Most people think planning for the future is a good idea.  Sustainability, a popular buzz-word of our time, is about this idea. 

We want to meet the needs of people today but we shouldn’t limit the possibilities for our children and grandchildren.  What would a sustainable Wakefield be like, however?  How would we know that we are living and working more sustainably?

Local Agenda 21

Determining what a sustainable Wakefield would be like is not a simple task.  Nor is it a new idea.  Readers may be familiar with the term “Local Agenda 21” or “LA21”. 

LA21 was the response to the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.  At this international conference, 179 United Nations member states signed up to an agreement, Agenda 21 (an Agenda for the 21st Century).  This agreement bound nations to change the way we live to take greater account of social justice and the capacity of the earth to meet our needs. 

Local Agenda 21 is no longer pursued in isolation in the UK.  Government guidance has signalled that Local Strategic partnerships, like the Wakefield District Partnership, must address sustainability in their Community Strategies.  Wakefield District Partnership therefore now takes this work forward within the actions of the various partners to improve quality of life for local residents.

Wakefield Navigator

A partnership advisory group has been established to help develop our thinking about how partners locally can act more sustainably.  To do this they are contributing to the development of the Wakefield Navigator, a Sustainability Framework for the area.  We are calling it the navigator because even when we have established what a sustainable Wakefield would be like, we will need to know how to get there.

The Wakefield Navigator complements Fast Forward, the District’s Community Strategy.  It will:

• help people to understand that we need to tackle the challenges for improving Wakefield, like improving health, the environment and people’s skills together;
• outline what a sustainable organisation looks like;
• help users to understand how to measure success at promoting sustainability;
• enable users to build sustainability into future strategies, plans, programmes or projects;
• demonstrate how a sustainable approach can contribute to savings - both financial and environmental;
• provide case studies of good practice.

The sustainability advisory group will continue to meet to help to develop the Navigator.