Introduction
Please forgive this standard introduction to people who are coming new to my blog for the first time. I intend to use my website as a repository for information linked to my #futuregen book, so hopefully it will become a resource for campaigners and activists as well as policy professionals and parliamentarians. The book itself contains the links to documentary resources covering the journey from the start of the National Assembly in 1999 to the passing of the Wellbeing of Future Generations (Wales) Act in 2015 and its subsequent implementation.
Last week, we heard from some of the most significant contributors to the debate over the whole period: Alan Netherwood who has tracked the sustainable development agenda in Wales from its onset and is still doing so; Anne Meikle and Jessica McQuade from WWF, the most significant individual contributor organisation to the Welsh journey, particularly from its publication of the visionary ‘One Planet Wales’ in 2007, George Marshall from Climate Outreach who undertook the first national environmental narratives project of its kind - now replicated around the world - developing a bilingual toolkit of distinct Welsh narratives and images for sustainability and climate change to support the legislation. Finally, last but very much not least, the eponymous Andy Middleton, who has challenged me and others at every available opportunity to do more and faster.
This week we hear from 3 people who have also been involved closely with the development of the agenda in Wales, through their day job: Mari Arthur and Rhodri Thomas, both from Cynnal Cymru/Sustain Wales, and Michael Palmer, who led on the work in the Wales Audit Office and who also spent time seconded to the Future Generations’ Commissioner’s office. They are champions who have clear ideas about next steps.
The other three contributions this week are from those who have not been part of the development but who have great hopes of the Act as a common values framework for a ‘renewed narrative’ to guide action in their sectors: on sustainable food systems - Sue Pritchard, CEO of the UK Food, Farming and Countryside Commission; on ‘innovative approaches to holistic government, collaborative policy development and co-operation in delivery at local, regional and national levels’, Nick Miller from Miller Research and finally, with a cry forged from years of effort , Glen Peters, CEO of Ty Solar, rightly calls out the short-term economic thinking which ‘fails to put a value on sustainable long-term designs and materials’. Enjoy.
I will notify the specific contributors when your contribution is published, and feed back to you directly if I receive any comments linked to your contributions.
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Mari Arthur, Director of Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales
The WFGA is an opportunity to learn from others and do things better. It provides enormous potential for public-sector procurement practice to change from a focus on cost towards a realisation of value, including local, social and carbon values.
Wales first:
We have seen local procurement models improve economies, retain skills locally and build resilient societies. The Act should proactively support the building of an ethical supply network for public bodies to look strategically at our future, highlighting opportunities on the horizon, and then to bring together the elements to deliver on what we need to make the vision a reality, ensuring education is geared to support the skills and training needed and linking industry and investment to develop the products and services that will form part of the solution.
For example, ‘making Wales a renewable energy nation’, not just by generating renewable energy but by manufacturing solar PV panels, components of wind turbines, using Welsh steel to build tidal lagoons, supporting local industry to supply to public bodies and opening contract opportunities to social enterprises. An entrepreneurial culture can be built while developing an understanding of coming demands and new opportunities. A Foundational Economy approach to energy will harness the skills of local people that are trained and educated specifically for this demand. In addition, while keeping skills, work and profits in the regions of Wales, we will eliminate fuel poverty; harnessing our natural resources for our own needs first and exporting excess to generate community-owned wealth.
Rhodri Thomas, Principal Sustainability Consultant, Cynnal Cymru – Sustain Wales
The Act must address the climate change and biodiversity challenges. All the socialism in the world won't protect the vulnerable from the collapse of ecosystems and I think that there is now a strain of capitalism that actively seeks disaster in order to profit from it. Most corporations, however, have realised that if they don't change capitalism themselves, there won't be a market in which to profit. So, under the Act, a new law should be introduced to compel a rigorous shadow economy in which the currency is Carbon or Eco-credits. This would allow individuals and organisations to trade on the basis of off-setting harm or being paid to do no harm, while also uphold the principle of ‘polluter pays’. It would reward low-impact lifestyles and penalise greedy lifestyles. It would do nothing to reduce wealth inequality, but it would not penalise you for being poor either. The Welsh Government should also explore the ideas of Howard Odum, who suggested valuing things on the basis of their embedded energy. That would mean no more cheap goods from Asia, but would make locally produced things from natural materials more affordable whereas currently they are luxury items. The cheap stuff should be what does the least harm to the environment and the expensive stuff should be all the plastic and electronics etc!
Michael Palmer, ex-Wales Audit Office, now Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies at Potsdam University
In a speech delivered in Oct 2019, the Auditor General for Wales highlighted the complicated overlapping structures and governance mechanisms in the public-sector landscape in Wales. It is very encouraging to note that the AGW holds up the Well-being of Future Generations Act as ‘a light on the horizon’. He notes that ‘the Act effectively reboots the governance of most major Welsh public-sector bodies... the overarching, principles-based approach of the Future Generations – if genuinely and consistently applied – provides us with the tools to cut through much of the complexity and inconsistency.’
As well as framing public-sector decision-making, the Act is also explicitly designed as a tool for continuously challenging business as usual. It is good to see that one of the key purposes of the Wales Audit Office is ‘Inspire and empower the Welsh Public Sector to improve’. An important aspect of inspiring people is to be seen to walk the talk. As we come up to the fifth anniversary of the Well-being of Future Generations Act, the Auditor General for Wales should engage with citizens, the Wales Audit Office and its stakeholders to explore how audit can use the Act to continuously improve.
Sue Pritchard, Director, Food, Countryside and Farming Commission (and Welsh farmer)
It’s a Monday morning in January 2018. I’ve made the journey from Wales, where I live, and I’m walking along a London street on my way to the Food, Farming and Countryside Commission offices, listening to Reasons to be Cheerful, a podcast with Ed Miliband and Geoff Lloyd. Jacinda Ardern, the New Zealand Prime Minister is talking about what inspires her. She cites the WFGA in Wales and I feel a little glow of pride. Fast forward 18 months and the Well-being budget is enshrined in New Zealand law.
For all its benefits, our current food system has also come with huge consequences; for climate, for nature and increasingly for people’s health and well-being, and this has to change. At the Commission, we look for radical and practical proposals, from the UK and internationally, to help shift food, farming and land use towards more fair and sustainable practices, and with a just transition for rural communities. As we reviewed the policy landscape, we saw that the WFGA both inspires and joins international voices in three important ways. It encourages thinking in systems, making visible the connections and dependencies between policy ‘silos’; it expands planning horizons, bringing the unheard voices of future generations into the present; it questions what we value and measure, from moribund and arbitrary economic measures like GDP, and promotes things that really matter to citizens and communities.
As the UK leaves the EU, such bold and resolute leadership becomes more important than ever, to ensure that distinctive and special Welsh farming, countryside, rural and urban communities can flourish in a fast-changing world.
Nick Miller, Director, Miller Research (UK) Ltd
The Well-being of Future Generations Act presents Wales with a unique and privileged opportunity to deliver a step change in the way a small economy can develop. Wales is a perfect crucible for testing and developing innovative approaches to holistic government, collaborative policy development and co-operation in delivery at local, regional and national levels.
Wales has amazing natural assets set against significant social problems and an economy that consistently falls further behind in conventional measures. The Act offers a framework for a renewed narrative, focusing on sustainably delivering increased value from our resources; developing world-leading skills and expertise in the process. This in turn will allow us to create new infrastructure to address social inequality, build healthy life expectancy and raise well-being scores.
There are, of course, many challenges on the road to achieving this vision. We need to learn the lessons of history, which saw our resources exploited for profits that were exported as fast as the coal itself, leaving a legacy of environmental degradation and industrial decline. Social ownership will be a key element of the new model. We need strong leadership to develop a bold vision and then deliver it; getting away from the failed history of chasing economic growth and its indicators of job creation and GVA to focus on the seven goals of the Act. We need to take risks and be honest about our performance; learning lessons and sharing best practice.
The Act has already delivered substantial changes in the way Government works in Wales. In order to ensure that the Act leads policy development and is not bolted on as a cross-cutting theme, we need individuals to champion the Act. If we can do this, momentum will build, actions will snowball and Wales will enjoy the prospect of a new kind of lasting success to truly benefit future generations.
Glen Peters, CEO of Ty Solar, a solar housing company
The Long Road to Zero
It’s been a long winding road to zero-carbon housing for us with our Ty Solar homes. We started six years ago with the idea of relieving energy poverty in social housing by building a solar village in North Pembrokeshire to demonstrate the concept. Today we have built nearly 20 homes with another 15 in construction. Our main message to convey is that the road to zero is obstructed by nay sayers and deniers and that the technical and economic considerations are minor in comparison.
Bricks and mortar pervade our culture. Stories we read in school about the three little piggies and their house made of good solid brick condition us to thinking that bricks and mortar mean good housing. Lenders and valuers know how to deal with bricks, they have little idea of the value of low-carbon timber homes. Short-term economic thinking fails to put a value on sustainable long-term designs and materials.
But in the words of that well-known songster, times are a-changing. We have found the greatest success with agents of change in housing associations, government and planners; people who have been keen to put their support behind Ty Solar and zero-carbon homes for the future. Young people in school are also pushing for change. We have been engaging with them. The long, winding road to zero can only be travelled by working with those agents of change and deviating around the blockers who refuse to accept the dire climatic situation we face in the future.
If you have any comments on this blog, or would like to get in touch, please use the contact form. The form also works for the growing number of followers of my husband Guy for his weekly reflections on growing and wildlife in his blog, PatchWork which will also be updated weekly – unless the slugs get the better of him!
#futuregen: Lessons from a Small Country https://www.chelseagreen.com/product/futuregenerations-lessons-from-a-small-country/
Jane Davidson
5th July 2020