda at local level, as originally envisaged in Local Agenda 21 and the Reports of the Task Force for the Integration of Local Government and Local Development.

The draft Framework will also be welcome in the context of social inclusion, marking an important move forward in thinking. Original experience internationally failed to fully grasp the relevance of inclusion and sustainability, a lesson that clearly influenced thinking with the adoption of the Millennium Goals and something now fully acknowledged in the draft Framework. Giving effect to this thinking however will only be fully realised with the embedding, into general policy development of inclusion and the need for active participation across all communities in Ireland.

Of course, sustainable development is a positive policy advance and Ireland, despite the current economic challenges is particularly well placed. In a resource rich country with huge latent energy potential, a genuinely well-positioned agricultural sector producing high quality products, and a growing SMART and Green Economy there is considerable cause for optimism. But only if there is a real effort to implement the thinking set out so succinctly in the draft. This thinking, underpinned by a more integrated public sector and supporting a dynamic private sector, is the way forward for small open economies like Ireland. The draft Framework, if greater focus was to be included on the management of the diagonal dynamics and on multi-sectoral perspectives which underpin sustainable development, applied fully, will go some way to re-positioning the economy and society generally in the on-going battle to become a sustainable country.