As we get closer to June, excitement is building in the global environment community about the UN Sustainable Development conference in Rio. And that is precisely the problem!

As long as Rio+20 remains the hot topic for eco-lobbyists, it will remain profoundly worthy; but it will fail.

Rio must be of interest to finance ministers. It must redefine the way we understand and measure our national and global economies. Economics is actually at the heart of what environmentalists call sustainable development – what else is economics about, if not the allocation of scarce resources? But international economic understanding has yet to construct an adequate model that can supply the essential resources of water, food and fuel in a way that balances current and future demand with both equity and need.

It is a particular sort of blindness that can recognise a credit bubble when it comes in the form of the securitisation of subprime mortgages, but not when we are consuming each year the resources that it takes the planet one year and four months to replace.

Ask 10 economists how to measure a nation’s wealth and nine of them will talk about ‘output GDP’. The smart one will talk about ‘natural capital’. The smart one will tell you that the natural environment is fundamental to supporting the basis of all economic value and that ‘natural capital’ is just as important as built capital (railways), social capital (a well-functioning judicial system) or cash. But few people have even heard of natural capital.

The idea that the pollination of our crops by bees might have a value that we need to account for seems quite ridiculous; until colony collapse, varroa mites and fungal diseases saw honey bees die in their millions with a consequent reduction in yield both to our farmers and to the Treasury. The National Audit Office estimated it at £200m!

The US is rarely seen as a leader on environmental matters these days, but for years the good people of Manhattan have been paying hard dollars to farmers in the Catskills to maintain and manage the forest landscape that purifies the water Manhattan depends on. Economics shows them it is cheaper than paying for an enormous concrete and steel water treatment plant.

Classsical economics has regarded ecosystem services like pollination and water purification as ‘externalities’ – free goods that don’t have to be taken into account in the economic calculations. Increasingly though, economists in the World Bank and elsewhere have come to regard these as the fundamental building blocks of all wealth accounting.

In his speech to the Social Market Foundation Ed Miliband pointed out that the rules which encouraged wealth creation ‘focused on short-term returns not the productive creation of long-term value’. He is pointing to the deficiencies in an economic model that looks increasingly flat-footed in its capacity to respond to the challenges of global resource allocation: a model where community and cooperation are undervalued in pursuit of consumption and where overconsumption is regarded as an unconditional right.

By contrast, George Osborne has abandoned Green Conservatism and reasserted his belief in the fundamental antagonism between the environment and economic growth. His recent comments about the Habitats Directive show his own inability to think outside of a neoliberal economic framework, the perfect counter to which was stated succinctly by the Norwegian government in its response to the UN’s Zero Draft document for Rio: ‘With the ongoing economic, climate and food crises, it has become clear that neoliberal economic policies, including unfettered trade liberalisation, do not promote human wellbeing for all. Rather, these policies are part of the cause of the crises and at the same time limit countries’ opportunities to respond to them.’ No wonder David Cameron is not going to Rio this summer!

It is essential that Labour articulates a vision for Rio+20 that is coherent internationally and resonates at home with a public preoccupied by job losses and declining living standards. The green economy must create employment opportunities if it is to succeed. One of the major challenges facing investors in the green economy is the lack of a strong skills base in appropriate technologies – both new and old. Sustainability skills colleges should be established in each region to deliver the human capacity to install the new wave of energy efficiency measures, domestic insulation and micro-renewable technologies. Popular support for the green economy will come about in direct relation to a reduction in people’s fuel bills.

But the jobs required by young people are not only in new technologies. Rural communities are seeing an ever-increasing drift by young people to the cities. Labour must invest in the agricultural extension services to improve our farming sector and create new rural employment. The lack of proper management of the UK’s woodlands and peat moors cause major environmental loss. New supply chains for wood fuel and community power systems require government to pump prime but the new jobs they would create will help reverse the drift to cities and reduce carbon emissions while improving woodland biodiversity. Peat reclamation schemes on some of our most important moorland landscapes can similarly create hundreds of new jobs and improve watershed protection and carbon sequestration provided by our peatlands at the same time. Few people realise that the carbon stored in the peat bogs of the UK and Ireland sequester more carbon than all the forests of France, Poland and Germany combined!

Where the Rio outcome document calls for governments to ‘recognise the limitations of GDP as a measure of wellbeing’, Labour should propose the creation of a new chief secretary ministerial position in the Treasury to chair the Natural Capital Committee that would audit all departmental budgets for long-term wealth creation and sustainability.

Education is one of the UK’s great export earners. As the world moves towards a green economic model we can pioneer the courses in sustainability that become the certification standards for others. Our universities should be models of best practice setting an example of sustainability both in their facilities on campus and in teaching sustainable development as a module across all disciplines. More than this we should begin in schools to teach the concepts of planetary limits, resource efficiency and sustainability as key elements of every child’s education.

Public procurement is a tool that government uses poorly in pursuit of its wider objectives. Labour must have a comprehensive vision of how to use the purchasing power of government to incentivise companies in the private sector to adopt higher environmental, and social standards. It is absolutely legitimate to demand that food prepared in hospitals and schools, or timber used in public buildings should conform to sustainable production and consumption standards. By doing so we can create reliable markets for environmentally and socially sound products that contribute to our social, environmental and economic wellbeing.

This is the generation where 1.5 billion people (the poorest people on the planet) depend upon the natural environment to provide more than 50 per cent of their GDP. Because of this, the convergence of environmental and economic sustainability is being brought home to this generation in a way never before apparent. Rio must set sustainability goals that complement the Millennium Development Goals. Labour must articulate the need for this as an economic imperative, not simply a social one. What is abundantly clear is that when it comes to Rio the Conservatives simply don’t understand that ‘It’s (still) the economy, stupid!’ But now the economy is green.

It is a fact universally acknowledged that the moment any government minister announces a hosepipe ban the heavens open and we get days of unending rain. The drought in parts of England, however, is just the latest example of a long-standing policy failure to properly manage our water supply. This government promised a draft water bill for pre-legislative scrutiny ‘early in 2012’. Instead we got an emergency bill rushed through parliament to tackle the specific problems of the cost of cleaning beaches in the south-west and the cost of treating sewage in London.

What we need is a comprehensive bill that deals with five key problems:

• Abstraction reform
• Interconnections and water trading
• Market reform
• Water affordability
• Resource efficiency

 Abstraction reform

 Abstraction licences are currently granted to more than 20,000 enterprises which have the right to draw water out of our rivers to supply their business or irrigate their farms. Approximately 130,000m litres of water each day can be sucked out of our rivers in this way. These licences were given out on a ‘first-come-first-served’ basis some 50 years ago and currently they cannot be varied to reflect priority of need or availability of supply. Even when supplies are low, the local toffee factory with a licence cannot be put on short rations.

In 2003 Labour’s Water Act insisted that all new licences must have a start and end date but we now need much tougher laws with the power to stop abstractions that are damaging the environment without compensation. Currently revoking a licence can take many years.

The government’s timetable for abstraction reform is frankly risible. The minister recently told parliament that he wanted ‘to see the new regime in place by the mid-late 2020s!

Water trading and interconnections

This month Severn Trent Water announced their proposed sale of 30m litres a day to Anglian Water. Many people wondered why this was news. They simply assumed that we have a national water system where those parts of the country with surplus water supplied drought-ridden areas like East Anglia. In fact there is no national infrastructure for shifting water long distances. Water is heavy and transporting it takes a lot of energy. The Romans built some fine aquaducts and the Victorians were particularly good at sewers, but when it comes to long-distance water supply these two were very much the historical exceptions.

The government recognises the problem of a purely local approach to tackling the mismatch between supply and demand in a given region. It proposes to allow greater interconnections on a local subregional basis such as the Severn-Anglian trading deal, but has turned its face against long range infrastructure. The principle of greater interconnectedness rather than a long range national infrastructure is sound. However, there are once in a generation opportunities such as high speed two which the government should not ignore. HS2 is a key opportunity to investigate the synergy of a combined approach between transport and water infrastructure.

Market reform

At present water in England and Wales is supplied by 21 vertically integrated regional monopoly water companies. Only the very largest commercial customers have the right to switch their water supplier. Businesses operating on several sites across the country have to process multiple bills from different suppliers and the lack of competition hinders innovation and efficiency. A review chaired by Martin Cave set up under the last Labour government recommended that incumbent monopolies should be compelled to legally separate their retail from their upstream operation.

Unsurprisingly, this government has listened to the complaints from these monopoly companies and has backed away from requiring legal separation. They have also capitulated to threats about reduced investment which the companies predicted would arise if both retail and upstream competition were allowed at the same time. Once again the government is pushing real reform into the far future.

Water affordability

When it comes to those in genuine difficulty over their water bills, the government is dithering between providing additional financial support itself, and demanding that companies cross-subsidise from other customers bills through effective social tariffs for those on benefits. They claim data protection rules prevent them sharing information with the water companies. I propose that benefit claimants could claim social tariffs from the water company on initial proof of their entitlement to benefit, but only on condition that they sign a consent for government to notify the water company of any changes in their benefit status and share information with the water company.

Resource efficiency

Anna Walker’s review of charging for water and sewerage services in 2009 made it explicitly clear that metering of supply is the most significant factor in reducing consumption of water. She set a target that 80 per cent of all households should be metered by 2020. Ditching this target, the minister, in his evidence to the select committee, said that he would like to see more metering, but it was ‘not the total solution’. While it is true that metering can bring increased bills for some poorer families, issues of affordability should be tackled by the social tariff structure and not used to fudge the absolute necessity of improving our more efficient use of this precious resource.

MPs from across London have today warned that Boris Johnson is putting public health at risk by spending large sums of taxpayers’ money deliberately hiding London’s air pollution.

In a joint letter to the Secretary of State for Environment, Caroline Spelman, London’s Labour MPs condemn Boris Johnson for spending £1.5 million of public money gluing harmful pollutants to the road in an attempt to artificially reduce the readings around air quality monitoring stations.

The letter warns that spraying pollution suppressants in front of official air quality monitors does nothing to affect actual emissions; it simply misleads the people of London about the quality of the air they are breathing, while putting the UK at risk of millions of pounds of fines for failing to comply with European law for reducing air pollution in the UK.

A copy of the letter and its signatories is pasted below:

24 April 2012

Dear Secretary of State,

Air Pollution in the Capital

We are concerned that public health is being put at risk by an attempt to hide London’s air pollution. Recent estimates show that over four thousand people die prematurely each year because of air pollution in London. Hundreds of thousands more suffer from asthma and breathing difficulties.

As Mayor, Boris Johnson has recently spent large sums of public money converting road sweeping equipment to spray suppressants on roads immediately around key air pollution monitoring sites in order to reduce their pollution readings.

This localised action is designed to artificially reduce the readings around the monitoring stations whilst doing nothing to affect the actual emissions of Nitrogen Dioxide or PM10 being released into London’s atmosphere. It will do little to improve air quality for millions of Londoners who continue to breathe air that does not meet health-based legal standards. In short it perpetrates a fraud on the public health of the people of London.

In 2008 Boris Johnson said that he was “passionately committed to improving London’s air quality.” Yet as Mayor he has delayed vital measures such as the third phase of the London Low Emission Zone. Now after four years as Mayor it is disappointing that his only solution to tackling air pollution in London is to glue it to the road.

We felt that it was important to bring this to your attention as it is the Mayor’s failure to improve air quality in London that is the primary reason for the Government being taken to the European Court and found not to comply with European law for reducing air pollution in the UK.

Air pollution is London’s invisible health crisis and Boris Johnson has ignored the problem for far too long. It is about time that we had a Mayor who takes London’s air quality seriously.

Yours sincerely,

Barry Gardiner, MP for Brent North

Heidi Alexander, MP for Lewisham East

Rushanara Ali, MP for Bethnal Green & Bow

Lyn Brown, MP for West Ham

Karen Buck, MP for Westminster North

Jeremy Corbyn, MP for Islington North

Stella Creasy, MP for Walthamstow

Jon Cruddas, MP for Dagenham & Rainham

John Cryer, MP for Leyton & Wanstead

Frank Dobson, MP for Holborn & St Pancras

Clive Efford, MP for Eltham

Mike Gapes, MP for Ilford South

Harriet Harman, MP for Camberwell & Peckham

Meg Hillier, MP for Hackney South & Shoreditch

Margaret Hodge, MP for Barking

Glenda Jackson, MP for Hampstead & Kilburn

Tessa Jowell, MP for Dulwich & West Norwood

Saidq Kahan, MP for Tooting

David Lammy, MP for Tottenham

Andy Love, MP for Edmonton

Seema Malhotra, MP for Feltham & Heston

Siobhain McDonagh, MP for Mitcham & Morden

John McDonnell, MP for Hayes & Harlington

Teresa Pearce, MP for Erith & Thamesmead

Stephen Pound, MP for Ealing North

Nick Raynsford, MP for Greenwich & Woolwich

Joan Ruddock, MP for Lewisham Deptford

Virendra Sharma, MP for Ealing Southall

Andy Slaughter, MP for Hammersmith

Gareth Thomas, MP for Harrow West

Emily Thornberry, MP for Islington South & Finsbury

Stephen Timms, MP for East Ham

Chuka Umanna, MP for Streatham

Malcolm Wicks, MP for Croydon North

A Defra report has concluded that the UK’s implementation of the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives is working well in the “large majority” of development cases.

A review of the implementation of the Directives was announced in the Chancellor of the Exchequer’s Autumn Statement in November 2011 where he committed to making “sure that [the] gold plating of EU rules on things like Habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses.”

The Habitats and Wild Bird Directives have been in place since 1992 and 1979 respectively and are designed to address significant declines in species and habitats across Europe. The Habitats Directive includes a wide range of obligations to protect of several hundred species, including some of the rarest and most vulnerable. In Britain this applies to nine plants, twelve individual animal species plus all species of bats, dolphins, porpoises and whales and five species of marine turtle. Similarly the Wild Birds Directive is designed to protect all naturally occurring bird species, with additional protection for the rarest and regularly occurring migratory species.

One of the main measures for achieving the objectives of the Directives is the establishment of a network of protected sites: Special Areas of Conservation are established under the Habitats Directive and Special Protection Areas under the Wild Birds Directive. Protected sites currently cover about 6% of land and nearly 23% of English inshore waters.

Together the Directives provide a framework that has to be followed when considering whether or not to authorise an activity that might affect a protected site. In most cases where the activity is considered have an adverse effect on the protected site, permission will be refused. However, it can still proceed if there are no feasible “alternatives” to the activity and it can be justified by “imperative reasons of overriding public interest.”

Overall, Defra’s review concludes that implementation of the Directives works well and allows for both the development of key infrastructure whilst ensuring a high-level of environmental protection. It does however identify four key areas where changes will be made:

1. Facilitating nationally significant infrastructure projects

Last year the Government published a National Infrastructure Plan that identifies a ‘top 40’ of projects and programmes that are considered to be of national significance and critical for growth. The scale of these projects means that they could have significant impact on sites and species protected under both Directives.

To facilitate their development the Government will, from April 2012, establish a Major Infrastructure and Environment Unit. The MIEU will report to Ministers and will be required at the pre-application stage to identify and resolve any issues associated with the Directives from the ‘top 40’ projects.

2. Improving implementation processes and streamlining guidance

The review concluded that the accessibility, consistency and accuracy of guidance on the implementation of the Directives could be all improved. It also identified a number of gaps in the guidance that need to be addressed, including for example the absence of any explanation of the legal provisions affecting business.

To address these issues, the Government has committed to:

• Publishing a new overarching guidance manual for consultation in November 2012. This will focus on the process for authorising proposals that affect protected areas and set out how a risk-based approach should be applied to avoid “excessive precaution”.
• Simplifying existing guidance and assess whether it “encourages insufficient or excessive precaution.”
• Consolidating available information on the Habitats Regulations onto one website by August 2012.

The Government will also ask the Law Commission to consider recommending a new right of appeal for an applicant who is refused a license for an activity on a protected site.

3. Improving the quality, quantity and sharing of data

The review makes a series of recommendations to improve the evidence base and the accessibility of data, which include:

• Agreeing upfront evidence requirements for the ‘top 40’ infrastructure projects to avoid evidence requirements being revised throughout the pre-application stage. Advice for this will be published in September 2012.
• Natural England will publish for consultation new standards on the acceptable range and quality of evidence that is necessary to enable statutory bodies to provide advice on development proposals.
• A new Habitats and Wild Birds Directives Marine Evidence Group will be established by the end of July 2012. This will have three key priorities: improving the accessibility and use of marine data; addressing the priority research gaps where it would reduce unnecessary precaution in decision making; and developing a more strategic approach to post construction monitoring of marine developments.

4. Improving the customer experience

This section refers to the experience that businesses have as “customers” of the advisory and regulatory bodies involved in the decision making process. The review concludes that there can sometimes be a perception of an “over-precautionary” culture among statutory advisers. It also highlights the lack of habitats and species expertise at the local authority level, which can slow down the authorisation process. To address these issues the review states that Defra will “promote vigorously a culture of co-operation, transparency, openness and customer focus.” Defra will also host a workshop to explore new ways to manage ecological expertise with professional bodies and local authorities.

Defra will report on the progress that has been made implementing the review in March 2013. In addition, Defra will hold a stakeholder roundtable discussion in autumn 2012 to look at how the review is being implemented.

Last week the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) published its Environmental Outlook to 2050. The report presents the latest projections of socio-economic trends over the next four decades, and their implications for: climate change, biodiversity, water and the health impacts of environmental pollution.

By 2050, the Earth’s population is expected to increase from 7 billion to over 9 billion. Living standards will improve across the world and global GDP is projected to quadruple. A world economy four times larger than it is today is expected to consume 80% more energy by 2050. This could have severe consequences for climate change because, without intervention, the energy mix is expected to remain largely as it does today, with 85% of all energy being generated from fossil fuels.

Population growth and improved living standards is also likely to result in a shift in lifestyle preferences, consumption patterns and dietary preferences. Agricultural land will expand globally, increasing competition for scarce land. By 2050, nearly 70% of the world’s population is projected to be living in urban areas, with significant impacts on air pollution, transport and waste and water management.

The report projects that without new policies, by 2050:

• Greenhouse gas emissions will increase by 50%, resulting in a global average temperature rise of 3°C – 6°C by the end of the century. This is far in excess of the internationally agreed goal of limiting temperature rises to 2°C. Notwithstanding this agreement, the report highlights that there is still a significant gap between the 2°C goal and the emission reduction pledges that have been made by developed and developing countries under the UNFCCC Cancun Agreement. The report concludes that the cost of inaction on climate change could equate to a permanent loss of over 14% in average world consumption per capita.
• Global biodiversity will decrease by a further 10%, primarily due to land-use change, the expansion of commercial forestry, infrastructure development and human encroachment, as well as pollution and climate change. Global freshwater biodiversity will also continue to decline.
• Freshwater availability will decline with over 40% of the world’s population expected to be living in water stressed areas.
• The health impacts of urban air pollution will continue to worsen. It is estimated that by 2050 emissions of particulate matter will contribute to over 3.5 million premature deaths, mostly in China and India.

The Outlook sets out a number of policy priorities to address these impacts, including:

• Putting a price on pollution so that activities that damage the environment are more costly than greener alternatives.
• Ensuring that prices better reflect the true value of natural assets and ecosystem services. The report also recommends putting a monetary value on the services provided by ecosystems and biodiversity so that their benefits are made more visible and can lead to better decision making.
• Making use of regulatory instruments, alongside economic measures.
• Removing environmentally harmful subsidies.
• Encouraging innovation, for example through pricing and market-based instruments. This should be in addition to specific R&D support policies, standards, regulation and voluntary initiatives.

The report calls for the integration of environmental objectives into economic policies. It recognises that environmental challenges cannot be addressed in isolation but in the context of other global challenges such as food and energy security and poverty alleviation.

The Government has announced the results of the Environment Theme of its Red Tape Challenge.

Since April 2011 individuals and businesses have been invited to comment on 255 environmental regulations to determine which ones are working and which are not; what should be scrapped, what should be saved and what should be simplified. Of 255 regulations reviewed, 132 will be improved, mainly through simplification or consolidation; 70 will be kept as they are; and 53 will be removed.

The review includes proposals to scrap 35 regulations related to biodiversity, wildlife management, landscape, countryside and recreation. A further 69 regulations in this area will be “improved”, mainly through consolidating them with other similar regulations. Defra has reviewed separately the implementation of the Habitats and Wild Birds Directives, particularly its impact on proposed developments. The review has been ongoing since the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement when he said he would “make sure that gold plating of EU rules on things like Habitats aren’t placing ridiculous costs on British businesses.” The results of this review are due to be announced alongside the Budget later this week.

As part of the Red Tape Challenge the Government has concluded that air quality legislation also needs an overhaul. Defra has committed to reviewing the impact of existing legislation, including the Clean Air Act, over the next 12 months. This comes in the wake of a recent Environmental Audit Committee report which concluded that “poor air quality is shortening the life expectancy of people in the UK by an average of seven to eight months and is costing society up to £20 billion per year.”

The review will look at local air quality requirements and the extent to which they are necessary to ensure compliance with EU targets. This appears similar to a 2006 review where Defra introduced proposals to remove up to 4,000 industrial processes from the Local Air Pollution Prevention and Control (LAPPC) regime because they were not specifically required to be regulated under EU legislation. The review concluded at the time with very few changes to the LAPPC regime. Defra will also review the role of transport measures in meeting air quality targets, including the consistency in approach across local areas. Defra and the Department for Transport have been working together recently on proposals to establish a National Framework for Low Emission Zones.

The European Commission is also expected to launch a review of air quality legislation in 2013. As part of the Red Tape Challenge Defra has said that it will use this review to seek amendments to the Air Quality Directive in order to reduce the risk of infraction proceedings against member states for failing to comply with the legislation, particularly in relation to nitrogen dioxide. It is estimated that in 2010 nearly 1,400km of roads in Greater London alone exceeded the Air Quality Directive’s targets for nitrogen dioxide; this will have only fallen to approximately 800 km in 2015.

In addition to the Red Tape Challenge the Government has also introduced a ‘one-in, one-out rule’ whereby no new regulation would be brought in without other regulation being cut by a greater amount. Defra now publishes a Statement of New Regulation every six month, which covers all new regulatory measures that fall within the scope of One-in, One-out. The list contains a short description of each measure, the expected date of implementation and a link to the latest available impact assessment.

An Energy Theme of the Red Tape Challenge has also been undertaken. The results of this will be announced by the Department for Energy and Climate Change in early summer.

At Friday’s meeting of EU Environment Ministers Poland vetoed a compromise text on the European Commission’s proposed Roadmap for Moving to a Competitive Low Carbon Economy in 2050.

Poland were the only country that voted against the Roadmap that outlines a trajectory to 2050 on the basis of milestones for domestic greenhouse gas emissions reductions of 40% by 2030, 60% by 2040 and 80% by 2050 compared to 1990.

Achieving the 2050 target would require a reduction in emissions from the power sector of between 93 – 99% – the largest reduction for any sector. The analysis in the Roadmap concluded that the share of low carbon technologies in the electricity mix is estimated to increase from around 45% today to around 60% in 2020, including through meeting the renewable energy target, to 75 to 80% in 2030, and nearly 100% in 2050. Poland, however, currently generates around 90 per cent of its electricity from coal and was unwilling to require such emissions reductions from its power sector.

This is a second time that Poland has blocked additional emission reductions in the EU. In June last year Poland vetoed attempts to increase Members States 2020 emission reduction target to 25%. This would not have been a binding target, but a milestone along the way to the 2050 goal.

The UK did vote in favour of the Roadmap but Poland’s decision could cause a degree of uncertainty about future commitments given that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, George Osborne, resolved in his speech to the Conservative Party Conference in October 2011 that the UK would “cut our carbon emissions no slower but also no faster than our fellow countries in Europe.”

The World Resources Institute has published Guidelines for Identifying Business Risks & Opportunities Arising from Ecosystem Change. The purpose of the guidelines is to help managers develop strategies to manage business risks and opportunities arising from their company’s impact and dependence on ecosystems.

Some of the risks that the guidelines identify include operational threats, such as an increase in cost of water due to scarcity; an increase in regulatory risks such as government regulation to address the loss of ecosystems; reputational risks associated with a company’s impact on the environment; and future financial risks, particularly if banks start to introduce more rigorous lending requirements.

The guidelines also identify several business opportunities linked to better management of the natural environment, including: an improvement in operations through water-use efficiency; engaging with government to develop policies that protect ecosystem services on which businesses depend; capitalising on the reputational benefits associated with reducing a company’s impact on the environment; taking advantage of new revenue streams from company-owned natural assets; and being able to take advantage of favourable loan terms linked to a company’s impact on the environment.

In spite of these risks and opportunities, the introduction to the guidelines highlights that for many businesses no connection is made between the health of ecosystems and their bottom line. The lack of awareness in many businesses of their dependence and impact on ecosystems is also a concern.

The guidelines are designed to address these gaps and set out a methodology for doing so. The methodology consists of five steps that, once completed, will provide an Ecosystem Services Review for the business.

The five steps are:

1. Selecting the scope – whereby the business would select the boundary within which to conduct an Ecosystem Services Review. This could be, for example, a specific product, a supplier, or a single part of the business.
2. Identify priority ecosystem services – here the business would evaluate the degree of dependence and impact they have on more than 20 ecosystem services. The guidelines suggest that business prioritise those services most relevant to business performance.
3. Analyse trends in priority services – at this stage the business would research and evaluate conditions and trends in the priority ecosystem services identified in the previous step.
4. Identify business risks and opportunities – this would require the business to assess the risks and opportunities associated with the trends in ecosystem services it identified at stage 3.
5. Develop strategies – here the business would develop strategies for managing the risks and opportunities.

The guidelines provide an analytical framework, case studies and advice for completing each step.

Previous winners of the Blue Planet Prize have published a synthesis report setting out key messages from their individual papers. The report looks at the current state of the global and regional environment, and the implications for sustainable development. It warns that the world is facing a “perfect storm” of environmental and social problems driven by overpopulation, overconsumption, inequality and the use of environmentally malign technologies. The report sets out what is needed to achieve economic development, whilst ensuring environmental and social sustainability. The report will feed into the forthcoming Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development.

One of its key recommendations urges Governments to think differently about economic progress. It concludes that the rapidly deteriorating biophysical situation is “barely recognised by a global society infected by the irrational belief that physical economies can grow forever.” The report states that this growth myth is embraced by politicians and economists as an excuse to avoid tough decisions facing humanity. The myth, according to the report, is the “disease” at the root cause of unsustainable global practices

The report urges Government to recognise the “serious limitations” of GDP as a measure of economic growth. In order to make the transition to a more sustainable world, the report states that there is a need to understand the interdependence of economic, social and environmental factors and integrate them into decision making in governments and the private sector. It calls for a better measure of wealth that integrates economic, social and environmental matters and measures five forms of capital: built, natural, human, social and financial. This is in addition to correcting numerous market failures that mean the true cost of our economic activities are not reflect in prices.

The report also identifies “serious shortcomings” in the decision making systems on which we rely in government, business and society. Building more effective governance is crucial for achieving sustainability, however current decision making is heavily influenced by vested interests. This reflects a recent UN Environment Programme Foresight Panel report, which concluded that the need to reform global governance to address sustainability was the most pressing issue facing the planet.

The Blue Planet Prize Winners’ report states that subsidiarity – whereby decisions are taking at the lowest possible level – should be the central principle for sustainable development governance. This, it says, will ensure that decisions over resource allocation and use are made at the correct level. The report also urges Governments to address the problems caused by environmental, social and economic decisions being taken through separate, competing structures.

The report expresses some concern at the increasing reliance on markets as a tool for addressing sustainability issues and alleviating poverty. Whilst it acknowledges that markets and business have the potential to generate new jobs and to use natural assets more sustainably, signals and incentives have to be set so that businesses support sustainable growth. Governments also need to put in place the institutional and regulatory infrastructure to allow markets to operate more sustainably.

The report will feed into the forthcoming Rio+20 UN Conference on Sustainable Development. One of the key objectives of this conference is the development the institutional framework to support sustainable development.

The Energy and Climate Change Select Committee has published a report on ‘The Future of Marine Renewables in the UK.’ The report highlights the huge environment and economic benefits to the UK of a strong marine renewable sector. It concludes that if the Government adopts a visionary approach, as well as establishing a stable and consistent policy framework, the UK could become a leading exporter of wave and tidal power equipment and expertise, helping to create tens of thousands of new jobs.

The environmental benefits are, of course significant: it is estimated that marine renewable energy could provide 20 per cent of current UK electricity demand. This would lead to a saving of approximately 61 million tonnes of carbon dioxide by 2050. However, the report concludes that it is unlikely that marine renewable energy will make a significant contribution to the UK’s energy mix before 2020. The priority, therefore, over the next decade should be to focus on reducing the cost of marine renewables and preparing the UK to take advantage of the expanding global markets in this area.

Seven of the eight full-scale prototype wave and tidal stream technologies installed worldwide are now in the UK. This creates a huge opportunity. The Carbon Trust has recently estimated that the global market for marine could be worth £340 billion (in 2050) and that the UK’s share of this could be worth £76 billion. The industry estimates that this could lead to the creation of 10,000 direct jobs by 2020 – the Carbon Trust has estimated that there could be as many as 68,000 UK-based jobs by 2050. If the UK can develop a strong domestic marine renewable energy sector, it will be in a position to export into the expanding global market. These markets are beginning to emerge in Canada, the USA, Korea and New Zealand.

The report warns that an overly cautious approach to developing the technology could allow other less risk-averse countries to steal the UK’s lead, as they did in the wind energy sector. Denmark, for example, supported its domestic wind power industry in the 1980s and by 2003 had emerged with almost 40% of the wind turbine market. The report calls for “strong political vision” to ensure the UK can reap the rewards of a successful marine renewable energy industry.

In addition to political vision, the report concludes that private sector investment will be crucial if these opportunities are to be exploited, particularly given the limited amount of public support available. The total amount of funding available to support low-carbon technologies is small; the Department for Energy and Climate Change has a total of £200 million to dedicate to low carbon innovation. DECC has so far allocated 10% (£20 million) of its Low Carbon Innovation Fund to marine energy and the Government recently consulted on proposals to increase the level of support offered through the Renewable Obligation.

The report highlights four key factors that could help attract investment:

• Putting in place a stable and consistent policy framework.
• Confidence that there will be a future market – the report highlights the importance of ensuring that investors have the confidence that there will be a long term, viable market for the technology.
• Risk sharing – the cost and risk associated with developing wave and tidal technologies is currently too high for private investment to bear alone. The report recommends that the Government help to reduce the risk by agreeing to take on some of the costs involved.
• Removal of other barriers, such as inconsistencies in the planning system, lack of grid connections, lack of manufacturing sites, lack of installation support infrastructures and lack of technology development support.

The report also concludes that the development of marine renewable energy must not happen at the expense of marine biodiversity. It calls on the Government to carry out a baseline survey of potentially sensitive areas to avoid costly changes in plans occurring when a developer finds out that an area is environmentally sensitive late in the development process.