European Environment and Sustainable Development Advisory Councils

Sustainable Development

2010-2011: Preparing the EEAC Annual Conference 2011 as input for the UNCSD 2012: Green Economy and SD Governance

2009-2010: Input to the EU SD strategy review and the forthcoming Lisbon strategy review

2009: Follow up of the work on the EEAC Statement 2008

For the main outcomes of the past years, please continue reading the archived pages

2010-2011: Preparing the EEAC Annual Conference 2011 as input for the UNCSD 2012: Green Economy and SD Governance

Co-chairs: Jan De Smedt, Belgian Federal Council for Sustainable Development (FRDO-CFDD); Günther Bachmann, Director, German Council for Sustainable Development (RNE)

The WG SD is preparing the topic of the EEAC Annual Conference 2011, which will also serve as input for the forthcoming UN conference on sustainable development in June 2012 (UNCSD, "Rio+20"). On the basis of ongoing work it already gave input to the UN questionnaire in December.

On 10 February and 24 March the WG held a meeting, discussing and further elaborating background papers on

Institutional Framework for SD, mainly focussing on the national level, based on a survey conducted in 2010

Green Economy, including assessments of the specific situations in European countries and good practice examples

The latter is ongoing, and WG SD developed recommendations on the two topics and presented its findings in a WG Statement.

Download the statement by the WG SD

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Individual councils will give input to the European Commission's consultation the forthcoming Communication on Twenty Years after the Rio Earth Summit: Preparing for the 2012 Conference on Sustainable Development.

EEAC hosted a side-event at the PrepCom2, 8 March at the UN Headquarters, organised by the Institute for Advanced Sustainability Studies (IASS) on Diversity and Sustainable Development - from Hindrance to part of the Solution.

Overview of side events: http://www.uncsd2012.org/rio20/content/documents/Prepcom2-SideEvents-Web.pdf

The EEAC is cooperating with the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) and its Sustainable Development Observatory, which is preparing an own initiative opinion for the Rio+20 topics. At the EESC’s 2nd Hearing “Greener Europe - Greener world?” on 23 March, Günther Bachmann, director of the German Council for SD and co-chair of the EEAC WG SD, presented work of his council and of the EEAC WG on Green Economy.

Download Günther Bachmann's presentation on Green Economy's potential contribution to growth and economic development (EESC, 23 March 2011).

The WG will also send a chair letter signed by the EEAC chair and/or the WG SD co-chairs, to the Commission with copy to the EU presidency holder, along the lines of the opinion the WG SD has taken during the past years on the EU SDS and Europe 2020.

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In the course of the work on the EEAC 2008 Statement Sustaining Europe for a Long Way Ahead, the Advisory Council for the Sustainable Development of Catalonia (CADS) had elaborated a theme paper on Diversity. It is listed among the other theme papers below:

Download the Background Paper by the WG SD
Download the Theme Papers by members of the WG SD

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EEAC chair Miranda Schreurs (SRU, DE) was invited as speaker to the ESDN conference on European Resource Policies in the Context of Sustainable Development (Szentendre, Hungary, 27-29 June). Ms. Schreurs gave a presentation on Resources as subject of policies in Europe – key issues in the context of sustainable development and the question of consistency.

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At the EEAC Annual Conference on 14 October in Bruges, the Working Group thanked the outgoing co-chair Tim O'Riordan (SDC, UK) for his continuous efforts during his term 2008-2010 and is pleased to hear that he will remain involved, as Günther Bachmann (RNE, DE) took up the co-chair again. There, it was decided to prepare the content for the Annual Conference 2011. With this, the Working Group aims to create input for the UN Sustainable Development Conference "Rio+20" in 2012. In the past months a questionnaire on the institutional framework for SD has circulated among the EEAC councils. Together with this, an analysis was given on the forthcoming SD challenges emerging form the questionnaire.

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2009-2010: Input to the EU SD strategy review and the forthcoming Lisbon strategy review

Co-chairs: Tim O'Riordan, Commission Member, UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), Jan De Smedt, Belgian Federal Council for Sustainable Development (FRDO-CFDD)

Outcomes 2010

On 16 October in Tournai (BE) the APS confirmed that the WG will prepare the Annual Conference 2011 that will focus on Green Economy and SD Governance.

The WG SD met on 6 July in Gent, right after the Annual Conference of the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN). This conference saw inspiring contributions and discussions on the topic "Towards an Economy compatible with Sustainable Development Principles: "Green" Strategies in the context of Sustainable Development", and the WG co-chair Tim O'Riordan gave a presentation on “Switching to SD from Financial Turbulence”. Around 12 members of the WG SD participated in the event. The WG planned the input and its preparation for the forthcoming UN conference on sustainable development in June 2012 (UNCSD, "Rio+20"), which will also entail the preparation of the EEAC annual conference 2011. The UN General Assembly in December 2009 selected to main topics for the UNCSD: "Green economy in the context of sustainable development and poverty eradication" and "Institutional Framework for Sustainable Development".

The WG is planning to develop a policy paper around the topic green economy: the RNE (DE) will prepare a framing paper and will start with a collection of best practices. The WG is already working on the institutional issue: For this purpose it is undertaking an update and widening of the EEAC benchmark study on governance for sustainable development from 2004. All WG councils and some others answered to the questionnaire that has been circulated during the last two months. A first analysis was presented at the WG meeting, and the WG will continue with getting answers from countries not yet involved. The WG co-chair Jan de Smedt (FRDO-CFDD) is also preparing the special session on Thursday afternoon during the EEAC Annual Conference on ”How to reinforce international governance for sustainable development?

On 1 March in the afternoon, the WG met in the office of the Belgian FRDO-CFDD, with 17 delegates from 10 councils. During a 'Tour de table' the councils presented their activities, with a focus on national SD strategies and on 'green/sustainable new deals'. Tim O'Riordan will prepare for the WG a short paper on green/sustainable economy, in light of the UK SDC's ongoing work in this area. In the arena where "beyond GDP" is discussed and developed, reflections by SD councils would be welcomed on which kind of alternatives would be most feasible with respect to communication.

On "Rio+20", the UN Conference on Sustainable Development as decided recently by the UN General Assembly, the WG discussed the implementation of the EEAC declaration of last October. As already recommended there, councils are pleased with the chosen two focus areas governance and green economy. There will be stocktaking at national level in these areas as well as on the implementation of Agenda 21. Councils are ready to play their role in these activities as preparation of the conference and will seek, where favorable, to be mandated by their governments.

The WG welcomes the offer of the German development aid organisation GTZ to invite again the Asian network of SD councils to the EEAC annual conference 2010. The WG discusses the current developments of the post-Lisbon strategy ("EU 2020") and the EU SDS. It is aimed that the main lines of the EU 2020 strategy will be endorsed by the Spring summit, and finally by the European Council of June. Whereever possible, further "greening" of this strategy should be encouraged and demanded. With regard to 'national' SD-governance the councils agreed to organise an assessment of national SD-policies (strength - weakness). A checklist will be prepared that national and regional councils can use. The WG also foresees a reflection on the 'international' SD-governance dimension (see above).

Download the paper Reconstructing the Lisbon Strategy for a Sustainable New Europe

Download the EEAC Rio+20 Declaration

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2009: Follow up of the work on the EEAC Statement 2008

Chair: Tim O'Riordan, Commission Member, UK Sustainable Development Commission (SDC)

Main outcome 2009

During 2009 the Working Group mainly focused on the follow-up of the work on the EEAC statement 2008 "Sustaining Europe for a Long Way Ahead". The WG SD worked on a paper based on the paper of the UK SD Commission "Prosperity without Growth?", as well as a couple of theme papers of the Bordeaux material. The other theme was the future of the Lisbon and SD strategy.

The work 2009 also involved exchange of knowledge, experience and views with the following two bodies:
- The European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) which is an informal network of public administrators and other experts dealing with sustainable development (SD) strategies in Europe.
- The Sustainable Development Observatory (SDO) of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC). The SDO has the long-term objective to become an authority on sustainable development from a civil society perspective, building on and enhancing its constructive and important working relations with the European Commission, the Council and the European Parliament.

In January the WG SD met in Brussels where it decided to produce a short position paper on a Green New Deal, based on the work of a number of councils, and to consider work on new economics structures. The WG also met with the Sustainable Development Observatory of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC/SDO). The WG gave input to the Spring Alliance, in initiative of the Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the European Environmental Bureau (EEB) and the Platform of European Social NGOs (Social Platform), which included participation in the kick-off conference, "Preparing for EU Leadership on Sustainability: A Social and Green Agenda for the Next Decade". The WG provided think-pieces for the Spring Alliance Manifesto and participated in the presentation of the Manifesto.

Download the summary of the kick-off conference to the Spring Alliance Manifesto

In May a WG meeting took place at the FRDO-CFDD office in Brussels. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss EEAC’s input for the ESDN conference in Prague "Options and Opportunities for the future EU Sustainable Development Strategy" (June 2009), and focused on the relationship between the Lisbon strategy and the EU SDS. A paper was developed, based on the EEAC Statement 2008, the work from individual councils as well and the key arguments of the SDC (UK) paper called "Prosperity without Growth". This paper served as input for the European Sustainable Development Network conference in Prague as well as for the European Environment Agency research dissemination seminar in Copenhagen (both in June 2009). During the Prague conference, Jan De Smedt of the FRDO (BE), made a presentation of the state of art of the discussion in the WG. Angelika Zahrnt, Vice-chair of the EEAC Steering Committee, participated on behalf of the network.

Download the paper "Prosperity without Growth?" by the UK SDC

The WG's input to the Spring Alliance Manifesto and the ESDN conference served as content for the paper Reconstructing the Lisbon Strategy for a Sustainable New Europe. In September the WG had a meeting with the Sustainable Development Observatory of the European Economic and Social Committee (EESC/SDO) to further discuss this paper.

Download the paper Reconstructing the Lisbon Strategy for a Sustainable New Europe

In October, during the Annual Conference in Dubrovnik, the APS endorsed a paper, which supports a Rio+20 event. The WG and EEAC secretariat is disseminateing this document towards various stakeholders.

Download the paper supporting a Rio+20 event

For the main outcomes of the past years, please continue reading the archived pages

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