WHAT ON
EARTH FRIENDS OF THE EARTH SCOTLAND’S MEMBERS’ MAGAZINE
Issue 86 I Spring 2022
£
We need local change for climate action
Photo: istockphoto.com
WHAT ON
H T R A E T L A N D’S RT H S C O F T H E E A GA Z IN E O S D N F R IE S’ MA MEMBER 22
Spring 20 Issue 86 I
Friends of the Earth Scotland is: > Scotland’s leading environmental campaigning organisation > An independent Scottish charity with a network of thousands of supporters and active local groups across Scotland > Part of the largest grassroots environmental network in the world, uniting over 2 million supporters, 73 national member groups and 5,000 local activist groups
Our vision is of a world where everyone can enjoy a healthy environment and a fair share of the earth’s resources. Friends of the Earth Scotland is an independent Scottish charity SC003442 What on Earth is published by and copyright to: Friends of the Earth Scotland 5 Rose Street, Edinburgh EH2 2PR
C O N T E N TS AGM 2022
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Saying Goodbye
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Council Elections
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Climate impact of waste
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Making transport work
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T: 0131 243 2700 E: info@foe.scot W: www.foe.scot Editor: Eilidh Stanners Design: Emma Quinn The views expressed in What on Earth are not necessarily those of Friends of the Earth Scotland. FoES accepts no liability for errors, omissions or incorrect data in advertisements. If you would prefer to receive a digital version of What on Earth please contact us: info@foe.scot Printed on 100% FSC Silk
Get social with us: /foescotland /foescot /foescot
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Director’s View Dr Richard Dixon, Director @Richard_Dixon By the time you have read this, I will have left Friends of the Earth Scotland. The last nine years as Director was my second stint at Friends of the Earth, having been senior campaigner for eight years from 1994, with a decade away at WWF Scotland in between. When I arrived as director in 2013 there were six of us; at the height of COP26 activity last year there were 28, including people we host for Stop Climate Chaos Scotland, the COP26 Coalition and Friends of the Earth International. It has been an exciting time, with the second Climate Act, Low Emission Zones coming in four cities, the big fight to win the ban on fracking, the end of the Cambo oil proposals, the massive undertaking that was COP26 and the concept of just transition becoming an actual thing that people talk about. You can read about some of this progress elsewhere in these pages. None of this would have been possible without you, the members of Friends of the Earth Scotland, who provide our most important funding and our political clout, as well as actively supporting our campaigns in many different ways. We have a brilliant team of staff, from the high profile campaigners you see in the media, to the creative communicators, the office team who keep everything running smoothly and the people who help activists across Scotland win their campaigns. It has been an honour to lead Friends of the Earth Scotland, and I feel confident it is in fine fettle and good financial health, ready to achieve even more in the coming years.
It has been an honour to lead Friends of the Earth Scotland Recruitment for a new Director is underway and Alice, Kerrigan and Mary, as members of the senior management team, will be Interim Co-Directors until the post is filled.
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All Friends of the Earth Scotland members are warmly invited to our Annual General Meeting on Saturday 11 June 2022 Friends of the Earth Scotland is a democratic, grassroots organisation and the AGM is an opportunity for members to influence our direction as well as elect members of our Board. This event gives you a chance to meet the team, to learn about our campaigns and strengthen your connections with other members. The event will be taking place online so please register and we will send you a Zoom link to join. For more information and to sign up, visit www.foe.scot/agm2022 Remember that as a member you can put up a motion for debate or even stand for the board – information on how to do this can be found through the above link.
The Friends of the Earth Scotland Team is looking forward to seeing you! SCAN ME
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A decade of progress, but not enough By Dr Richard Dixon, Director As campaigners, we are always after more. As soon as we win something, we want the next thing, and, in the face of an existential threat as big as climate change, no response from government is ever really going to seem good enough. But in the years I’ve been Director at Friends of the Earth Scotland, I have seen change – and it’s worth pausing to remember that the last decade or so has seen some remarkable progress. Who can forget the children’s climate strikes and the 25,000 people marching through Edinburgh in September 2019 to rally outside Parliament, resulting in a big, last minute tightening of the targets in the new Climate Act? Or the 150,000 people from across the world who marched through a storm in Glasgow during the climate conference, as part of the biggest climate march the UK has ever seen?
Real progress includes the equivalent of 98.6% of the electricity we use generated by renewables in Scotland in 2020 because of the remarkable growth of green energy. We saw 60,000 people say no to fracking as we worked with nearly 40 protest groups across the country, leading to Parliament voting to ban fracking, then an official moratorium on fracking and eventually a policy ban, despite a legal challenge from INEOS. It was an amazing moment to be part of the human chain of protestors which spanned the whole length of the Forth Road Bridge.
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While we always work with others, Friends of the Earth has played a key role in all these successes.
On air pollution, a Low Emission Zone is up and running in Glasgow and three more cities will have them soon. More broadly on transport, a commitment to phase out sales of petrol and diesel cars and vans was made, and then strengthened by advancing the deadline to 2030. This was joined by impressive and challenging commitments to reduce car travel by 20% by the same date, and to replace half the buses in Scotland with ones that run on electricity or hydrogen by 2023. Friends of the Earth walked out of an official steering group on air pollution because it was talking a lot but doing nothing. Two years later, we helped write the new air pollution strategy and now sit on a Ministerial Group overseeing its delivery. COVID-19 delayed plans for a Circular Economy Bill, but we should see it this year, and in the meantime a Deposit Return Scheme for drinks bottles and cans is being created. In local politics, we have been working away for years to try to shift the over £1bn of council pension money that is in fossil fuels, and both the Lothian and Strathclyde funds are being pushed ever closer to that commitment.
On the transition out of fossil fuels we have a very long way to go, but the political parties now talk the language of just transition, with MSPs agreeing to duties on it in law and the government’s Just Transition Commission entering a second phase of work, which could start to make a real difference. Our strong challenge to the oil and gas industry has led to the withdrawal of the disastrous Cambo proposal, but the fight for the future of energy is only just beginning. While we always work with others, Friends of the Earth has played a key role in all these successes, and it is a track record to both be proud of and to build from.
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Making local change for real climate impact By Malachy Clarke, Public Affairs Manager In May, Scotland will once again go to the polls – this time to elect our local councillors. Despite not holding all the powers needed to tackle the climate crisis, local authorities can play a crucial role and so these elections are going to be significant. The councillors elected will be in their position for five of the remaining eight years of this vital decade for urgent and transformative action needed to avert climate breakdown. Since the last local authority elections in 2017, we have seen the effects of climate change already ravaging the world.
We have also seen the world come together in Glasgow to attempt to deal with this emergency. Unfortunately the outcomes of COP26 were nowhere near enough to address the reality of the crisis, but that can’t stop change from happening. Many of the actions needed to respond to the climate emergency are in the hands of national and local governments. Friends of the Earth Scotland does not endorse any political party. It is incumbent on all of us, and all politicians, to do everything in our power to address this urgent and drastic crisis, so we want to see all parties improve their positions across a range of environmental issues.
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Photo: istockphoto.com
Our manifesto for the local elections spells out some of the things local authorities can do to tackle the climate emergency. Whether it's through how we travel in our communities, the way our waste is managed, how we heat our homes, planning and energy policy, or supporting a wellbeing economy, there are significant opportunities for local authorities to demonstrate the ambition and urgency necessary. Those elected will have the ability to influence our planning system, ensuring we have low carbon, affordable and warm homes. They will be able to provide an integrated public transport system; one that brings buses back into public ownership and provides a network of segregated cycle lanes, allowing people to lead safe, active lives that boosts their own health and that of the planet. They will be able to oppose new incinerators and work to decommission those that already exist, removing this polluting practice that encourages waste and damages our health.
Come May, a new raft of Scottish councillors who have signed up to the Divest UK pledge should get to work divesting the hundreds of millions of pounds that local authority pension funds currently have wrapped up in oil and gas companies. By withdrawing this money, we can ensure that our representatives are not funding the climate crisis and are taking necessary steps towards a fossil free future. Our manifesto for the local elections spells out the steps local authorities can take to tackle the climate emergency. We'll also organise election hustings to hear from candidates about what their parties will be promising. We urge you to talk to prospective councillors about what they will do to deliver on our climate goals and, of course, to think of the future of our planet when casting your vote.
Read the manifesto at foe.scot/election2022
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Photo: istockphoto.com
How can councils tackle the carbon impact of waste?
Kim Pratt, Circular Economy Campaigner Scotland, like many countries, measures its progress on waste with weight-based targets. This means all of Scotland’s waste is weighed and these measurements are used to calculate our recycling and landfill rates. However, there is a problem with this approach – the easiest way for a council or business to increase its recycling rate is to concentrate on the heaviest materials, like bricks, concrete and soil. Lighter materials, such as textiles and plastics, can be overlooked even though they are more significant in environmental terms (see graph). If we want our waste systems to be more sustainable, a carbon-based target would be a better approach.
Carbon impact of different types of waste Textiles Non-ferrous metals (e.g. aluminium) Batteries Food waste Plastic Ferrous metals (e.g. steel) Glass Paper and card Construction material Soils
0
5,000
10,000
15,000
20,000
Carbon impact of waste generation (kgCO2e per t) (Kilograms of carbon emissions per ton = kgCO2e per t) From ZWS (2020)
25,000
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Food waste, textiles and plastics hold 74% of the carbon impact of Scottish household waste. Where Scotland differs to other countries is that it has already pioneered a carbon-based measurement for waste which does exactly this. Since 2011, Zero Waste Scotland has calculated the carbon impact of Scotland’s waste using the Carbon Metric. This tool measures the whole-life carbon impacts of waste, from resource extraction and manufacturing emissions, right through to waste management emissions, regardless of where in the world these impacts occur. It is important to consider emissions across the whole life of materials, not just those which occur in Scotland, because about 50% of our goods and services are imported. The greatest benefit of recycling often comes from reducing the demand for resource extraction to make new products. By measuring and understanding the whole life carbon impacts of materials, the Carbon Metric
allows decision makers to make more informed choices about how to reduce these impacts, wherever they occur. Scotland’s Carbon Metric shows that the carbon in our household waste is concentrated in just three key materials. Food waste, textiles and plastics hold 74% of the carbon impact of Scottish household waste. By weight, these wastes make up only 31% of household waste. So Scotland could dramatically cut the carbon emissions of our waste by concentrating recycling and prevention efforts more on these three materials. The current situation shows we are not doing enough. The latest Carbon Metric report from Zero Waste Scotland showed that in 2020, there was an increase in the amount of household food, textiles and plastics waste being generated and sent to incineration. The total carbon emissions from household waste rose 3.2% from 2019 to 2020 – up to 5.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases.
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Councils are in charge of designing and providing waste collection systems for households and therefore have a key role to play in reducing the carbon impact of household waste. The graph below shows there are considerable differences in the carbon footprint of waste between councils when we look at the figures per person. If every council performed as well as the best performing council, Angus, over a million tonnes of greenhouse gases would be saved. But all local authorities can, and must, go even further.
1.60 1.40 1.20 1.00 0.80 0.60 0.40 0.20 0.00 Angus Orkney Islands Moray East Renfrewshire North Ayrshire City of Edinburgh Aberdeen City Fife Inverclyde Dundee City Renfrewshire Perth and Kinross Scottish Borders East Lothian Stirling Falkirk South Ayrshire Midlothian Scotland average North Lanarkshire Clackmannanshire East Ayrshire West Lothian East Dunbartonshire South Lanarkshire Aberdeenshire Shetland Islands Highland Glasgow City Dumfries and Galloway West Dunbartonshire Na h-Eileanan Siar Argyll and Bute
Carbon impact of waste (kgCO2e per person)
The carbon footprint of waste by Scottish local authority, in 2020
From SEPA (2022)
Andy Dick, Get to Zero Manager at East Renfrewshire Council, said: “Achieving net zero is going to require new ways of looking at data. We know that the Carbon Metric draws a spotlight on textiles and food waste, recognising the global impact these waste streams have on our climate. Focusing efforts on these high-impact materials will help many councils in the years ahead as we consider how waste fits into the wider goal of achieving net zero.”
In 2021, the Scottish Government created a £70m recycling improvement fund to transform Scotland’s recycling infrastructure. Around £20m has been awarded to 16 projects across various councils already. These have included projects to redesign collection systems and efficiency improvements for bin lorries. Future change should be focused on those projects and materials which are most likely to reduce the carbon impact of waste.
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The decisions made today will affect whether we reach our climate goals in the future. Ramy Salemdeeb, Environmental Analyst at Zero Waste Scotland said “The Carbon Metric has been instrumental in improving our understanding of the role of waste in warming our planet. The tool has also helped us to introduce measures that are tailored to target carbon-intensive materials such as the food waste reduction target and the £2 million textile innovation fund. “Scottish cities should not aim to increase recycling rates only when designing waste strategies, but also decarbonise the waste sector and contribute to Scotland’s ambition to be a net-zero nation by 2045.” The decisions made today will affect whether we reach our climate goals in the future. For those involved in decision making on waste and recycling, the way forwards is clear: councils, businesses and
waste management organisations, should be encouraged to focus on food, textile and plastic waste through funding opportunities, like the Scottish Government’s improvement funds. Recycling food waste should be the default disposal option for all households and businesses. Separate collections of textiles for households would increase recycling of this waste stream. Scotland has already committed to a deposit return scheme for bottles which should increase plastic recycling dramatically – similar solutions, which focus on increasing producer responsibility, are needed for other plastic waste items. At Friends of the Earth Scotland, we will continue to push towards these goals as an important part of creating a circular economy in Scotland.
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Pollution in Scotland rebounds to illegal levels By Gavin Thomson, Transport Campaigner Scotland breached legal air quality limits in 2021 after a historic low in 2020 due to the pandemic. Hope Street in Glasgow recorded an annual average above the legal limit for diesel pollution, while many streets across Scotland saw pollution spike back up despite COVID-19 restrictions like working from home continuing through the year and the country being in lockdown for the first few months. From the evidence we have, virtually every street in Scotland experienced higher levels of pollution in 2021 than the previous year.
We analysed official air pollution data looking at two toxic pollutants which are primarily produced by transport. Legal air quality standards came into force in 2010, yet have been broken every single year since except 2020. As traffic levels increased through 2021, air pollution rose correspondingly. While Hope Street in Glasgow once again breached legal air quality limits for nitrogen dioxide, other streets such as Salamander Street in Edinburgh and Atholl Street in Perth experienced increases in particulate pollution.
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Most polluted streets for nitrogen dioxide Location
Nitrogen Dioxide annual mean (µg/m3)
Glasgow Hope Street
45.41
Dundee Lochee Road
31.84
Falkirk West Bridge Street
31.21
Perth Atholl Street
31.07
Dundee Seagate
30.13
Edinburgh Queensferry Road
29.62
Most polluted streets for particulate matter Location
PM10 annual mean (µg/m3)
Edinburgh Salamander Street
15.43
Perth Atholl Street
14
Glasgow Kerbside
13.13
Fife Cupar
12.95
Aberdeen Wellington Road
12.31
Nitrogen dioxide is a poisonous gas caused by burning fossil fuels in car engines. Exposure to nitrogen dioxide is linked to health problems because breathing it in inflames the lining of our lungs and reduces immunity to lung infections such as bronchitis. Particulate matter are tiny, often invisible particles in the air. Particles originating from road traffic include soot from engines, small bits of metal and rubber from engine wear and braking as well as dust from road surfaces. They can penetrate the deepest part of the lungs and damage our health, so the World Health Organisation advises that there is no safe level of exposure to particulate matter. Governments and councils haven’t done enough to reduce car traffic. The temporary improvements in air quality in 2020 arrived
as a side effect of an enormous devastation to our communities and societies. There was no intention or concerted political action to reduce emissions, which is why the falls were not maintained when restriction eased. Air pollution from transport is responsible for thousands of premature deaths in Scotland every year, and causes serious heart and lung issues. The growing evidence base showing the links between air pollution and vulnerability to COVID-19 is only the latest reason why we have to act to protect public health, so 2021 should have been a year of definitive action to tackle it. We need a just transition for transport, including taking control of our public transport to run comprehensive services that serve passengers not profit, and more options for safe walking and cycling, to improve the air we breathe permanently.
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Making transport work for local people By Gavin Thomson, Transport Campaigner
There have been huge changes to how, and how much, we move around since the pandemic began over two years ago. It’s still not clear which of these changes, like the proportion of us working from home, will remain long term – but we can be sure at this point that we won’t be entirely returning to ‘normal’. The local authority elections in May 2022 will see the first councillors being elected into this new environment, which presents huge opportunities to make lasting change for the better. New council administrations will face significant challenges in helping us travel more sustainably. However, they’ll also have some new powers and, in some cases, will have access to a lot more money to do it.
Photo: istockphoto.com
Transport makes up around a third of all our climate change emissions in Scotland, and while some big reductions have been made in
energy and other sectors, transport emissions have hardly changed in the past three decades. Alongside this, as we’ve been shouting about for years at Friends of the Earth Scotland, we also have persistent air quality problems in all of our cities due to transport. The Scottish Government, with cross party support, committed to a huge reduction in emissions by 2030. This means we’ll need to see huge shifts in our transport system over the next eight years. They’ve also committed to a 20% reduction in car traffic in the same time period, and even more ambitious targets have been made at a local level from Glasgow and Edinburgh councils. It’s in this climate that our councillors will need to approach the sometimes politically difficult tasks, such as prioritising other forms of travel over cars, head on.
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The only way we can transition from a car-dominated transport system fairly is by letting communities take the lead. New bus powers Councils have new powers to start their own publicly-owned bus company, or start franchising the local bus network, which will give the council much more control. These powers were passed in the Transport Act 2019 and so these new council administrations are the first to ever have access to them. This has the potential to revolutionise our public transport in Scotland. Cities like Liverpool and Manchester are using these powers already. When he was announcing a franchising regime for the city, the mayor of Greater Manchester, Andy Burnham said: “After 35 years of deregulated buses in Greater Manchester,
35 years of rising fares and routes being cut, we are bringing our buses back under public control.” The same conditions are true of most of Scotland apart from Edinburgh with publicly-owned Lothian Buses. We need the same response. Of course, there are costs associated with starting a new bus company from scratch or introducing a franchising regime. Councils will need real support from the Scottish Government to do so, which so far hasn’t been forthcoming.
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Lots more cash for walking and cycling As part of the SNP-Greens coalition agreement in August last year, one of the commitments was for an increase in active travel spending, meaning walking, wheeling and cycling. By 2024–2025, 10% of the transport budget will be allocated for active travel. It’s currently around 3 or 4%, so in the coming years there’s going to be a lot more money available for councils to improve our pavements, build safe cycling networks and make our streets safer and greener. The funding for active travel is available to every local authority but not all of them are taking full advantage – some of them barely access it at all, which must change. Glasgow has some big projects underway thanks to this cash, with the Avenues project which is taking lanes of traffic away and adding cycle lanes, trees and benches. Your council should be applying for a chunk of this cash too. As an example, when the ‘Spaces for People’ funding was made available in 2020, Glasgow City Council applied for a total of £7m while Falkirk Council applied for only £190,000.
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The discussion, on what a sustainable transport system looks like, needs to be open to everyone. Unfortunately, we’ve seen the toxic debates that can explode with even quite modest cycle lane proposals with a very noisy pro-car lobby. This can make councils nervous about improving conditions for walking, wheeling and cycling, and is why we need to be vocal and visible on what we want to see too. Tell your local councillors that you want to see this cash being spent in your area. The only way we can transition from a car-dominated transport system fairly is by letting communities take the lead. The discussion, on what a sustainable transport system looks like, needs to be open to everyone. It’s clear that what will be most beneficial in central Glasgow is likely to be different to a rural area of the Highlands. The needs will be different for every community and councils need to hear from everyone on what will make their area better, safer and easier to get around.
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If you want to get involved in pushing for change on transport in your local area, we’re holding a series of online workshops.
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These workshops will help you think about what you’d like to see in your local area to make it easier to get around sustainably, and help you work out how to make it happen. No prior knowledge or experience needed, this is open to everyone. For more information and to sign up visit www.foe.scot/events If you have any questions or would like to make plans for influencing your council in any other areas of Scotland, contact our transport campaigner Gavin at gthomson@foe.scot.
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Can councils change our energy system? By Ryan Morrison, Just Transition Campaigner In February, people across the UK received the news that the price cap on energy would go up for a typical household from £1,277 a year to £1,971 – a staggering rise of over 50%. On the same day, oil company Shell announced they’d cashed in from the rise in fossil fuel prices driving the price cap changes – their profits were $19.3bn in 2021 alone. Our broken energy system is never far from the news. It’s destroying our climate, pushing people into poverty and is being weaponised in the devastating Russian invasion of Ukraine. The energy we all rely on is out of our control,
with private companies profiting at every stage; from the generation of the energy, the distribution across the country and then in selling it to households. However governments, and our local councillors, can change that. Underneath the headlines, there are councils in Scotland forging a new way to manage energy. Instead of relying on private companies, they are investing in renewable energy projects and in doing so, demonstrating the alternative to our current broken system: public energy run for people and the planet.
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Publicly owned renewable energy is a crucial part of the solution to climate and social injustice.
North Ayrshire and Stirling lead the way In North Ayrshire, the local council has announced three separate renewable energy projects. With two solar farms already in development on former landfill sites, new plans are now in place to build three wind turbines and a further solar farm on a third site. Once operational, these council-owned renewable energy developments are expected to generate 277% of the energy used by the council, while providing a surplus of £25m to be reinvested into the local area. Instead of payouts to shareholders, 15% of the income from all of the projects is to be made directly available to community groups in the area. In Stirling, the local authority has tackled fuel poverty with a massive rollout of solar panels on council houses. A report from 2020 found that one in 10 homes in Stirling had a solar panel, with 95% of those installed by the local authority on their council homes. Only Peterborough has topped this achievement across every town and city in the UK. The early efforts made to improve energy efficiency and cut bills are bringing real benefits to people who are on the lowest incomes.
The transformation we need to tackle climate and social injustice We must transform our approach to energy in order to make the system fairer and more democratic while tackling the climate emergency.
Public ownership in the energy sector can drive new renewable generation, cut bills and put the real power closer to people’s hands. The examples of Stirling and North Ayrshire demonstrate what is possible and the type of leadership we need to see from all local authorities. The Scottish Government recently abandoned a 2016 pledge to create a public energy company despite support from environmentalists, trade unions and community groups. There is an opportunity for the government to support and encourage more projects like those mentioned above. If they can invest in renewable energy installations and then bring the benefits straight to communities around them, so can the Scottish Government. Publicly owned renewable energy is a crucial part of the solution to climate and social injustice. Instead of an energy system which exacerbates and profits from the devastation of people and the planet, we can build something better in its place. With Renfrewshire Council announcing they will follow the success of their North Ayrshire neighbours by building a solar farm on a former landfill site, local authorities across Scotland are seeing the opportunity to play a massive role in building a renewable energy system that works for all of us.
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Protect nature, transform the economy By Matthew Crighton, Sustainable Economy Advisor ‘Climate Emergency’ and ‘Nature Crisis’ are now on the lips of politicians of every stripe, thanks to campaigning organisations like Friends of the Earth Scotland. Ideas like just transition and circular economy, which originated in the trade union and environmental movements are now sprinkled across government strategies. But there always seems to be more talk than action, and the Scottish Government's new National Strategy for Economic Transformation is no exception.
Until we change the ways in which our economy works, ‘business-as-usual’ will continue to drive environmental destruction and obstruct action towards zero carbon. This is why environmentalists have to take on economics! Together with our friends in the Wellbeing Economy Alliance and Scottish Environment LINK, as the ‘Transform Our Economy’ alliance, we have been doing just that. The climate crisis is fuelled by a market-driven economy, so we have called for a bold re-design of our economy to deliver collective wellbeing within planetary boundaries, not framed in narrow economic terms like GDP.
Photo: istockphoto.com
Initially we were pleased that the Scottish Government agreed that hitting climate change targets should be at the core of its National Strategy for Economic Transformation, which was recently launched by Kate Forbes, the Cabinet Secretary for Finance and the Economy. It does have environmental sustainability and wellbeing in its vision, but there is a lack of concrete ideas as to how its good intentions will be delivered. Everyone recognises the need to be greener and fairer, but without any realistic plan to achieve these changes they will remain aspirational daydreams. The Scottish Government has to assess and secure the investments needed in each part of our economy so that we can move away from the highly polluting system we have currently in a fair way. It needs to set out expectations for job creation and social benefits, how to measure them and who will deliver them. Instead, it seems happy just to point the boat forwards and hope that the fickle winds of the market economy will blow it in the right direction.
The Scottish Government clearly hasn’t understood the roots of these problems. The focus on economic growth and entrepreneurship in this strategy fails to show how this approach can deliver on these wider social and environmental benefits. It’s a repeat of lots of the tired old ideas that have helped bring us the current state of inequality, environmental breakdown and economic insecurity. The Scottish Government clearly hasn’t understood the roots of these problems, nor recognised the mistakes of previous plans. Perhaps this is because it hasn’t spoken to either environmental experts nor to people at the sharp end of our current economic system.
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Ahead of the strategy launch, the ‘Transform Our Economy’ alliance produced Ten Points against which to judge the Government’s plans. These ideas were backed by 40 academics and outline a new purpose at the heart of our economy: providing wellbeing for all within environmental limits. Sadly the Scottish Government’s document gets poor marks against these, starting well with its overall vision but then failing on practical things like generating enough of the right investment streams, having clear tests for all finance and integrating environmental performance measures into economic decisions. These principles can also be taken on at a local as well as national levels, and councils should take a holistic approach to enact this change, making sure that all spending programmes contribute to hitting climate targets rather than just the ones labelled as relevant to the environment. We want to see them prioritising the impact on the wellbeing of people and the planet when making decisions. The new councillors coming in May now have a real opportunity to lead the way.
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Ten Points for a Transformative Economic Strategy: 1
The goal: wellbeing for all within environmental limits
2
Setting specific economic objectives to care for people and the planet
3
Using all the tools available to government to meet those objectives
4
Policies must show how the objectives can be achieved
5 Combat economic pressures which are helping cause the problems
6 Public priorities must lead the direction of development of the economy
7
Clear tests for all investment programmes
8
Measure performance through metrics which matter
9 An economic strategy for all sectors – economic transformation as a national mission
10 An inclusive and participatory process
Photo: istockphoto.com
Read more about the criteria here: www.foe.scot/resource/criteria
Help power our campaigns We can only do what we do because of the support of our members. Help us take action in Scotland to make a global difference. www.foe.scot/donate
