External Presentations & Reports

Read external reports and presentations relating mainly to business, the public sector or the voluntary sector.

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A guide to understanding the embodied impacts of construction products

The Construction Products Association produces a guide to improve understanding across the construction industry of the embodied impacts of construction products, with a particular focus on implementing the life cycle assessment.
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Adapting for a Green Economy: Companies, communities and climate change

This report aims to show businesses that a 'green economy is one that is low carbon resource efficient and socially inclusive'and that 'growth in income and employemtn can be generated by strategic public and private investments.'
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Advantage West Midlands - making a difference 1999-2012

The report outlines the role of the Agency and how it's responsibilities developed over time. It summarises the performance of Advantage West Midlands and includes a number of case study examples of project and programmes that made a difference to the West Midlands economy.
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Advantage West Midlands climate risk assessment: business clusters

The UK Climate Impacts Programme published this report for AWM in August 2006 to set out recommendations for action by four priority business clusters to take forward their adaptation response to the emerging risks posed by climate change.
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An Evaluation of Green Doctor - Interim Report

Green Doctor is an innovative programme which seeks to reduce fuel poverty in low income households using an integrated approach by adopting physical, technical, economic and behavioural change methods. An independent, external evaluation of the key lessons to be learnt about the outcomes and impact of the programme were undertaken.
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Are UK Businesses Climate Proof?

According to the following report, British businesses have little understanding of the likely consequences of climate change and are badly prepared to respond to its impact; from an analysis of more than 165 responses to the FTSE 350 survey undertaken by the Carbon Disclosure Project.
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Asda's 'Green is Normal' Sustainability Report

Asda invited a panel of 'Everyday Experts', regular Asda customers representing every group in the UK, to participate in an online survey about sustainability over an eight month period.
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Becoming the 'Greenest Government ever'

The fifth annual SDC watchdog report finds that Sustainability measures are saving Government �60-70 million every year.
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Benefits of green infrastructure: Report to Defra and CLG

The Forestry Commission describes how current economic, social and environmental needs can be met by today's urban policy through the use of green infrastructure.
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Birmingham Climate Change Action Plan 2010

This new Action Plan creates the first crucial steps towards achieving a 2026 carbon emission reduction target of 60%. It follows closely on the Council�s 2015 Birmingham Declaration.
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Birmingham's Carbon Savings Annual Report 2010/11: Review of progress 2008-2011

Birmingham City Council committed to reducing carbon emissions between 2008 - 2011 by including National Indicator 186 (NI186) as one of their priorities, requiring the council to reduce emissions across all sectors in the city. This report focuses on the NI186 target for per capita emissions reductions across the city from 2008 - 2011 and focuses on assessing whether goals have been achieved by collecting proxy data on reported carbon savings across the city.
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Building community resilience through tackling climate change in Warwickshire

Dr. Jacky Lawrence, Warwickshire County Council gave the presentation at the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management's Open Meeting and AGM on 22 April 2010. The purpose of the presentation is to inform the audience of the work of the Warwickshire's Climate Change Partnership (WCCP) with communities in relation to climate change.
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Cadbury and Carbon Foot-Printing

Cadbury, like many others, is on a carbon foot-printing journey. This report oulines what they hope to achieve on this journey and they problems they have faced so far.
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Carbon Dioxide emissions of West Midlands Housing - A Scenario Analysis

This report was produced by SEI and commissioned by West Midlands Regional Assembly in 2007 to test the Regional Housing Strategy for their impacts on carbon emissions within the region and to test the West Midlands' Regional Spatial Strategy (RSS) phase 2 revision.
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Carbon Neutrality & the West Midlands city region

This report details the outsomes of a discussion dinner, held by the Lunar Society and chaired by Professor Sir John Lawton, Chairman of the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. It examines the issue of Climate Change and the role of the West Midlands in coordinating change, locally and nationally.
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Challenging Convention workshop outcomes

This report by the Business Council for Sustainable Development - United Kingdom (BCSD-UK) details the outcomes of the Challenging Convention workshop on 9 December 2009 which was hosted and part sponsored by Sustainability West Midlands.
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Communicating Climate Change BT

In this presentation, BT show how they are committed to contributing positively to society and to a sustainable future.
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Culture and climate change in the West Midlands

Professor John E. Thornes, University of Birmingham wrote this report in November 2007 to raise awareness of the relationship between culture and climate change and the implications of climate change to the cultural sectors in the West Midlands.
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Cutting Workplace Carbon, Not Competitiveness

This paper offers a series of practical tips on how to assess your building(s) from a carbon perspective and provides key pointers for making a new low carbon regime �sticky�. The report was produced by Low Carbon Workplace and published in June 2011.
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Delivering the Low Carbon Economy - Business Opportunities for UK Manufacturers

EEF has worked in partnership with Deloitte UK Manufacturing Group to review and analyse how UK manufacturing can respond to the business opportunities presented by the move to a low carbon economy
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Earnings, jobs and innovation: the role of recycling in a green economy

The European Environment Agency examines the economic benefits of recycling by considering the recycling industry in the context of building a green economy. The report concludes that the recycling industry can improve the European economy by providing raw materials, creating jobs and encouraging business opportunities and innovation.
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Environmental Technologies - Phase 2: Online survey findings

In March 2009, the West Midlands Regional Observatory (WMRO) published this report of their quantitative survey of businesses designed to show the potential contribution environmental technologies such as renewable energy, pollution monitoring and waste management can make to the regional economy.
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Environmental Technologies project - Phase 1: Review of secondary sources of data & intelligence

In March 2009, the West Midlands Regional Observatory (WMRO) published this report to review of secondary sources of data and analysis of the potential contribution environmental technologies such as renewable energy, pollution monitoring and waste management can make to the regional economy.
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EnviroTRADE Directory WM 2009

Produced by the Environmental Technologies Cluster, it is a comprehensive directory of all its member companies.
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Evidence of Success: Low Carbon Regional Economic Strategy

'Connecting to Success' produced by Advantage West Midlands (AWM) has been recognised as the UK's first low-carbon Regional Economic Strategy. This summary document explains the process that AWM embarked upon with its partners to develop this strategy. It also addresses such issues as productivity gap, carbon gap and effective use of resources in developing new products and services across the whole economic activity.
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Financing the future: A green investment bank to power the economic recovery

The Green Investment Bank Position Statement examines the scope and ambition of the initiative, potential barriers and solutions and the issues of capitalisation and funding. Different contributors lend their expertise to each of these areas to examine how best the billions of pounds in low carbon investment can unlock the low carbon economy.
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Food, land and greenhouse gases: The effect of changes in UK food consumption on land requirements and greenhouse gas emissions

This is a major new UK study on food, climate change and land use, commissioned by the Committee on Climate Change.
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From Green Economies to Green Societies (UNESCO's Commitment to Sustainable Development)

The aim of this report is to feed into the preparatory process for the UN Conference on Sustainable Development, to be held in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, in 2012.
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Generations Unlimited

This is a summary of Birmingham's knowledge base of businesses and universities, connectivity, sustainable future city, and leading development low carbon projects. Produced by Business Birmingham, June 2011.
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Getting to Zero: Defining Corporate Carbon Neutrality

What does it mean to claim that your company is carbon neutral? This report investigates some of the claims that have been made so far, and makes recommendations for organisations planning to become truly carbon neutral.
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Going Green: How local authorities can encourage the take-up of lower-carbon vehicles

The RAC Foundation has sought to explore what powers the Local Authority have in terms of transport, the level of appetite for using them and what experience of their use have been gained so far, both in the UK and continental Europe.
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Green and Growth: solutions for growing a green economy

EEF sets out short- and long-term proposals for growing a green economy. The report highlights that many manufacturing companies see opportunities in a low carbon economy and details objectives for growing a green economy.
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Green game - changing innovation - new business thinking from around the world

Report: A compliation of 20 organisations from all over the world who are leading on different aspects of green innovation.
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Green game-changers - 50 innovations to inspire business transformation

As a part of WWF's 50th anniversary, they bring together 50 'Green game-changers'. a selection of inspirational examples from around the world on how businesses and entrepreneurs are turning environmental challenges as a catalyst for innovation.
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Health Effects of Climate Change in the West Midlands

Between October 2009 and March 2010 a Defra funded report was put together with the intent on providing in depth information of the extent of climate change in the West Midlands and the effects that climate change could have on the Region's health up until the 2080s.
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HOW TO...plan a Sustainability Awareness Week

A guide to planning and running a successful Sustainability Awareness Week by New Leaf - a small not-for-profit organisation working in Herefordshire.
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Improving infrastructure: Heat mapping and decentralised energy feasibility study

Advantage West Midlands published Improving infrastructure: Heat mapping and decentralised energy feasibility study in April 2008 in response to the recent Energy White Paper which asked Regional Development Agencies to identify opportunities as to how they could bring forward decentralised energy projects. This report presents the findings of work on heat mapping and decentralised energy.
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Improving Infrastructure: Wind Resource Study for the West Midlands Region

Wind power has the potential to generate clean, renewable energy to power homes and businesses. This study reviews the economically viable wind resource across the West Midlands Region.
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Infrastructure, Engineering and Climate Change adaptation - ensuring services in an uncertain future

This study was an activity of the Engineering the Future partnership, carried out on behalf of Defra by The Royal Academy of Engineering, the Institution of Engineering and Technology, the Institution of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Mechanical Engineers and the Institution of Chemical Engineers. The conclusions of the study will feed into the Defra led cross-Government Infrastructure and Adaptation project. The study was carried out from the perspective of the engineering profession and the engineering response to the demands of climate change adaptation.
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Is localism delivering for climate change?

This report from the Green Alliance highlights emerging responses from local authorities, local enterprise partnerships and neighbourhood plans.
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King Review of low-carbon cars Part I: The potential for CO2 reduction

In October 2007 the Chancellor of the Exchequer commissioned the King Review of low-carbon cars Part I: The potential for CO2 reduction to set out a positive message about the challenge for road transport and examines the technology options likely to contribute to decarbonising road transport now and in the future.
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King Review of low-carbon cars Part II: Recommendations for action

In March 2008 King Review of low-carbon cars Part II: Recommendations for action was published. It recommends policy and actions for government, business and consumers, to deliver major CO2 reductions from road transport in the years ahead. The Review also makes a number of recommendations to enable the UK to play a leading role in low-CO2 automotive developments and seize the opportunities that a move to lower emissions road transport.
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Know your environmental limits: A local leaders' guide

The guide is intended to enable members of local governance bodies and community groups to recognise the importance and inherent value of the natural environment and to 'live within environmental limits'.
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Less Is More: Energy Security After Oil

AECB challenges the view in government about what a low carbon future will look like by describing a roadmap to a future of near-zero greenhouse gas emissions.
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Local Enterprise Partnerships: Will they serve local communities and promote sustainable development?

Written by the Campaign to Protect Rural England. This report looks at how Local Enterprise Partnerships (LEPs) are developing and how effective they are likely to be in delivering genuinely sustainable development in a context of much greater devolution of decision making and community involvement.
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Low Carbon Coventry 2020: A vision for transforming our city

SWM was involved in working with Coventry Partnership in taking our work on a low carbon 2020 vision and applying it to Coventry. This involved a series of commissions with stakeholders on developing the ideas, applying them to Coventry, and developing their own local vision and actions. This report summarises the outcomes.
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Low Carbon Economy for the West Midlands - local authority profiles

Sustainability West Midlands commissioned West Midlands Regional Observatory to roll out their work on Low Carbon Economic profiles for the City Region to cover each of the fourteen Tier 1 local authority areas in the West Midlands. These reports set out an analysis of low carbon economic opportunities and risks based on an assessment of the industrial profile of each area.
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Low Carbon Evidence Base for the West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy

Advantage West Midlands has commissioned a programme of work to underpin its work on producing the UK's first low carbon Regional Economic Strategy. This programme included the development of an evidence base to support the "low carbon" components of the new West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy (WMES) and an assessment of the impacts of climate change on the economy of the West Midlands.
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Low Carbon Jobs for Europe

This report produced by WWF in June 2009 shows that more European jobs are directly related to renewable energy, sustainable transport and energy efficient goods and services than those in polluting industries, such as mining, electricity, gas, cement, and iron and steel.
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Low impact communities in Britain

The University of Leicester outlines how people are building low cost eco houses, why, what makes it work, what it is like to live in them and what the constraints and opportunities are in doing more of it in Britain.
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Low-Carbon Economy for the West Midlands: a synthesis report

After producing the West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy (WMES), Advantage West Midlands and West Midlands Regional Observatory have been working together on a three year programme to enable the region to develop an integrated and robust evidence base around the low-carbon economy. This report presents a synthesis of the work produced during the first year of the programme.
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Mainstreaming sustainable development - The Government's vision and what this means in practice

Setting out the Government's vision for sustainable development and measures to support it.
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Making Sense of Going Green - Small Businesses and the Low Carbon Economy

Report: The FSB is advocating a mixture of short, medium and long term measures to green our small business sector, that are set out in the report, detailing how the transition could be made in a profitable way.
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Making Sustainable Lives Easier: A Priority for Governments, Business and Society

Making Sustainable Lives Easier: A Priority for Governments, Business and Society, February 2011. This report sets out what is needed from governments and others to help us all live sustainable lives in our homes and communities.
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Measuring progress: Sustainable development indicators 2010

The report covers a wide range of topics of everyday concern such as health, housing, jobs, crime, education, and our environment, all of which may affect whether we can live more sustainably in the future. It includes measures of wellbeing, how people rate their lives and how satisfied they are with aspects that may affect them.
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Moving 'Beyond Decent Homes' - Standard 2009

This is the 2009 report prepared for the Sustainable Housing Action Partnership (SHAP) which has been written and designed by Nick Dodd, Charlie Baker and John Sampson from URBED. This report was launched on 15 October 2009 at the SHAP 2009 conference.
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No charge? Valuing the environment

The No Charge? report examines a range of natural 'ecosystem services' - such as healthy soils, clean water, carbon storage, and flood prevention - these underpin economic growth and deliver natural solutions to 21st century problems. They generate billions of pounds of hidden value to the UK economy each year and far outweigh the costs required to sustain them in a healthy, functioning state.
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Planning for Hydropower: Planning Advice

Aimed at helping local planning authorities, developers and other stakeholders better understand the planning issues associated with hydropower schemes, this report encourages a more joined-up approach for determining applications for hydropower deployment.
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Planning people: We believe in growth - but not at all costs.

National Trust have recognised that the present draft NPPF does not deliver its goals and needs significant change to properly reflect the ambition of balance. This manifesto recognises the National Trusts part to play in the consultation process.
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Policy Statement on Regional Strategies and Guidance on the establishment of Leaders Boards: Consultation

This policy sets out the Governments policy framework for the preparation of Regional Strategies, providing policy on the preparation and revision of such strategies and sets out the main expectations on their form, content, implementation and monitoring.
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Portrait of the West Midlands

The report provides an overciew of the socio-economic characteristics of the West Midlands region. It covers a wide range of indicators from population to crime to the environment.
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Preparing for Climate Change

A practical guide for small businesses from AXA, setting out the evidence of climate change and the impacts of severe weather events. Provides advice on what businesses can do to reduce the risks, including developing a business continuity plan
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Pricing the Priceless: the business case for action on biodiversity

Aldersgate Group focuses on business and biodiversity, promoting the incorporation of the value of nature into decision making in order to safeguard long-term economic growth.
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RAWM- Ten years of supporting the public sector

This report marks 10 years of Regional Action West Midlands (RAWM) of enabling a sustainable, influential, effective and inclusive voluntary and community sector in the West Midlands area.
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Research and Engagement with Marches Waste Companies

Symeco published this document in May 2011 to target waste companies who have not previously engaged in significant Marches Environmental Technologies Network (metnet) activities and provide to recommendations for the waste sector and metnet.
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Resilient People, Resilient Planet: A Future Worth Choosing

The report proposes a roadmap for global sustainable development and outlines 56 recommendations for putting the principles of sustainable development into practice.
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Skills for a green economy - A report on the evidence

This report launched October 2011 effectively identifies the skills needed to support the transition to a strong and sustainable green economy
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Small is Successful! Creating sustainable livelihoods on ten acres or less

'Small is Successful!' is the outcome of 12 months research addressing the lack of information on financially viable, small scale farms in the UK. Working with eight real life case studies, the report demonstrates that economically viable and highly sustainable land based livelihoods can succeed on holdings of ten acres or less. The report and its policy recommendations open up affordable opportunities for new entrants into farming.
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Solving Fuel Poverty - opportunities from Green Deal and Localisation

Localise West Midlands' new report, 'Solving Fuel Poverty: opportunities from Green Deal and Localisation' contains recommendations in identifying how Green Deal schemes can be designed to solve rather than exacerbate fuel poverty.
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SQW Local Enterprise Partnerships: A new era begins?

Report: In June 2010, business leaders and local authority leaders were invited to sumbit outline proposals setting out how they would work with government to strengthen local economy. This report outlines these proposals, the progress towards them and the challenges that remain.
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State of the natural environment in the West Midlands

The aim of this report is to highlight the state of the natural environment in the West Midlands, which provides an essential regional asset and foundation for our economic and social well- being.
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Study into CO2 Emission Difference Projections to 2020 Resulting from AWM Investments

The requirement for Regional Development Agencies (RDAs) to estimate their carbon reductions to 2010 & 2020 is set out in the May 2007 Energy White Paper 'Meeting the Energy Challenge'. This study provides an evidence base and recommendations to Advantage West Midlands (AWM) to help it develop its corporate targets to reduce carbon resulting from its investment.
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Successful Business and Procurement

Sustainable Development Research Network has launched its sixth SDRN Rapid Research and Evidence Review 'Successful business and procurement review: what lessons for sustainable public procurement can be drawn from successful businesses?'
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Summary Guide to the West Midlands Procurement Framework for Jobs and Skills

The West Midlands Economic Inclusion Panel produced this report in reponse to the challenges of worklessness and economic exclusion in the West Midlands. The report aims to ensure that local people benefit directly from a region-wide strategy that places specific requirements on contractors to provide more training and job opportunities, as part of their contractual commitments.
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Sustainability at the RDAs - Benchmarking performance on sustainable development at the English RDAs

In March 2009 Forum for the Future published the report "Sustainability at the RDAs" to assess the organisational performance of each of the English Regional Development Agencies (RDAs). The report was commissioned by Advantage West Midlands (AWM).
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Sustainable Business 2011: Reflecting on progress

This ENDS report reflects on the progress of sustainable business in 2011.
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Sustainable Economy in 2040: A roadmap for Capital Markets

This report was produced by Forum for the Future with funding from Aviva Investors outlines the role of capital markets in facilitating a sustainable economy.
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Taking the Temperature - Towards an NHS Response to Global Warming

This report shows that the NHS has a major role to play in tackling climate change
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The Impact of Climate Change on the Economy of the West Midlands

Advantage West Midlands (AWM) has commissioned a programme fo work to underpin its work on producing the UK's first low-carbon Regional Economic Strategy (RES). This study forms one part of the evidence base and aims to identify and prioritise particular sectors and places (in terms of economics and business) at risk from climate change impacts in the West Midlands, as well as the need to minimise potential impacts or exploit opportunities associated with projected climate change.
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The Prince's Mayday Network Annual Report 2011

This report reviews the findings of the Mayday's network which consists of over 3,500 member companies. This year's report back process has shown that businesses are beginning to look beyond carbon to also address the wider environmental considerations in the move towards sustainable, profitable business.
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The Role of Local Government in Promoting Wellbeing

2010 report from NEF (New Economics Foundation) on wellbeing and the role of the local government.
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The self organising city - presentation September 2011

On 27 September SWM supported the first of MADE's new series of Talking Cities lectures, 'The self organising city'. Mary Rowe, Director of the Centre for City Ecology in Toronto and an Urban Fellow at the Municipal Art Society in New York, spoke of her experiences working in New Orleans and the resilient community organisation which is still taking place following the flooding in 2005.
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The Value of Public Space: How high quality parks and public spaces create economic, social and environmental value.

CABE reports on the huge economic, social and environmental benefits of investing in and caring for our public spaces. The document gives politicians, local authorities, businesses, and communities the information they need to make the case for better quality civic spaces.
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Towards a carbon neutral city region

West Midlands Metropolitan District Leaders and Chief Executives commissioned Levett-Therivel to write this report to assess the current draft of the City Region Development (CRDP) to indicate how the CRDP will provide a framework to address climate change and move towards carbon neutrality, to discuss the opportunities and threats and finally to indicate the steps they need to take to move towards carbon neutrality.
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Understanding the (R-ISEW) as an indicator of sustainable economic growth

This report outlines how the R-ISEW index will provide a valuable means of measuring the regions success in achieving sustainable economic growth.
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Understanding the West Midlands Carbon Gap

There are a multitude of polcies, from international to local level that focus on trying to mitigate against the impacts of Climate Change. The report aims to help policy makers in the West Midlands understand how implementing these policies will effect CO₂ emissions in the region.
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Understanding walking and cycling

A recent research project has published the key findings of its examination of the factors influencing everyday travel decisions and proposes a series of policy measures to increase levels of walking and cycling for short trips in urban areas.
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University Challenge: Growing the knowledge economy in Birmingham

The Centre for Cities has published the report "University Challenge: Growing the knowledge economy in Birmingham" for Birmingham City Council. This report aims to inform economic development strategies and improve economic performance. It focuses on the future growth prospects for Birmingham.
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Using behavioural insights for more sustainable transoprt

The Department for Transport published a Behavioural Insights Toolkit, providing practical, step-by-step guidance on how to design more effective sustainable transport initiatives using insights from behavioural theory and social research evidence.
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Weathering the Storm - Saving and Making Money in a Changing Climate

This a practical guide for small businesses in the West Midlands to help them to understand how they could be affected the effects of climate change and how they can improve their chances of a quick recovery.
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West Midlands Climate change adaptation partnership

This presentation introduces the UK Climate projections for 2009 and explains what these tell us, how we are affected by these and how we should respond to this.
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West Midlands Environmental Priorities Review

The aim of this review was to develop a small range of options for the integration of key environment topics and issues for consideration into a single Regional Strategy or similar, in the context of the former West Midlands Regional Spatial Strategy (WMRSS) and West Midlands Regional Economic Strategy (RES).
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West Midlands Fit for the Future? Positioning the region for economic recovery

In July 2009 the West Midlands Regional Observatory published, 'West Midlands Fit for the Future? Positioning the region for economic recovery' to stimulate debate, promote discussion and influence policy on the future growth of the region.
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West Midlands Futures: Drivers of change affecting the West Midlands

Forum for the Future undertook a futures project as part of their partnership work with Advantage West Midlands (AWM). The project is built on the work already undertaken for the first part of the West Midlands Economic Strategy (WMES) review. This report summarises the outcomes of the first stage and indentifies the future drivers of change and uncertainties that will affect the West Midlands economy.
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West Midlands Regional Sustainable Development Indicators Factsheet

The Government publishes a selection of sustainable development indicators at regional level. The Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs have produced a 'fact sheet' summarising the position in the West Midlands with regards to these indicators, helping to guide the development of appropriate targets.
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West Midlands Regional Sustainable Development Indictors Factsheet

In February, Defra released the Regional Sustainable Development indicators which bring together already published statistics to show how the West Midlands region is performing in comparison to other regions and with progress nationally. The factsheet includes progress in indicators within the priority areas of (a) sustainable consumption and production and natural resources, and (b) sustainable communities.
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