Share
Understanding the role of place in environmental sustainability
Reported by Adisetu Joy Malih, CSaP Policy Intern (Jan-April 2023) and Dr Charlotte Sausman, CSaP Associate Director
This seminar explored key messages from a series of British Academy-funded projects on sustainability and discussed the implications with contributions from CSaP Policy Fellows.
The seminar was led by Sharon Darcy, Sustainability Consultant, Dr Adam Wright, Head of Public Policy at the British Academy and Dr Alexandra Paz, Public Policy Adviser at the British Academy.
The British Academy has supported sustainability work that focuses on what the SHAPE disciplines can add to our understanding of the role of place.
After informing the audience about the six different projects that analysed different aspects of place in relation to sustainability, the speakers continued presenting the emerging key themes, as follows:
- Harnessing local knowledge, education and language
- Ensuring engagement and participation
- Fostering collaboration and empowering local leadership
Challenges of delivering a place-sensitive environmental policy
The speakers then opened the discussion to Policy Fellows, who covered a range of topics with a focus on multi-level governance in delivering a place-sensitive environmental policy. Within this scope, the Policy Fellows talked about the need for the government to stimulate the private sector because communities are built around businesses that understand the local markets and skills base better. The audience also discussed that it is important for policy makers to understand who are trusted voices in the community, then amplify these trusted voices and create space in which they can give and receive information as a bridge between communities and the different levels of governance.
The discussion further expanded on the tension between the various levels of governance. The Policy Fellows argued that to deliver a place-sensitive environmental policy, people at multiple levels of governance need to understand the different perspectives. They further discussed that they need to work together to use them in order to create more innovative solutions that could help make these policies agile to deliver their goals.
The discussion also covered the relationship between sustainability policies and inequalities. The audience agreed that sustainability policies exist within the context of wide societal inequalities where many people do not have options and choices that are sometimes assumed. They then started discussing what the government and other actors can do to help address these inequalities, which are required in order to achieve environmental sustainability objectives.
At the end of the seminar, the Policy Fellows stressed the need for the government to evaluate its policies' implications critically and also agreed that delivering a place-sensitive environmental policy will require a collective effort from people at various levels of governance.
Image by Alexander Abero - Unsplash