Delivering Sustainability

The ideas behind sustainability have been developing since the late 1980's and Bob Earll has been involved with promoting sustainability through projects and events initially with the Marine Conservation Society and now CMS.

Sustainability is the key idea that is at the core of much work in Government and hundreds of public bodies through statutory duties or in the private sector through strong corporate commitments.

The need to deliver sustainable solutions across society grows by the day as we better understand the scale of the future challenges facing people and the planet.

This page sets out a variety of reports and presentations arising from conferences and projects developed by CMS working with others. These are designed to assist people with both understanding and delivering of sustainability in practice.

A simple idea

The essential ideas surrounding sustainability are very simple and involve four main components (illustrated in this accompanying image: "a simple concept", a strong view of the future, a clear idea of content - what needs to change, the strong involvement of people and combining these ideas what the process will be that takes this forward.

An overview

CMS have been at the heart of promoting an overview of what sustainability entails to enable people to see how different ideas link together. A short report describes this with a diagram that brings these ideas together. The development of this diagram is central to the Delivering Sustainability project outlined below. The overall picture is complicated by an apparent complexity caused by many overlapping approaches - brands - of sustainability that have been developed by different groups; our view is that is complexity is confusing and stifling routine delivery.

The Delivering Sustainability Project

Bob Earll (CMS) has been working closely with CIWEM to develop a project that provides a coherent view for educational, training and professional purposes of what delivering sustainability entails. The project involves four parts, preparation of an overall diagram describing sustainability, a website built to illustrate all the key components, a life cycle approach to sustainability management and a communications strategy. More information on this project and how you can take part can be obtained from bob.earll@coastms.co.uk

Presentations

The ideas around this project have been communicated in a number of recent presentations: Coastal Futures 2011 Delivering sustainability presentation - please feel free to use any of these slides.