A step towards a one planet budget?
As the government prepares to deliver its tenth consecutive budget, WWF publish a new report mapping the true environmental impacts of consumption and production in the UK. The report, Ecological Budget UK - Counting Consumption (1) , funded by Biffaward as part of its mass balance programme (1), is the first set of comprehensive, reliable and current physical resource flow accounts to date. It is a significant step in understanding how the economy is managed and the decisions we make every day, directly affect the environment around us.
Download the full report >>
Ecological Budget UK Report (2.3 MB)
The report developed by SEI and CURE (2), which is being launched in Central Hall in Westminster on the 7th of March, provides a vital - and until now absent - evidence base, to help us better understand the issues of Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP) in the UK. The report documents every form of production and consumption in the UK by 123 economic sectors, 54 socio-economic groups and by every English region and devolved administration. It also further identifies the significant differences between production and consumption patterns both across the UK and in key industrial sectors.
Using three indicators - CO2 emissions, material flow analysis, and the Ecological Footprint - the report identifies how the current level of resource use in the UK is unsustainable, and demonstrates the urgent need for a ‘One Planet Economy’ as endorsed by the Prime Minister in the UK Sustainable Development Strategy of 2005 (3). The report also confirms that if everyone used as many of the earth’s natural resources as the average UK resident, we would need three planets to support us. This level of resource use is clearly unsustainable.
Stuart Bond, WWF Footprint Coordinator and co-author of the report, said: “The UK Government must now make the idea of a ‘One Planet Economy’ a reality. Whilst there are a range of basic ecological taxes such as fuel duty, these are mainly focused on political and fiscal agendas and not environmental considerations. If the UK is serious about reducing carbon emissions and real sustainable development, it must address a much bigger global impact created from imported products and materials that are currently not yet even accounted for.”
“We urge the government to seriously consider the imformation contained within this report and in the context of the Stern Review(4), set out immediatley, how it will achieve its aspiration of a ‘One Planet Economy’.”
This report demonstrates how a ‘One Planet Economy’ will require a 75 per cent reduction in resource flows and the Ecological Footprint - known as a Factor Four reduction (5). Whilst this is an incredibly challenging target, it is essential for long-term sustainability. This means a year-on-year reduction of 3 per cent in resource flows and the Ecological Footprint, set against an economic growth rate averaging 2.25 per cent per year. This implies ‘decoupling’ economic and material growth at a rate of 5.25 per cent per year reduction - over twice the rate seen in recent years.
To help the creation of low carbon, low consumption, resource efficient economies the Ecological Budget UK project has also produced the Resources and Energy Analysis Programme (REAP). This software tool, created by SEI, will give decision-makers at a national, devolved and regional level the chance to test and model the environmental and resource impact of their SCP strategies.
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Editor's notes
WWF is now known simply by its initials and the panda logo.
The full report can be downloaded from www.ecologicalbudget.org.uk
For more information about REAP, visit www.sei.se/reap
1. Counting Consumption:CO2 emissions, material flows and ecological Footprint of the UK by region and devolved country - was produced as part of the £520,000 Biffaward funded Ecological Budget UK project in partnership with Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) and the Centre For Urban & Regional Ecology (CURE) and match partners from West Midlands and North East regions and Rufford Foundation.
This project forms part of the Biffaward Mass Balance Programme. The aim of this programme is to provide accessible, well-researched information about the flows of different resources through the UK economy based either singly, or on a combination of regions, material streams or industry sectors. More than 60 separate projects have been funded as part of this programme.
Information about material resource flows through the UK economy is of fundamental importance to the cost-effective management of resource flows, especially at the stage when the resource becomes waste. In order to maximise the Programme's full potential, data will be generated and classified in ways that are both consistent with each other, and with the methodologies of the other generators of resource flow/ waste management data. In addition to the projects having their own means of dissemination to their own constituencies, their data and information will be gathered together in a common format to facilitate policy making at corporate, regional and national levels.
For more information on the Mass Balance UK programme please visit www.massbalance.org
2. SEI is an independent, international research institute specialising in sustainable development and environment issues. It works at local, national, regional and global policy levels. SEI has been engaged in major environment and development issues for a quarter of a century and has become established as a leading expert on the subject of Sustainable Consumption within Europe and especially the UK. Working closely with the European Environment Agency as well as national, regional and local governments, has ensured that the research is applied, relevant and timely. The Sustainable Consumption (SC) Group contributes to the overall SEI mission statement by bridging the gap between science and the policy arena.
http://www.york.ac.uk/inst/sei/welcome.html
CURE - Established in 1999, the Centre for Urban & Regional Ecology (CURE) carries out multidisciplinary research in three inter-related programme areas:
• Sustainable City-Regions;
• Landscape Impacts & Futures;
• Land Restoration & Management.
The common theme is the organisation and interaction of complex communities, both natural and human, at various scales from the local to the European. The research is underpinned by an advanced technical capability for spatial analysis, modelling and visualisation.
http://www.art.man.ac.uk/PLANNING/cure
3. The Sustainable Development Strategy of 2005, which was signed by the Prime Minister, included a section on the ‘One Planet Economy’. For further information visit http://www.sustainable-development.gov.uk/publications/uk-strategy/index.htm
4. The Chancellor announced on 19 July 2005 that he had asked Sir Nick Stern to lead a major review of the economics of climate change, to understand more comprehensively the nature of the economic challenges and how they can be met, in the UK and globally.
The review will be taken forward jointly by the Cabinet Office and HM Treasury, and will report to the Prime Minister and Chancellor by Autumn 2006. It takes place within the context of existing national and international climate change policy.
5. The idea behind FACTOR FOUR is that natural resources can be used more efficiently in all domains of daily life, either by generating more products, services and quality of life from the available resources, or by using less resources to maintain the same standard. Quadrupling resource productivity using existing technological knowledge would allow the world to double well-being, while at the same time halving resource consumption. This idea was first put forward in the book "Factor Four: Doubling Wealth - Halving Resource Use" (Ernst Ulrich v. Weizsäcker, Amory Lovins and L. Hunter Lovins, Earthscan Publications Ltd., London, 1997.
WWF Footprint programme
WWF is committed to exploring alternative lifestyles based around sustainable consumption; this is a vital task which requires us to understand and measure the global environmental impact of our everyday decisions and actions. We also need to know where change is most beneficial and most needed - whether at a policy, economic, business or personal level. WWF’s Ecological Footprint Programme has been developed to meet this need, providing all levels of government with the information and tools they need to make informed decisions, and developing models and case studies to demonstrate footprint strategies in action.
For further information, please contact:
Anthony Field, t: 01483 412 379, m:0776 886 7274, e: afield@wwf.org.uk
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