The Holy Sustainable Development Crusades
Sez and Rach left yesterday to go back down to Seaford to stay with Granny Helme, so I’ve been at home by myself for over a day! No more meals cooked for me when I got home from work, no more entertaining arguments (unless you count those ones I have with myself), no more branding wars in the lounge. The lounge got a good workout; I think they were scared to go outside because it has been so cold. But seriously, I think they are just ready to go home. We are all hanging out for Egypt, but they are hanging out for summer even more.
So…four more nights to go ‘til we fly out to that big sandy beach. I’m looking forward to getting away now. I have basically just been going to meetings solidly for the last month I think, haven’t had time to do any work, write anything productive. Work now has the full compliment of staff (apart from my team, where we need two more sustainable development officers – not sure what they’re going to do because not even I know?!). new manager started on Monday two weeks ago, she seems nice but I think has the potential to really fire up if needed. She is in the process of figuring out exactly what it is that we do, and all the while we are still going about doing most of it. But the plan is that she sorts out the work programme, prioritises it and then we can discard some of the crap work.
In a roundabout way, that leads me on the my next point. And that is that I think the British system of democracy is one of the most ‘open systems’ in the world. Whether it’s the newspapers, the ongoing discussions about everything (to the detriment of actually getting it done at times), everyone has the opportunity to have their say. Even here in East Yorkshire the Council publishes its paper (or at least makes it available) in nine different languages – who’s ever heard of Urdu?! Is it a good thing to give everyone their say? Maybe some things just need to happen. I think it’s more of a question of how to reconcile the extreme opinions. But then there is always that extreme positive element (i.e. the people that actually want the development to go ahead for example) that never say anything – the silent majority. This is a problem we have up here – there is a certain amount of entrenchment of people’s opinions, perceptions etc…Sustainable development is the classic example. How do you get people to make a decision on the next 100 years when there is no tangible positive spin-off for them in the short term? It is human nature after all to want to gain in the short term.
In terms of marketing sustainability, how do you get it to register on the community’s collective conscience when you are competing with the huge budgets of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Tesco etc…This rant could go on and on…what about packaging? You currently can’t recycle, but I would bet it makes up a significant portion of current household waste. Everything has packaging, sometimes within packaging within packaging – like airline meals that are all wrapped up. That is not necessary at all. Too often we end up treating the symptoms and not the real illness.
Britain has some great tools to start to fix some of these commons problems, but no real political will – otherwise they would be pumping money into it, rather than making initiatives outbid each other for a meagre pot. And then this money runs out after three years – what then? Who pays? No-one. The project dies. Thus you get no real progress; rather a piecemeal approach that oft reinvents the wheel and projects that work incongruently with one another, snake each other. So yes, everyone gets an opportunity – but it’s no way perfect.
What if the world’s most powerful dictator had been an environmentalist? What if the McGillicuddy Serious Party had a majority coalition government with the Greens? What if the Department of Conservation had enough money? What if all the laws in the world were actually monitored and enforced?
Whoa back….
So…four more nights to go ‘til we fly out to that big sandy beach. I’m looking forward to getting away now. I have basically just been going to meetings solidly for the last month I think, haven’t had time to do any work, write anything productive. Work now has the full compliment of staff (apart from my team, where we need two more sustainable development officers – not sure what they’re going to do because not even I know?!). new manager started on Monday two weeks ago, she seems nice but I think has the potential to really fire up if needed. She is in the process of figuring out exactly what it is that we do, and all the while we are still going about doing most of it. But the plan is that she sorts out the work programme, prioritises it and then we can discard some of the crap work.
In a roundabout way, that leads me on the my next point. And that is that I think the British system of democracy is one of the most ‘open systems’ in the world. Whether it’s the newspapers, the ongoing discussions about everything (to the detriment of actually getting it done at times), everyone has the opportunity to have their say. Even here in East Yorkshire the Council publishes its paper (or at least makes it available) in nine different languages – who’s ever heard of Urdu?! Is it a good thing to give everyone their say? Maybe some things just need to happen. I think it’s more of a question of how to reconcile the extreme opinions. But then there is always that extreme positive element (i.e. the people that actually want the development to go ahead for example) that never say anything – the silent majority. This is a problem we have up here – there is a certain amount of entrenchment of people’s opinions, perceptions etc…Sustainable development is the classic example. How do you get people to make a decision on the next 100 years when there is no tangible positive spin-off for them in the short term? It is human nature after all to want to gain in the short term.
In terms of marketing sustainability, how do you get it to register on the community’s collective conscience when you are competing with the huge budgets of Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Tesco etc…This rant could go on and on…what about packaging? You currently can’t recycle, but I would bet it makes up a significant portion of current household waste. Everything has packaging, sometimes within packaging within packaging – like airline meals that are all wrapped up. That is not necessary at all. Too often we end up treating the symptoms and not the real illness.
Britain has some great tools to start to fix some of these commons problems, but no real political will – otherwise they would be pumping money into it, rather than making initiatives outbid each other for a meagre pot. And then this money runs out after three years – what then? Who pays? No-one. The project dies. Thus you get no real progress; rather a piecemeal approach that oft reinvents the wheel and projects that work incongruently with one another, snake each other. So yes, everyone gets an opportunity – but it’s no way perfect.
What if the world’s most powerful dictator had been an environmentalist? What if the McGillicuddy Serious Party had a majority coalition government with the Greens? What if the Department of Conservation had enough money? What if all the laws in the world were actually monitored and enforced?
Whoa back….
Comments