Regional Priorities

Sustainable Consumption and Production Network

Promoting sustainable consumption and production is now one of five strategic priorities for DEFRA in their 5 year plan published in December 2004 and is a major theme in Securing the Future, the UK Government’s strategy for promoting Sustainable Development published in April 2005. DEFRA also published a set of indicators for assessing progress towards SCP in April 2005.

The Regions are being increasingly called on by central government to provide strategic added value to the delivery of programmes to promote Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), and particularly to the delivery of the Business Resource Efficiency and Waste (BREW) programme.

Regions have also taken the initiative in a range of areas, including developing energy and waste strategies including setting targets for reducing environmental pressures, methods for sustainability appraisal such as the ecological footprint, and developing intelligence through the Regional Observatories.

Regions have the potential through their location and links to provide strategic added value and take the initiative on this agenda, but they also need increased analytical capacity if they are to fulfil this potential and develop evidence-based policy and scrutiny.

Regions have already invested substantial funds into REWARD and the Mass Balance programmes to begin to develop this capacity, but these are time-limited R&D projects which need to be built on in order to avoid losing the gains to date.