Sustainable Development Action Plan for Advantage West Midlands (SDAP)

Sustainable Development Action Plan for Advantage West Midlands (SDAP)

Lead Organisation:

Sustainability West Midlands

Partners:

Customers:

Project Duration:

2006-2010

The Project

Sustainable development is a complex agenda, how can it be interpreted and practically applied by regional, public sector organizations? SWM set out to answer this question in the context of Advantage West Midlands (AWM). The aim of this was to help build the understanding, confidence, and capacity of regional organizations to practically integrate sustainable development into their strategic and operational processes.

This process involved understanding the business case and relevance of sustainable development to the organization, benchmarking against good practice, then developing a three year action plan which focused on the areas of the greatest impact and opportunity, and which was reported on annually.

Our role as the regional version of the UK Sustainable Development Commission was to help develop guidance and support for organizations to develop their action plans, and then provide advice on the final plans, annual reports, and encourage the sharing of good practice.

Aims

The aim of this work was to take national good practice, in the form of the Sustainable Development Action Plans (SDAP) required to be produced and reported on annually by Government Departments to the Sustainable Development Commission, and adapt for regional public bodies such as AWM.

Challenges

Advantage West Midlands was a regional development agency with a duty to promote sustainable development, this, however, was poorly defined and open to interpretation. Such agencies were complicated public sector bodies with diverse stakeholders to manage.

SWM as an independent, credible sustainability advisor helped to work with local and national partners to develop and apply a clear framework to help AWM deliver on its sustainability duty.Because of the breadth of sustainable development and AWM’s roles and responsibilities, it was initially difficult to identify where the focus of action should be.

However, working with national partners such as the Sustainable Development Commission and Forum for the Future, helped us apply the SDAP format used by government departments to AWM. This was the first time this approach had been used on a government regional body.

Launch of future advantage with John Edwards, Chief Executive of AWM, Sue Prince, Board member for future generations, and Jonathon Porritt, Sustainable Development Commission.

The Outcome

Results

SDAP Work 2006-7

We worked with Advantage West Midlands to produce the first SDAP for a Regional Development Agency. This involved working with the Sustainable Development Commission to adapt their guidance for a regional organization. We also worked with Forum for the Future to develop a benchmark of sustainable development criteria for regional organizations, which was then used to assess Advantage West Midlands, and identify strengths and weaknesses. This was then tested through a Sustainability West Midlands cross-sector workshop with our members and improvements made based on their experience of good practice from their companies.

The result was ‘Future Advantage: Advantage West Midlands Sustainable Development Policy and Action Plan 2006-10′. This was launched by the AWM Chief Executive, the newly created Board member for Future Generations, Jonathon Porrit, the Chair of the UK Sustainable Development Commission, and with our Chair and members.

SDAP 2007-8

Advantage West Midlands fed back annual progress on the SDAP to Sustainability West Midlands members meetings where we fed in advice and comments.

SDAP 2008-9

Sustainability West Midlands worked with Advantage West Midlands and Forum for the Future to review the three year progress of the SDAP. This involved using the benchmarking tool again to assess progress, but this time the assessment also involved all the other RDAs to provide a benchmark against peers and identify other sources of good practice.

SDAP 2009-10

We supported Advantage West Midlands as they revised their next three year SDAP. We also explored with the Sustainable Development Commission and Defra how to disseminate this good practice and guidance for SDAPs for other regional public sector organizations, such as the Regional Assemblies, Government Offices, Environment Agency and Natural England.

Overall key results from the SDAP included:

• AWM moved from the bottom to the top of the league table of corporate sustainability performance within the RDA network
• The creation of a board champion for future generations to chair the new sustainability sub-committee of the board to measure the progress of the SDAP
• Creation of small sustainability team of staff and co-located staff within AWM to drive ‘mainstreaming’
• Using the opportunity to refresh the economic strategy to produce the UK’s first low carbon regional economic strategy
• Internal environmental management system that led to operational savings from waste and energy efficiency measures
• Sustainability criteria built into funding investments, business support, and land and property development. This included a new carbon reduction target and reporting measures
• Developing a new sustainability standard for large sites, that was incorporated into Regional Planning Guidance
• Tailored training and support for the board, staff and partners to help them deliver their role in the SDAP

In the Future

Since the closure of Advantage West Midlands on 31 March 2012 as part of the wider closure of the RDA network, we have used our unique insight and experience on mainstreaming sustainability to provide advice to other organisations. For example: Chinese and Japanese regional agencies, Highlands and Island’s enterprise, city regions and local enterprise partnerships around the UK and now the West Midlands Combined Authority.

The Extra’s

Awards and endorsements

“Advantage West Midlands are to be congratulated on becoming the first RDA to produce a Sustainable Development Policy and Action Plan following the recommendations of the Sustainable Development Commission…I look forward to further breakthroughs in this area as they mainstream sustainable development across all activities”

Jonathon Porritt, the Chair of the Sustainable Development Commission.

The National Audit Office assessment of Advantage West Midlands identified the SDAP as UK good practice.

Contact Details

For further information on the project or to work with us in one of a variety of ways, please contact the SWM team on 01212375890 or