What is the Environmental Strategy about?

Declaration of commitment and current signatories

Introduction

A quality environment is one of the Scottish Borders' greatest assets. From the rugged Southern Uplands to the lazy, meandering Tweed as it passes into England on it's way to the North Sea, the Borders' environment contributes to the quality of life of those who live in, work in and visit the area. It also helps to provide the right conditions for investment in jobs, such as those in tourism, a significant industry in the Borders.

Many human activities can impact adversely on this unique local resource. For example our increasing use of the private motor car can impact on rural tranquillity and air quality, and can increase road accidents and demand for new roads to be built. But the challenge doesn't stop there; many activities within the Borders impact on the wider environment. For example, global warming - widely recognised as a reality here and now - is to a large extent a result of everyone's use of energy derived from fossil fuels, such as that used for transport.

Sustainable Development

The challenge is to balance our current needs for development with the needs of future generations. This means encouraging economic activity and land uses that achieve social and economic aims whilst protecting and enhancing the local and global environment. This concept is known as sustainable development (see the box on the right).

This strategy is about action in the Scottish Borders to protect and enhance the local and global environment. It proposes actions to be carried out by those organisations that are signatories to the Declaration of Commitment at the start of this document. Progress on these actions will be monitored and reviewed annually.

What is sustainable development?

Sustainable development is about providing a better quality of life for everyone, both now and for generations to come. In essence it is about the wise use of economic, human and natural resources. It recognises the many and complex links between these resources and their use, and that the health of the economy and of society is dependent upon the health of the environment.

If our quality of life and that of generations to come is to continue to improve, we must stop using up the Earth’s resources faster than natural processes can replenish them. In other words we must reduce the ecological impact, or ‘footprint’, associated with our continuing social and economic development.

Sustainable development was first espoused as an international agenda at the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. This summit placed an obligation on national governments to tackle global environmental and equity issues at the local level. This became known as Local Agenda 21 (an agenda of local action for the 21st century). A second World Summit on Sustainable Development took place in Johannesburg in August 2002, with the aim of reviewing progress and agreeing further action.

Who is this strategy for?

It is aimed at those organisations that have already signed up to the Declaration of Commitment, and at other organisations that may wish to become signatories. Any organisation that operates in the Borders, and therefore has an impact on the local and global environment, can become a signatory.

The strategy is also aimed at informing the public of what these signatories intend to do, with a view to enabling the public to influence the attitudes and behaviour of signatories.

How does this strategy relate to other work that is going on?

The Scottish Borders Environmental Strategy forms part of New Ways, the approach to Community Planning in the
Scottish Borders.

New Ways has two key aims:

To strengthen the economy of the Scottish Borders
To create sustainable, vibrant communities

It seeks to achieve these aims by co-ordinating action across the main agencies responsible for providing public services and ensuring that actions are cost-effective and have the support of the people and communities of the Scottish Borders.

Theme Teams

Five Theme Teams have been set up to achieve this across broad groupings of issues facing the Borders. The Theme Teams are:

Thriving Organisations (delivering the Scottish Executive Smart Successful Scotland Agenda in the Borders)
Vibrant Communities (focussing on priority regeneration areas; community capacity building; social justice and community safety)
Getting People to their Full Potential (focussing on opportunities for Lifelong Learning for individuals, communities and organisations)
Connected Place (focussing on physical infra-structure; the use of Information Technology, and marketing of the Scottish Borders), and
Quality of Life (focussing initially on the Public Health Agenda)

Support groups have also been set up to enable the delivery of New Ways, focussing on the cross-cutting issues of:

External Funding
Communications
Sustainability
Modernising Services, Organisational Change And Quality

The Sustainability Support Group exists as both scrutiniser and advisor to ensure that action on social justice and environmental sustainability is incorporated throughout the five Action Plans.
The Environmental Strategy will be a key vehicle for enabling this, and will also act as a sounding board to ensure that New Ways is leading to environmental sustainability, through monitoring and annual review.

The Environmental Strategy is also a mechanism for enabling the local implementation of national and international strategies and agreements, and achieving the targets contained therein. These include the Scottish Executive's strategy (external website) for sustainable development 'Meeting the Needs… Priorities, Actions and Targets for Sustainable Development in Scotland', and agreements the UK signed up to at the World Summit on Sustainable Development 2002, including the Declaration of Local Government and Local Action 21.

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