Regional Policy - Sustainable Development Action Plans for Regional Organisations (SDAP)
Regional Policy - Sustainable Development Action Plans for Regional Organisations (SDAP)
Organisations involved
Lead - Sustainability West Midlands. Supporting - Advantage West Midlands, Centro, Sustainable Development Commission, Forum for the Future, Defra.
Summary
The problem being addressed - sustainable development is a complex agenda how can it be interpreted and practically applied by regional public sector organizations.
The aim of this work is to take national good practice, in the form of the Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAP) required to be produced and reported on annually by Government Departments to the Sustainable Development Commission, and adapt for regional public bodies.
We hope this process will help build the understanding, confidence, and capacity of regional organizations to practically integrate sustainable development into their strategic and operational processes.
This process usually involves understanding the business case and relevance of sustainable development to the organization, benchmarking against good practice, then developing a three year action plan which focus on the areas of the greatest impact and opportunity, and which is reported on annually.
Our role as the regional version of the Sustainable Development Commission is to help develop guidance and support for organizations to develop their action plans, and then provide advice on the final plans, annual reports, and encourage the sharing of good practice.
Update on the progress of the project so far
SDAP Work 2006-7
We worked with Advantage West Midlands to produce the first SDAP for a Regional Development Agency. This involved working with the Sustainable Development Commission to adapt their guidance for a regional organization. We also worked with Forum for the Future to develop a benchmark of sustainable development criteria for regional organizations, which was then used to assess Advantage West Midlands, and identify strengths and weaknesses. This was then tested through a Sustainability West Midlands cross-sector workshop with our members and improvements made based on their experience of good practice from their companies.
The result was 'Future Advantage: Advantage West Midlands Sustainable Development Policy and Action Plan 2006-10'
This was endorsed by Sustainability West Midlands and partners:
"Advantage West Midlands are to be congratulated on becoming the first RDA to produce a Sustainable Development Policy and Action Plan following the recommendations of the Sustainable Development Commission...I look forward to further breakthroughs in this area as they mainstream sustainable development across all activities" Jonathon Porritt, the Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission.
The National Audit Office assessment of Advantage West Midlands also identified the SDAP as national good practice.
SDAP 2007-8
Advantage West Midlands fed back annual progress on the SDAP to Sustainability West Midlands members meetings where we fed in advice and comments.
SDAP 2008-9
Sustainability West Midlands worked with Advantage West Midlands and Forum for the Future to review the three year progress of the SDAP. This involved using the benchmarking tool again to assess progress, but this time the assessment also involved all the other RDAs to provide a benchmark against peers and identify other sources of good practice.
SDAP 2009-10
We are currently supporting Advantage West Midlands as they revised their next three year SDAP. We are also exploring with the Sustainable Development Commission and Defra how to disseminate this good practice and guidance for SDAPs for regional public sector organizations.
We are also exploring applying this process with a number of regional bodies from our members.
(This project activity delivers our Business plan policy objectives around 1.5 promoting SDAPs for regional organisations)
Links and contact information
Email us at enquiries@swm.org.uk if you would like more information.