The comprehensive Spending Review has brought sustainability
back to the forefront of policy agenda.
While the economic turmoil of recent years has tended to
overshadow sustainability issues, concerns over climate change,
energy security and the longer-term price (not to say availability)
of fossil fuels remain. With albeit tentative growth returning, the
green issues (that never went away) are likely to rise up the
policy agenda again.
The Spending Review and sustainability
The Spending Review demonstrated that the Government will
continue to push forward in this area. Like many of the nonring-
fenced departments, the department of energy and climate change
suffered significant funding cuts, but the consensus seems to be
that sustainability programmes held up reasonably well. Some key
points arising from the Spending Review were confirmation of:
