Winner of 2015 Green Gown Awards Leadership Award

Dr Jane Davidson established INSPIRE in 2012 to lead a system-based approach throughout UWTSD to deliver educational pathways promoting learning, environmental and social responsibility meeting the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.

Through INSPIRE, the whole university’s operations are now subject to Key Performance Indicators to measure progress on changing its culture, campuses, curriculum and its relationships with communities.

Prior to establishing INSPIRE in 2012, UWTSD had no previous history of involvement in sustainability. Now, three years on, INSPIRE has won the Guardian Award for Sustainability in HE in 2013, the Soil Association Gold Catering Mark for its support for local producers in 2014 – and in 2015, UWTSD rose from 113th in the UK and a 3rd class degree, to a 1st class degree and 8th in UK and 1st in Wales in the People and Planet University League.

Top 3 learnings

1 There needs to be university wide commitment from the governors, staff and students to effect systemic change

2 There need to be metrics to measure the success of the initiative that work within the culture of the university and enable regular reporting at key meetings e.g. Senate, University Council, Senior Directorate and Senior Management Team

3 There need to be opportunities for staff and students to re-interpret the commitments in their own discipline settings.

Click here for the Case Study

A Plea for Future Generations

British Academy blog from Jane Davidson prior to Energy debate on 14/10/15

The UK has an unusual relationship with energy policy and delivery. On the one hand, we have the most liberalised energy provision in Europe, with energy generation having been sold to the market two decades ago – mostly to other countries’ national providers; on the other hand, the UK Government retains control of energy policy to have ‘a single market and regulatory system’ and a ‘unified planning regime’. In reality that disappeared in a puff of smoke when differential devolution of powers to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales took place in 1999. Interestingly, in the sixteen years since devolution there has been no serious discussion across the four nations about how to optimise energy generation – and particularly renewable generation - in the devolved context.

The four countries of the UK now have very different energy consenting powers. Scotland has seized the opportunity with a clear policy focused on renewable energy, using its planning consenting powers and its ability to offer Renewable Obligation Certificates to developers. It has ambitions to be providing 100% carbon neutral energy by 2020 and already produces 26.9% of the UK’s renewable energy.

Wales by contrast only produces a 7.9% contribution. It has the least logical energy settlement of the four countries and there are probably only a handful of people outside politics who know that Wales’ energy powers are only up to 50 megawatts on land (about 10 big turbines) and only 1 megawatt at sea (not even a demonstration project). Since the key driver of the development of energy infrastructure projects is a long-term and stable regulatory environment, it is understandable that the economic opportunities from renewable energy, which Wales has in abundance, have gone north to Scotland.

Energy is contentious. Every source has a negative aspect, whether that be visual (wind/solar), toxic (nuclear), contribution to climate change (fossil fuels) or untried (fracking). Yet, as a society we continue to want more energy. Whilst we might understand intellectually the consequences of continued fossil fuel burning on our current and future climate, governments are concerned at all costs not to interrupt supply to a society dependent on electrically charged technology.

A resilient response to such a challenge would be to have a grand plan for maximising renewable energy across the UK and educating the public about energy efficiency. Wales has great scope to develop further its renewable energy resources as part of its commitment to resilience and living within environmental limits under its new world leading Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act 2015 which requires all public services to take account of the needs of future generations in all policy making. However, the agreed devolution of enhanced Welsh energy consents up to 350mw on land and sea will need to wait for a new Government of Wales Act to be implemented and no date has currently been set. 

Wales has renewable sources in abundance with waves, tides, water and wind being amongst the best in Europe. What is universally agreed as a major economic opportunity for Wales that could contribute towards the wealth, resilience and sustainability of the nation, is currently in limbo, particularly since the recent shock FIT reduction announcement by the UK Government. However, Wales is still an industry leader with the largest off shore wind farm in the world, Gwynt y Mor, and is on the threshold of also being the world leader in tidal energy with the innovative Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project currently in the system. Wales’ energy fuelled an industrial revolution 200 years ago and can again in the future with newer, greener technologies. The ‘Zero Carbon Britain’ work led by a team at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Wales has demonstrated unequivocally that, with the right UK Government backed policies and investments, we could achieve low or zero carbon emissions before the second half of the century with existing technology and without harming economic or social development. If Germany and Sweden can do it, surely we can too?

The British Academy session in Swansea on 14th October 2015 will look at how we connect the moral, financial and economic decisions that we need to make about the costs of generating energy; what influences people to change their energy behaviour and how far we can create alternative models of generating energy locally. This debate is hugely important for all our futures and what demands we make of our governments, particularly in the run up to the UN global conference on climate change in Paris this December. As John Rawls the American philosopher said, ‘Do unto future generations what you would have past generations do unto you’. Come along and have your say.

Leading By Example

Article for "The Environmentalist" Magazine

John Rawls, the American philosopher, talks about inter-generational justice, where each generation should do unto future generations what they would have past generations do unto them. Yet my generation has done the opposite, leaving young people in the UK in 2015 substantially poorer financially than we were at their age, living in a more fearful world and with a rapidly degrading environment. The ‘right’ response – global agreements on climate change for example – is too big to contemplate, even when encouraged as a prudent fiscal measure by the Governor of the Bank of England. We are instead caught perpetually in a virtual Rubick’s cube, where solutions elude us because achieving them is too complex.

Perhaps it is time to re-simplify. Those who have impressed me most in my life, have been people of conviction; people who live according to their values and principles, not people who say one thing and do another. For me, with the acquired wisdom of nearing retirement age, it is becoming increasingly simple; as Gandhi said, ‘Be the change you want to see in the world’. My mission – for as long as I can remember - has been to encourage those I work with to believe that we all have a role in the delivery of this pithy instruction. If we are going to make beneficial changes for people and the planet, ultimately it starts with us all considering the way we live and our actions in leading by example, individually and collectively – and we all need to be leaders now.

I’m lucky. I’m privileged to work in a university; no ivory tower but a regional amalgamation of old and new in beautiful south west Wales – from its roots in Lampeter, the oldest university in England and Wales after Oxford and Cambridge - via its long established campus in Carmarthen to a new city centre neighbourhood university in Swansea with the sod being cut imminently. I lead on integrating sustainability principles through everything we do with the university’s full support. We educate and train primarily those living in our region by aiming to deliver tangible benefits for learners, employers, industry and communities by integrating the principles of ‘employability’ and ’sustainability’.

When I was taken on in 2011 to establish a university institute for sustainability’, I made one condition – that if we were going to advocate sustainability thinking, we had first to become a leader and beacon of excellence ourselves. This has required an intense systemic and systematic approach over 4 years to change our culture, our curriculum, our campuses and our wider community relations. But now, we can see results; the external accolades we win each year help keep the governors on board but it is the internal changes that count – the empowering of the passionate staff and students; the new activities; the 60+ sustainability link contacts in every School and department; the contested places on the Sustainability Committee; the new sustainability led curriculum in every programme on offer. Everyone who has led these changes is a leader in their own right and more are springing up all the time. How better to educate tomorrow’s community leaders than to give our students effective sustainability skills? 

In April 2015, legislation I proposed in 2011, the new “Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act” passed into law requiring all public services organisations in Wales to take into account the needs of future generations. When times are fiscally tough, public services retreat to the delivery of their statutory responsibilities and short-termism which is unsustainable. As a university, having ensured that we are already exceeding the requirements of the Act, we are now ready to help others deliver on their new duties making the future more resilient for people and planet – at least in Wales.

I live in a refurbished barn where we grow most of our own food, run our well insulated house on our own wood, recycle, compost, and use renewable energy. I try to reduce my carbon footprint every year, but know that my individual actions, even if multiplied a million times over, would not secure a better life for future generations.  But I remain optimistic. We may not get a deal on climate change in Paris in 2015, but there is a groundswell of passionate staff and student leaders in universities across the UK and the world who can and should make demands of their institutions to be at the forefront of change.

How can we encourage people to live more sustainably?

Blog by Jane Davidson

I live in a refurbished barn where we grow most of our own food, run our well insulated house on our own wood, recycle, compost, and use renewable energy. I try to reduce my carbon footprint every year - yet nothing I do at home will change the systemic problems that face our generation. Although I firmly believe that the personal and the political should go hand in hand and that we should lead by example, my individual actions, even if multiplied a thousand or million times over, would not secure a better life for future generations.

So how do we make beneficial changes for people and the planet? Ultimately it comes from action, either by governments or people and preferably both. The politics of nudge - small incremental improvements year on year - are utterly insufficient for the challenges ahead. The earth is a single complex system; the global challenge is to maintain the optimal conditions for life. John Rawls, the American philosopher talks about inter-generational justice, where each generation should do unto future generations what they would have wanted past generations to do unto them.

We’ve tried the collective government route. Thousands of politician hours across the world have been spent in making global ‘commitments’ to tackle climate change and repair our damaged ecosystems, and still no one country has set or met the world’s climate or biodiversity conservation challenges. Instead of world leaders responding by strengthening commitments, the opposite has happened; in each area, previously binding commitments have been replaced by non-binding ‘strategic’ targets. The global conferences carry on – we have this year’s in Paris in December - yet so also do atmospheric emissions. Yet there has been no public outcry about the failure of government leaders to secure a safer longer term future for humanity. Business as usual and the systems that underpin it continue. 

With every climatic and biodiversity indicator pointing in the wrong direction, the world stands as if paralysed. Nobody seriously believes that voluntary agreements will deliver, and yet that is the current trend. Collective action of the scale and pace needed requires legal underpinning. In 2012, the Earth Summit in Rio should have given the world a legal institutional framework for sustainable development and the green economy including appropriate monitoring and accountability in our common interest, and an international environmental court, but it failed to do either. Without legislation or regulation, there will be insufficient action.

When the newly devolved National Assembly for Wales came into being in 1999 it had a new and unique duty to promote sustainable development in the exercise of its functions. This was seen as an extremely innovative and exciting duty, representing a new kind of democracy.  By 2009, with the publication of “One Wales One Planet,” the Government in Wales was clearer about the ‘the Wales we want’ which would have certain characteristics. It would

-       live within its environmental limits

-       have healthy, biologically diverse and productive ecosystems

-       have a resilient and sustainable economy

-       have communities which are safe, sustainable, and attractive

-       be a fair, just and bilingual nation

My last political act prior to leaving Government in 2011 was to propose that the commitment to put sustainable development at the heart of government should be a key manifesto commitment. I’m delighted that this was accepted and in its manifesto for the last election, the Government party said it would,

“legislate to embed sustainable development as the central organising principle in all our actions across government and all public bodies, and to monitor that externally”

In January 2015, that commitment was delivered as “The Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act” passed into law. Legislation demonstrates commitment. Prior to my introducing the legislation on recycling which has seen Wales come from behind to outperform the rest of the UK, we had voluntary agreements and targets with the local authorities; prior to my introduction of our carrier bag charge, the retailers’ voluntary agreements couldn’t reduce bag use by 50%; the charge reduced it immediately by 90%, has brought much needed income to the voluntary sector and only this week a survey found 74% of people of Wales in support. Some things need legislation, because they are of wide public benefit but will not be achieved by individual action without a legal basis – smoking and seatbelt legislation come to mind.

If sustainability is our best defence, it needs to be championed by politicians and supported and protected by the law. When times are fiscally tough, public services retreat to the delivery of their statutory responsibilities. Making the future more resilient for people and planet seems to me to be at the heart of responsible government at all levels. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Act has created meaningful legal obligations, supported by monitoring and review mechanisms which impose significant consequences for failure. The Act now needs to be at the heart of the democratic process in Wales; the big vision of a sustainable future that helps the Government take decisions that are consistent with its principles. The Act comes into force in April 2016, a month before the Assembly elections. It will be interesting to see how all parties wrestle with their new obligations to look after the interests of future generations – after all, if governments won’t, who else will?

To ‘LIFE, THE UNIVERSITY AND EVERYTHING’ how should universities educate for a constrained future?'

What are the challenges and opportunities in embedding sustainability throughout a university in relation to the institution’s culture, campus, curriculum and the relationship with the wider community? How do we on the one hand ensure that universities have the appropriate structures to embed futures thinking in everything they do – while still satisfying all the other pressures: REF, discipline benchmarks, QAA etc and, on the other hand, how does such an institutional commitment translate itself into winning hearts and minds to new ways of working among staff, students and employers? I would argue that there must be fundamental principles and systems in place to ensure success.

For the purposes of looking at a systemic approach to embedding any strategic aim into a university’s culture, I will use the word ‘sustainability’ as a shorthand for a commitment to building in future-proofing, systems thinking, creative problem solving, self-awareness/open-mindedness towards difference, understanding of global issues/power relationships and optimism and action for a better world – i.e. the  skills and graduate attributes needed for a constrained future and the role universities should play in that.

Moving expectations of the role of an education system is a long job. Employers recognise excellence of knowledge acquisition and potential in university graduates, but rarely question the content of undergraduate courses, despite the prevailing narrative from business organisations that students do not come into employment with the right skills. Even very large employers don’t generally use their influence to work with universities to define appropriate graduate attributes for those seeking employment in a constrained world. Yet those same businesses are acutely aware of the shifting contexts of climate change, resource depletion, globalisation, insecure energy sources and unstable fiscal mechanisms. A student who has been encouraged to think critically about these issues within and beyond their discipline, has experience of working in an intra-disciplinary team and has developed values about social justice, diversity and human rights is far better placed to explore creative solutions than one who has had no such challenges. Universities have a fundamentally important role in addressing the deficit in the statutory education system which is largely focused on depth rather than breadth.

Thinking sustainably is often seen as a difficult concept, and one where people often feel powerless and frustrated individually when they see governments and others acting in what they perceive as unsustainable ways.  If you interpret sustainable thinking as a process leading to better resource management and better long term decisions, there is a very important role for universities to reduce their own negative impacts and lead by example. Through joint HEA/NUS longitudinal research, we have a 4 year evidence base to show first year students consistently demonstrating that they see an important role for universities in developing sustainability skills and want their institutions to practice what they preach. In universities, the sustainability agenda often starts with Estates Management staff because there are real savings to be had by better carbon, energy, water, waste and environmental resource management systems. The process of thinking about the issues in a whole life-cycle way leads to new and creative opportunities. But there is still often a dislocation between action at the estate level and not engaging similarly with curriculum opportunities. . What is important, for universities which promote sustainability actively, is that they can demonstrate such values across all aspects of their delivery.

Our experience in the University of Wales Trinity Saint David of embedding sustainability throughout the university has used Prof Stephen Sterling’s ‘Future Fit’ framework published by the HEA. Our drivers to encourage our University Council to support the sustainability agenda were many. Among them were the opportunity to create a USP for a new multi-campus dual-sector university; employers’ demands for sustainability skills (creative problem solving/active citizenship);students’ expectations (NUS/HEA studies); research funding opportunities and the ‘Wellbeing of Future Generations’ Bill’ expected to pass into law in 2015. The Bill will legislate to make ‘sustainable development’ the central organising principle of the Welsh Government and public bodies in Wales and create an independent sustainable development body for Wales (a Commissioner for Sustainable Futures). We wanted to take this principle and demonstrate that making sustainability a core value to frame the development of the new university would have positive outcomes for all.

This was not without its challenges however. We needed staff buy-in, management buy-in, governors’ buy-in, student buy-in, community buy in and we needed to show on our campuses that we are serious about the agenda. We started by creating a Sustainability Skills Survey to understanding our staff skills, expertise and experience, identify champions and give us an indication of what capacity building was needed. Asking staff for their views on how the University should take this agenda forward gave us the opportunity to create a bottom up approach and quantitative and qualitative data on how to use our staff resources to best effect.

Alongside this work, the University also rewrote its strategic plan; Transforming Education, Transforming Lives’. This defined our high level ambitions including Sustainable Development and led to the concept of the University providing to all its students ‘An ‘Inspired’ Education’ to ensure that our graduates are fit for the future and that their professional practice is sustainable for generations to come." Prof Medwin Hughes, Vice-Chancellor. However, the governors in particular were keen to see that this was not simply rhetoric but would be delivered as part pf a coherent approach across the university. 4 key performance indicators were established for 2014-2015

•       Improve our classification in the People and Planet Green League.

•       Embed Faculty sustainability plans throughout the academic and support structures

•       Complete curriculum audits and develop the curriculum with regard to sustainability

•       Maximise research, project and consultancy income related to sustainability

The University also revisited its graduate attributes adding in:  

•       Active Citizenship: able to appreciate the importance of environmental, social and political contexts to their studies;

•       Creative Problem Solving: able to think creatively, holistically, and systemically and make critical judgements on issues;

Now, with faculty plans in place which are monitored regularly, the first curriculum audits across all faculties completed last year, validation procedures that fully reflect the strategic commitment to sustainability; sustainability requirements incorporated into staff development and job descriptions; regular meetings with Deans, Heads of School, Sustainability Link Contacts in all departments and INSPIRE student interns, we can say that the University is at the starting blocks. Delighted as we were that we rose from 113th to 8th in the UK and 1st in Wales in the People and Planet University League in 2015, we know that this is the beginning. For this agenda to work across the University, staff and students need to see how it enhances their student experience and improves their employability.

One of the desired outcomes of promoting sustainability through the university must be to encourage staff and students to also live more sustainably in their own lives for example taking the ecological footprint test: http://www.bestfootforward.com/resources/ecological-footprint/ or http://footprint.wwf.org.uk/  While not arguing that the ecological footprint is anything more than a proxy indicator, what it does for people who are starting on this agenda is enable them to see quickly and clearly how their personal decisions in relation to housing including energy (25%),food (20%), transport (18%) and stuff (37%) impact on their scores. Those people who think recycling their own waste can replace driving gas guzzling cars, taking regular flights or consumerism will have a rude awakening if they respond to the tool honestly and will find they are using upwards of three planets to support their lifestyle instead of the one we have available to us.

If we are going to do our job properly as educators of the next generation, we need to make sure that the curriculum is fit for purposes and as relevant as possible, recognising the challenges of our age. Education for a more sustainable future is about ensuring that students leave university with in depth knowledge from their discipline and an approach to life that is adaptable, resilient and questioning. In the Faculty of Humanities in the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, our second year undergraduate students learn about research skills through a sustainability lens and engage in inter-disciplinary work on an intra-faculty basis to report outcomes through a student conference. How much more exciting, challenging and relevant than a more traditional method of learning? If we take this philosophy and apply it across all that we do in universities, we will educate the next generations’ leaders to be more socially and economically responsible and have greater regard to environmental limits. And in the words of the experts:

•        “If you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had” Mark Twain

•       “It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”    Charles Darwin

•       “Do unto future generations what you would have past generations do unto you”  John Rawls

Contribution to David Thorpe's book 'The One Planet Life'

A significant book The One Planet Life has been published that is being billed as a successor to John Seymour's 'Self Sufficiency', in that it comprehensively and practically tells people how to reduce their impact upon the environment. At the same time it is an appeal for governments and planners to have a new attitude to development, planning and land management to take into account the full environmental impact of human activities.

The One Planet Life demonstrates a path for everyone towards a way of life in which we don’t act as if we had more than one planet Earth. Much of the book is a manual – with examples – on how to live the 'good life' and reduce your impacts upon the environment to lower your 'ecological footprint'.  The average UK citizen is unfortunately using more than three and a half times the amount of resources than the country can sustainably manage.

This book particularly examines the pioneering Welsh policy, One Planet Development but also considers efforts towards 'one planet' living in urban areas.

 It contains detailed guides on: sustainable building, supplying your own food, generating renewable energy, reducing carbon emissions from travel, land management, water supply and waste treatment, plus 20 exemplary examples. It contains an introduction by former Welsh Environment Minister Jane Davidson, and a foreword from the co-founder of BioRegional and One Planet Living, Pooran Desai.

 Author David Thorpe said: "The One Planet Life is perhaps the non-fiction book I was meant to write, the combination of everything I have learned, plus the collected wisdom of the scores of people I interviewed who are living the one planet life now. The book provides people with the tools to empower themselves and make their lives and the country as a whole more resilient.

 "It's easy to give into a sense of fatalism when faced with climate change and other ecological challenges, but this book decisively shows how to take matters into your own hands."

 Jane Davidson said: " Throughout this book you will read how those who have embraced this lifestyle fully feel liberated by their choice: they have reconnected with nature; they understand the seasons and where food comes from and the limitations of what can/cannot be grown or reared where they live; they can offer a different, more sustainable future to their offspring. Not everyone will want to take the great leap into the unknown, but all of us can use this book to help us demonstrate the principles of one planet living in one or more parts of our lives."

 Pooran Desai said: "This thought-provoking book summarises some of the approaches which can help us on the journey - so please read, learn, practise and share.  There are many already on the journey and we can, together, co-create a better future."

 Quotes:

·      "A wealth of practical detail" - Oliver Tickell, editor, The Ecologist magazine

·      “Shows the journey to a new life.” – George Marshall

·      "What it means to live a 'one-planet' lifestyle" – Prof Max Munday, Cardiff Business School

 The One Planet Council, of which David is a patron along with Jane Davidson, is behind this title. Jane proposed and was responsible for the One Planet Development policy when she was Minister.

 The One Planet Life by David Thorpe is an illustrated non-fiction guide published by Routledge (part of Taylor and Francis) on November 13 2014. 438pp, 382 full colour illustrations. Paperback: £26.99 

See: http://www.routledge.com/books/details/9780415738552/

Contribution by Jane Davidson

Can politics change anything? I believe it can. Following the referendum on the creation of the National Assembly for Wales in 1997, won with just 51% of the vote, slowly, quietly, the seed of an idea was sown. The idea was partly a response to a call from people across Wales that their new National Assembly for Wales should also be a new kind of political institution, taking into account future generations in its decisions rather than the usual short term political cycles.  The seed took root, a campaign was developed and a partnership between non-governmental organisations such as RSPB and WWF, academics and MPs influenced the then Secretary of State for Wales, Ron Davies MP to introduce a clause into the first Government of Wales Bill 1998 that the National Assembly should set out how it proposed to promote sustainable development in the exercise of its functions where the goal of sustainable development is to “enable all people throughout the world to satisfy their basic needs and enjoy a better quality of life without compromising the quality of life of future generations” (1)

Such an approach was entirely novel and set Wales apart as one of only a very small number of nations across the world with such a distinctive statutory duty. Its potential was huge. The idea had all party support. The first Assembly Members elected in 1999 were a new political class who, for the first time in the UK, were being asked to actively enhance the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of people and communities not yet born to achieve a better quality of life for our own and future generations.

In the first ten years of the Assembly’s life, under this banner, a number of moves were made to create policies to achieve greater sustainability that were unique to Wales; in my own areas of responsibility over the years for example, we required the introduction of Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship (ESDGC) throughout the education system and funded schools to become eco-schools; we ramped up sustainability requirements for public buildings, we introduced more rigorous planning  and energy efficiency requirements for sustainable homes; we introduced charging for carrier bags and legislated to increase recycling which has seen Wales coming from behind to outperform other parts of the UK.

We also encouraged others to create their own sustainable development policies and opportunities. Pembrokeshire County Council responded by introducing the radical ‘Policy 52’, the first of its kind, setting the context for permitting development in the countryside which contributes to the agenda of sustainable development. This was a really exciting move in a county that had been attracting pioneers for alternative land uses for decades including the eponymous John Seymour, whose name became synonymous with ‘self sufficiency’ from the publication of ‘the New Complete Book of Self-sufficiency’ in 1976 to The Self-sufficient Life and How to Live it’ in 2003; and whose message about the benefits of living such a life in north Pembrokeshire was taken to heart by thousands of current and future smallholders including me.

The planners were careful though. Policy 52 had a number of untried and untested conditions prior to granting planning approval for your low impact dwelling. Proof was required that there would be a positive contribution in terms of the environment, the use of resources, and a combination of social and economic benefits, and that the proposals would achieve a neutral or at least the lowest possible adverse impact. Eight criteria were set, all of which had to be met for a development to be permitted. In addition, applications needed to be accompanied by a management plan and applicants had to agree to the production of an annual monitoring report. Additional guidance spelt out the requirements for both including that 75% or more of basic household needs would be met by means of activities centred around the use of resources grown, reared or occurring naturally on the site. It was expected for this to be achieved within three years or in exceptional circumstances, five years. Clearly, not a policy for the fainthearted! There is a horrible irony that it should be so much harder and require so much more paper to submit an application to live lightly on the planet.

In June 2007, Lammas – a collective of families wanting to develop the first planned UK ecovillage -submitted its first planning application for nine family homes with eight acres each and a community hall in Glandwr in North Pembrokeshire, not far from where John Seymour had lived. The proposed village was to be on a south facing slope with water and woodland and was supported by the local farmer. The application was seen as highly controversial and given short thrift. A second planning application was submitted in May 2008 and received a similar fate. Undaunted, Lammas submitted a third application with a revised management plan in November 2008. This time, the council didn’t oppose it – just didn’t determine it. Watching it from afar through press and media reports, I was interested that a modest proposal for nine families to experiment with an alternative lifestyle on a site that could only be seen from distant hills was arousing such strong feelings.

Clearly, the Lammas proposal was testing new ground and in doing so also exposed a fundamental gap between the council’s aspirations in creating its Section 52 policy and its execution through the planning system. The council was happy to be seen to support to pioneer non-traditional ways of building and land-use management, on paper, but crumbled in the face of local opposition to those who wanted to turn that into practice. Somehow, in the furore, the fact that low impact dwellings would not only contribute towards a better future but also enable young people to have access to affordable housing with land in the countryside was lost.

Questions being asked in Pembrokeshire were also being asked of the Government. How serious was the Government in its approach to sustainable development? Did having a duty to promote sustainable development make Welsh Government policies any different? After all, in 2005, all parts of the UK had signed up to a shared statement on sustainable development. There were challenges as to whether making such changes in Wales would impact negatively on our global competitiveness – or why do it anyway when the impact of Wales is too small in global terms to make a difference. From 2008, these questions were gathering pace and in May 2009, they were answered with the publication of “One Wales One Planet” which laid out a government vision of putting sustainable development at the epicentre of government and encouraged others to embrace sustainable development as their central organising principle. ‘One Wales One Planet’ aimed to give people the confidence to be imaginative; to provide the strong sense of purpose and direction necessary to deliver real and lasting changes to transform people’s lives all over Wales.

The vision of a more sustainable Wales is one where Wales (2)

·      lives within its environmental limits, using only its fair share of the earth’s resources so that our ecological footprint is reduced to the global average availability of resources, and we are resilient to the impacts of climate change;

·      has healthy, biologically diverse and productive ecosystems that are managed sustainably;

·      has a resilient and sustainable economy that is able to develop whilst stabilising, then reducing, its use of natural resources and reducing its contribution to climate change;

·      has communities which are safe, sustainable, and attractive places for people to live and work, where people have access to services, and enjoy good health;

·      is a fair, just and bilingual nation, in which citizens of all ages and backgrounds are empowered to determine their own lives, shape their communities and achieve their full potential.

The intention was to ensure that within the lifetime of a generation, ie, by the middle of the century, Wales would be using only its fair share of the earth’s resources, approximately 1.88 global hectares per person as measured by ecological footprinting. This would require radical lifestyle change, but if there was support for the direction of travel, there arehuge community and economic benefits to be had. Even so, the challenge is awesome. To achieve this goal over a generation, ie by 2050, there will need to be a reduction by at least two thirds of the total resources we currently use to sustain our lifestyles. In energy, this means a 80-90% reduction in our use of carbon-based energy over 40 years, resulting in a similar reduction in our greenhouse gas emissions; all new buildings will need to be zero carbon buildings; electricity should be produced from renewable sources; we will need to become a zero waste nation, to live and work in ways in ways which have a much stronger connection with our local economies and communities; to source more of our food locally and in season; to manage ecosystems sustainably and do all of the above in ways which make us a fairer society. In other words, to be a ‘One Planet Society’.

The Cabinet – the One Wales coalition between Labour and Plaid Cymru - signed up to the vision unanimously and the Rt Hon Rhodri Morgan AM, the redoubtable First Minister of Wales said, (3)

“I want a Wales fit for generations to come… What motivates me is doing my best to ensure a brighter more sustainable future for my grandchildren and their grandchildren and every other child growing up in Wales today. Top of the list of our priorities which will continue to improve the quality of life for people today and in the future is sustainability.”

2009 was an optimistic time. 17 years on from the first Rio conference in 1992, European leaders were preparing to make key commitments on emission reduction. Climate change legislation had been introduced in the UK. World powers were due to meet in Copenhagen in December 2009 to ratify a global treaty to bring down carbon emissions. The cross-party, cross-sector Climate Change Commission in Wales wrote a vision of what a sustainable Wales would look like  (4) – to make it clear that although there were huge changes in our individual and community behaviour that would be needed to deliver a more sustainable Wales; that the changes could be planned for over the next four decades and would lead to more positive, safe and resilient communities in Wales and would contribute towards Wales being seen as a leader of small nations and regions in Europe and further afield.

What a sustainable Wales would look like

 “Across society there is recognition of the need to live sustainably and reduce our carbon footprint. People understand how they can contribute to a low carbon low waste society and what other sectors are doing to help. These issues are formally embedded in the curriculum and workplace training. People are taking action to reduce resource use, energy use and waste. They are more strongly focused on environmental, social and economic responsibility and on local quality of life issues and there is less emphasis on consumerism. Participation and transparency are key principles of Government at every level and individuals have become stewards of natural resources.”

In July 2009, in line with ‘One Wales One Planet’, the Welsh Assembly Government changed its planning guidance for rural areas in a draft revised Technical Advice Note (TAN) 6: “Agricultural and Rural Development” and proposed new ‘One Planet Developments’ based largely on the Policy 52 policy that had been unique to Pembrokeshire. Planning decision-making processes rely on custom and practice about what is acceptable in local areas over many years. Having seen the difficulties in Pembrokeshire over the previous two years in delivering on a novel policy, the government decided that making such a policy national – ie across the whole of Wales - would normalise it and would encourage a range of One Planet Developments across Wales that would have local characteristics reflecting local circumstances, but would be part of a bigger government vision to encourage a national debate about low impact lives. From the government perspective, this was about a clear direction of travel – all future buildings and lifestyles should be low impact and the pioneers of low carbon, low ecological footprint lifestyles now should be supported and encouraged as they forged a way forward that would help others learn lessons in their wake and demonstrate positive responses to our ecological and carbon challenges.

Following the publication of the consultation document, the appeal by Lammas against Pembrokeshire County Council’s non determination of their 21 November 2008 planning application was heard by the Planning Inspectorate on 27th August 2009 and allowed. The UK’s first planned eco-village was born. It had not been an easy birth. The application in the end had taken a wheelbarrow load of paper submissions, three planning applications and significant bureaucratic and other opposition. Only the dogged determination of the applicants to be prepared to revisit and rewrite the thousands of pages of their application and their commitment to win support for their initiative using the planning system prior to development rather than retrospectively saw them through. This is not how pioneers of a healthier, less wealthy lifestyle should be treated by those who profess to want to deliver the same outcomes.

Although there is always an inherent danger of using the experience of the particular to inform a more general policy, Lammas’ successful appeal meant that in my role as Planning Minister, I could now meet for the first time those who had been involved in the Lammas application and understand the key planning issues from their perspective prior to our introducing the new TAN 6 planning policy following the consultation. It was an interesting first meeting. I am a passionate believer in not allowing unfettered development in the countryside and using the planning system to develop and maintain strong rural communities. So were the Lammas applicants. I am a passionate believer in creating an effective and fair planning system that is responsive to ecological challenges and encourages innovation. So were the Lammas applicants. I am also fully aware that if we want more people to live more sustainable lifestyles, governments need to make that the norm.

From my perspective, the idea of national planning guidance supporting One Planet Developments was not to build ‘hobbit houses’ across Wales but for builders and developers to be experimental with local materials. There is nothing to stop a One Planet Development looking like any other house built from local materials as you will see in the exemplars described in this book. Only last year, ‘Ty Solar (Solar House) was built as a demonstration house, again in north Pembrokeshire out of local wood according to Welsh space standards for social housing. Slowly, and I hope surely, the revolution is starting. There are still major challenges; despite the policy being in place since 2010, most applications are still being turned down; the interface between planning and building regulations for low impact developments needs to be resolved as does insurance for non-traditional buildings in the age of the computer-programmed insurance market. But these issues are solvable. The Welsh Government’s higher environmental standards are already paying off in terms of public buildings. The big challenge now is to ensure that those who want to be the pioneers of ‘one planet living’ are given a fair wind and that their planning applications are of the highest possible standard taking into account all the relevant issues.

This book should be read by planners, by policy makers and by applicants. You will be challenged, but you will also be helped to make the best possible planning application to live lightly on the land. There is an increasing amount of support out there. The Lammas website is a huge resource for anyone wanting to go on this journey. A new One Planet Council, made up of those who want to support and promote One Planet Developments is being established as I write. I believe that One Planet Developments provide a way for people to live with genuinely sustainable social, economic and environmental benefits, supporting affordable housing, self-employment and greater productivity on agricultural land. Because they are quantified by ecological footprinting, (which shows how much of the Earth's resources people are consuming) when households reduce their own ecological footprints this helps their country reduce its overall footprint. The new One Planet Council aims to support those who are making the transition to this more sustainable way of life by providing guidance and tools working together with all those with an interest in One Planet Developments: local planning authorities, policy makers, academics, landowners, and those already living on and planning to live on such sites.

The seed that was planted in 1998 with promoting sustainable development being part of the Government of Wales Act has been dormant for a decade. Now with the help of those who have believed in living in the future, it is time for a thousand flowers to bloom. Good luck!

How can we encourage people to live more sustainably?

Contribution to ‘Ecolibrium Now: The Earth in Balance a Creative Tapestry in Support of Ending’, a book by artists, writers, poets, farmers and others who support the creation of a new international law to protect nature from Ecocide.

In my personal life, we grow most of our own food, we run our well insulated house on our own wood, we recycle, we compost and use renewable energy. But my individual and privileged life choices – because I had the income to make these changes – do nothing to change the systemic problems that face our generation. Although I firmly believe that the personal and the political should go hand in hand, my individual actions, even if multiplied a thousand times over, woukd not secure a better future for others.

So how do we make beneficial change for people and planet? At the end of the day, it comes from systemic action, either by governments (eg setting up the NHS) or where systemic public support becomes irresistible (eg civil liberties).  The politics of nudge - small incremental improvements year on year - are utterly insufficient for the challenges ahead. Once you look at the earth as a single complex system, the global challenge is to maintain the optimal conditions for life. Taking a systemic approach also enables us to understand  the interaction and the effect of action of one part of the world on another. John Rawls, the American philosopher adds another layer by focusing on  inter-generational justice, where each generation should do unto future generations what they would have wanted past generations to do unto them.

Despite thousands of politician hours across the world being spent in making global commitments to tackle climate change and repair our damaged ecosystems, no one country has set or met the climate or biodiversity conservation challenges. Rather than strengthening the world commitments, in each area binding commitments have been replaced by non-binding strategic targets going forward to 2020 which also are unlikely to be met. The conferences carry on with their consequent emissions and there been no public outcry about the failure of government leaders to secure a safer longer term future for humanity. Business as usual and the systems that underpin it continue.

Attempts to use the language of business to make the argument, eg the Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity (the TEEB study) in 2010, have briefly flourished and then been largely forgotten although we do now have a global standard basis for natural capital accounting as a result. Various estimates establish the cost of biodiversity and ecosystem damage potentially at 18% of global economic output by 2050 – or between 2-6 trillion US$ pa. In the UK alone, I’m told, pollination without bees (and far more inefficiently) will cost us in the region of £435m pa.

With every indicator pointing in the same direction, the world stands as if paralysed. Nobody seriously believes that voluntary agreements will deliver, and yet that is the current trend. Collective action of the scale and pace needed requires legal underpinning as with the previous Kyoto Protocol. In 2012, the Earth Summit in Rio should have given the world a legal institutional framework for sustainable development and the green economy including appropriate monitoring and accountability in our common interest, and an international environmental court, but it failed to do either. Polly Higgins’ campaign to establish “Ecocide” as the fifth crime against humanity focuses on the need for enforceable, legally binding mechanisms in national and international law to hold to account perpetrators of long term severe damage to the environment. As an ex barrister who fully understands the importance of systems, Polly is a powerful proponent of changing the territory: establishing the fifth crime against humanity will inextricably link our futures with the health of the planet.

This link between people and planet really interests me. When the new, devolved Welsh Assembly came into being in 1999 it had a new and unique duty to promote sustainable development in the exercise of its functions. This was seen as extremely innovative and exciting duty, representing a new kind of democracy. It was supported by members of all parties. But there was no definition of sustainable development. Broadly there was support for what is usually known as the ‘Brundtland’ definition

 "..development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs

But interpreting this in a way to influence all government  decisions in Wales was hard.

It would be fair to say the duty inspired some different and radical policies, eg the innovative Wales for Africa programme as a contribution to millennium development goals, the commitment to fair trade which saw Wales become the first Fairtrade country in the world, and the development of high level indicators on the economy, social justice, environment, the ecological footprint and wellbeing  in recognition of the need for metrics against which real performance can be measured.

In its first ten years, the Welsh Government honed its thinking on sustainable development culminating in the publication of “One Wales One Planet,” in 2009, where the Government sought public support for a more sustainable Wales was being described as a country which

•       lives within its environmental limits, using only its fair share of the earth’s resources so that our ecological footprint is reduced to the global average availability of resources, and we are resilient to the impacts of climate change

•       has healthy, biologically diverse and productive ecosystems that are managed sustainably;

•       has a resilient and sustainable economy that is able to develop whilst stabilising, then reducing, its use of natural resources and reducing its contribution to climate change;

•       has communities which are safe, sustainable, and attractive places for people to live and work, where people have access to services, and enjoy good health;

•       is a fair, just and bilingual nation, in which citizens of all ages and backgrounds are empowered to determine their own lives, shape their communities and achieve their full potential.

Perhaps more importantly, it articulated a collective commitment from all ministers to use sustainable development as the central organising principle of government and made an explicit commitment to bring down Wales ecological footprint to its fair share within the lifetime of a generation.

To make sustainable development real, it must be outcome focused. In order to test whether the political commitment to have sustainability at the heart of government policy making was delivering different outcomes through the civil service, the Welsh Auditor General decided to investigate whether the concept was adequately embedded in the government’s  own business practices – and found that it wasn’t.

Separately, WWF Cymru commissioned a piece of independent research looking at ministers’ policy commitments and whether they were actively delivering on the overarching agenda. Even in my areas of work as Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, we were found wanting, although for the first time, key policy decisions were taken in Wales on waste, on carrier bags on climate change, on retrofitting housing, on sustainability requirements in planning, on introducing Education for Sustainable Development and Global Citizenship into the Welsh curriculum were directly linked to sustainable development and were inherently different from decisions being taken elsewhere in the UK.

Two key lessons came out of this experience. First, that the duty was not being delivered consistently; and second, that that the existing legislation from the Government of Wales Act, although innovative, was inadequate to guide policy makers..

Mark Twain once said, if you always do what you've always done, you'll always get what you've always had” and that is no longer good enough.

My last political act prior to leaving Government in 2011 was to propose, that the commitment to put sustainable development at the heart of government should be a key manifesto commitment. I’m delighted that this was accepted and in its manifesto for the last election, the Government party outlined its vision for

" a sustainable Wales to become a ‘one planet’ nation by putting sustainable development at the heart of government; creating a resilient and sustainable economy that lives within its environmental limits and only using our fair share of the earth’s resources to sustain our lifestyles." 

That commitment is now being taken forward. The First Minister of Wales announced in 2011 that the Government of Wales would,

  “Legislate to embed sustainable development as the central organising principle in all our actions across government and all public bodies.

and to monitor that externally:

this legislative commitment will be monitored externally by a new independent sustainable development body for Wales following the demise of the UK wide Sustainable Development Commission .

‘The Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill’ was published in July 2014 and as I write has just commenced its committee cycle.

Like Polly Higgins, I believe that the interrelationship between people and planet is so important, it needs protecting in law. Prior to my introducing the legislation on recycling which has seen Wales come from behind to outperform the rest of the UK, we had voluntary agreements and targets with the local authorities; prior to my introduction of our carrier bag charge, the retailers’ voluntary agreements couldn’t reduce bag use by 50%; the charge reduced it immediately by 90% and has brought much needed income to the voluntary sector. Some things need legislation, because they are of wide public benefit but will not be achieved by individual action without a legal basis – smoking and seatbelt legislation come to mind.

If sustainability is our best defence, it needs to be championed by the democratic classes and supported and protected by the law. When times are fiscally tough, public services retreat to the delivery of their statutory responsibilities. Making the future more resilient for people and planet seems to me to be at the heart of responsible government at all levels. The Wellbeing of Future Generations Bill must have teeth if it is to enable Wales to develop socially, economically and environmentally just policies for future generations. The Bill will need to create meaningful legal obligations, supported by monitoring and review mechanisms which impose significant consequences for failure. The Bill needs to be at the heart of the democratic process in Wales; the big vision of a sustainable future that helps the Government take decisions that are consistent with its principles.

We won’t know what the Bill will look like until it has been through its democratic processes, but assuming its core principle remain unchanged, I would expect future governments to be having some very serious discussions about what it means to live within environmental limits – and who knows? Perhaps in the future, Wales could use its legal commitment to future generations to be at the forefront of eradicating ecocide.

A Plea for Common Sense

ClickonWales article by Jane Davidson, member of the Silk Commission established by the UK Government to scrutinise where powers should best be exercised in relation to Wales and the UK and make recommendations accordingly.”

The recommendations are from the Commission, the analysis is my own.

The UK Government has an unusual relationship with energy policy and delivery. On the one hand, we have the most liberalised energy provision in Europe, with energy generation having been sold to the market two decades ago – mostly to other countries’ national providers; on the other hand, it retains as much central control of energy policy as possible. Its aspiration, as it told the Silk Commission, was to have ‘a single market and regulatory system’ and a ‘unified planning regime’ but in reality that disappeared in a puff of smoke when differential devolution of powers to Scotland, Northern Ireland and Wales took place in 1999. Interestingly, in the fifteen years since devolution there has been no serious discussion about how to optimise energy generation in the devolved context.

The four countries of the UK now have very different energy consenting powers. Scotland has seized the opportunity with a clear policy focused on renewable energy, using its consenting powers and the ability to offer Renewable Obligation Certificates to developers. It has ambitions to be providing 100% carbon neutral energy by 2020 and already produces 26.9% of the UK’s renewable energy.

Wales by contrast only produces a 7.9% contribution. It has the least logical energy settlement of the four countries and there are probably only a handful of people outside politics who know that Wales’ energy powers are up to 50 megawatts on land (about 10 big turbines) and only 1 megawatt at sea (not even a demonstration project) unless the applicant has chanced upon the rather cumbersome Transport and Works Act where any project of any size would fall to Welsh Ministers. The current settlement is complex and difficult and since the key driver of the development of energy infrastructure projects is a long-term and stable regulatory environment, it is understandable that the economic opportunities from renewable energy, which Wales has in abundance, have gone north to Scotland.

Energy is contentious. Every source has a negative aspect, whether that be visual (wind/solar), toxic (nuclear), contribution to climate change (fossil fuels) or untried (fracking). As I write, there have been two key announcements today; the European Commission agreeing to support Hinckley C with its 35 year guaranteed funding package and the Austrian Government’s challenge of the same on economic and ecological grounds to the European Court of Justice. Yet, as a society we continue to want more energy. Whilst we might understand intellectually the consequences of continued fossil fuel burning on our current and future climate, warnings about future supply shortages fall on deaf ears to a generation brought up on electrically charged technology.

As a commission, we were particularly interested in Welsh opportunities for renewable energy generation but found that whilst Wales has great scope to develop further its energy resources, current arrangements on energy consents appear to have no rational or principled basis.  These are important findings as they demonstrate that not only is there is a major economic opportunity for Wales that could contribute towards the wealth and resilience of the nation, but that the current arrangements are irrational and require urgent attention.

What was less clear was what to recommend. Options ranged from devolving all energy consenting powers to restoring them entirely to Westminster, with changing the threshold of devolved consents or fully devolving renewable energy consents falling in between. As a Commission made up of all these views, we had to navigate our own way to an agreed outcome. Returning powers to Westminster was neither practicable nor desirable as Scotland and Northern Ireland would have retained their additional powers. Devolving consents fully to Wales was rejected largely on capacity and expertise issues. While we were attracted to recommending that Wales had total authority over renewable energy, we were concerned that it would be difficult to change the balance of generation by controlling only one type of energy. Finally we were all able to come behind the idea of a threshold.

The threshold of 350 megawatts we suggest will increase Wales’ powers sevenfold. Bringing most renewable power stations within a Welsh system was also the preference of the people of Wales, as identified in our public research. But probably what clinched the level was the opportunity to recommend that Wales should determine projects like the innovative Swansea Bay Tidal Lagoon project currently in the system. Wales has been an energy leader in the past and can be again in the future with newer, greener technologies, but until the consenting process is addressed, it will not reach its full potential. Perhaps the time is right for a little less politics and a little more common sense.

Tribute to Morgan Parry

Article in Natur Cymru

In 2007 I became Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing. One of the first people across my doorstep was Morgan, then Director of WWF in Wales, delighted by my new responsibilities and determined to help me make the most of the opportunity. That was my first meeting with him; the first of many.

Morgan Parry

Morgan was continually seeking collaborative solutions to environmental threats. The establishment of the Welsh Climate Change Commission was influenced by Morgan, as was the narrative around ‘One Wales One Planet’, the 2009 initiative to put sustainable development at the heart of government decision making. In 2010, he became the Chair of Countryside Council for Wales where he supported merging the Countryside Council for Wales, the Environment Agency and the Forestry Commission into Natural Resources Wales to strengthen its voice.

Morgan’s influence was profound because he lived his values. He worried about his and Wales’ carbon footprint, acted accordingly, and challenged the rest of us to do the same. He was a Cymro to the core. If my own Welsh is better discussing the environment than it is for social actions, that is down to Morgan; ever patient, ever helpful, and ever determined that he should be able to use his first language to express his views.

 Morgan may have been cruelly wrenched from his family before his time, but his influence lives on in us all. It is now our job to make sure that we create a legacy from his passing to inspire future generations to care as he did.

Sustainability and Employability - a Dream Ticket for South West Wales?

Article for “South Wales Business Review”

“A vision without action is just a dream; an action without vision just passes time; a vision with an action changes the world.”

-Nelson Mandela

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change”

-Charles Darwin

Introduction

There is a big vision for south west Wales in the air at the moment, a vision of transforming one of the most beautiful parts of Wales and the United Kingdom into an attractive destination for more knowledge orientated activities, particularly in energy, advanced engineering/high value manufacturing, tourism/food, architectural services, legal and accounting, media, IT, business services, construction and real estate.

Delivery of this big vision is at the heart of the new Swansea Bay City Region approach across the 4 local authorities – Pembrokeshire,  Carmarthenshire, Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot - serving  a population of 685,000, supporting some 280,000 jobs, and containing around 20,000 businesses.  The new Swansea Bay City Region’s Economic Strategy 2013-2030 makes it clear that the vision must be sustainable, delivering opportunities for future generations, not just for the present.  It must embrace long term solutions – some of which will be extremely difficult and challenging – building on the City Region’s existing strengths, whilst being responsive to new opportunities. It recognises that protecting and enhancing our substantial environmental assets is an essential component of the regeneration goals. The strategy does not call for quick fixes as past experience tells us that stubborn problems cannot be addressed in this way.  

The Challenge

In this article, I’m going to argue that if the principles of sustainability can underpin the City Region approach, then the stage is set for a hugely exciting, transformative development; playing to our environmental strengths, while fostering a collaborative and co-operative approach to a more socially just economy in south west Wales.

We are privileged to live in a glorious, natural environment which includes  320 miles of coastline i.e. more than 30% of the new Wales Coast Path, two National Parks, the first Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) in the UK – the Gower peninsula – and dynamic urban centres including Swansea city centre, and attractive market towns serving as local economic, leisure and service hubs.  We have globally significant firms, for example, Tata Steel in Neath Port Talbot and Valero in Pembrokeshire. We have two universities, providing a valuable mix of research-oriented and applied educational and innovation opportunities, as well as major tourism assets and leisure attractions. We can provide an affordable choice for families, with an average housing cost of under £110k, compared to more than £160k in the UK as a whole.  In a number of key sectors we have the potential to drive real productivity gains and boost our economic competitiveness, both through our existing companies and potentially through new in-movers and further enterprise development in energy, advanced engineering/high value manufacturing, construction, tourism, media, IT and business services.

But even with all these advantages, a major productivity gap has emerged between the City Region, the rest of Wales and the UK.  In 2010, our productivity was equivalent to only 94% of the Welsh level and 77% of the UK total. On skills, we have insufficient people with higher level qualifications and too many people with no qualifications at all. Only 28% of our residents have NVQ4+ qualifications (degree level or equivalent), compared to 33% across the UK. Further, 14% of our working age residents have no qualifications, against a comparable figure of 11% in the UK.  

We don’t fare well on unemployment and economic inactivity either. All places across the UK have suffered as a result of the recession in terms of rising unemployment and economic inactivity.  However, economic activity is now well below national levels – at 71% compared to 76% in the UK (and 72% in Wales).  Further, jobs are all too often in those occupations which tend to pay relatively little.

The Delivery

Mark Twain once famously said “If you always do what you’ve always done, you’ll always get what you’ve always had”. The new opportunity of the Swansea Bay City Region is an opportunity to do things differently; to not just try and drag a share of any investment in SE Wales into SW Wales but to play to our strengths – the landscape, the seascape and the quality of life, and target what will work best for us and best for the companies we want to attract, because that will also be best for Wales.

First and foremost, we have to tackle the skills deficit in our region.  Our ability to attract the very companies we would want is substantially diminished by having  3% more unqualified residents and 5% fewer residents  qualified to degree level or above, than other parts of the UK.  Closing this gap is daunting, but we have the advantage of a couple of unique collaborations here which could play a significant targeted role in up-skilling the population.

The first is the unique Central and South West Wales Regional Learning Partnership (RLP) which brings together local government (both education and regeneration), the two universities – Swansea and the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, the five colleges of further education, third sector partners, work- based learning and private sector representatives, JobCentre Plus and Careers Wales. It covers the local authority boundaries of Carmarthenshire CC, Ceredigion CC, Neath Port Talbot CBC, Pembrokeshire CC, Powys CC and the City & County of Swansea with the aim of ensuring publically funded learning providers and associated organisations work collaboratively, effectively and efficiently across the areas of education and regeneration to meet the needs of learners and the regional economy in the region. Ultimately, the partnership seeks to align regional learning and employment needs activity to the regional economic context. The RLP is the only one of its kind and  has been acknowledged by Welsh Government as ‘transformational’ for its ability to plan collaboratively across sectors, to identify gaps and to provide high quality data on the basis of which members can take decisions about how and where to invest in up-skilling. The RLP is currently facilitating the development of the Swansea Bay City Region plan for employability and skills.

The second unique collaboration is my university, the newly transformed University of Wales Trinity Saint David (UWTSD), including Coleg Sir Gar and Coleg Ceredigion, with 20,000 students (check) on three  campuses in Swansea, five in Carmarthenshire, three in Ceredigion and two in London as well as the Wales International Academy of Voice based in Cardiff.  

This is a new university model – a first for Wales - designed to serve the city region by delivering tangible benefits for learners, employers, industry and communities by offering a new integrated approach from school level to post-doctoral research across the Swansea Bay City Region, thereby actively addressing the skills gaps identified.  The University intends to play a pivotal role in the promotion of social justice, economic renewal and the development of cultural and environmental wealth, for full time and part time students.  As I write, staff members across the university are busy reviewing our current courses, testing their fitness for purpose and creating new ones for next September focused on employers’ needs using data from the RLP.

Having looked at universities across the world, the new UWTSD has very specifically put the principles of ‘employability’ and ’sustainability’ at the heart of the new university’s strategic plan. Rather than focus exclusively on our individual course offer, as universities have often historically done, we also intend to focus on the graduate attributes we want our students to demonstrate. Quite simply, we want our graduates to become the next generation of creative problem solvers and active citizens – to be able to appreciate the importance of environmental, social and political contexts to their studies and to think creatively, holistically, and systemically and make critical judgements on issues. After all, many of them come from within our beautiful region and choose to stay within it, so how better to educate tomorrow’s community leaders?  The education we deliver, underpinned by high quality research, will be distinctive; it will develop the minds and skills of our students, and also be inclusive, professional and employment-focused.

We have just introduced a new TSD+ Employability Award to be taken by all our undergraduate students to deliver on these attributes and the more traditional ones of teamwork, self-reflection and communication. Hywel Evans, Chairman of Swansea Business Forum said last year, “My prospects would have been better and less constricted – as indeed would those of most of my peer group - if the programme you now propose to run at TSD had been available to us at Swansea those many years ago. Broadening students’ academic experience through offering them an opportunity to gain “real-life” expertise during their college days has many benefits.   Students also gain by being able to more effectively evaluate the likely personal demands upon them of any specific job opportunity - based on the wider set of skills and background experience they have acquired through the TSD+ programme.”

The role of INSPIRE is to work across the whole new University to deliver more ‘inspired’ education, work-based learning and knowledge transfer opportunities to our region as well as to those full time students we attract here through our locations and our offer. We want to explicitly tackle the skills deficit as well as offer new professional practice opportunities in partnership with others - but to do it in a new, more sustainable way. Without under-estimating  the challenges ahead for the new Swansea Bay City Region , we believe that holding our collective nerve to focus on sustainability and employability at the heart of the new city region, might just be the dream ticket we need for south west Wales.