Welcome to the Scottish Sustainable Development Forum. We are a network of sustainable development experts and practitioners across Scotland.
For information about joining email ssdf@sdc-scotland.org.uk
SSDF welcomes new Chair
The Scottish Sustainable Development Forum welcomes new chair Evan Williams.
Evan, who has many years’ experience in both the public and private sector – and now manages his own consultancy ‘Environmental and Resource Economics’ – is passionate about SSDF’s potential to bring different sectors together “It’s not just public sector and ngos who get involved”, he says.
Evan, who lives in Paisley and has two sons – Michael, 15, and Gareth, 9 – is also the UK Manager for Al Gore’s Climate Project, supporting people that Al Gore trained to take forward the messages from his film ‘An Inconvenient Truth’.
The SSDF is wider than climate change, says Evan, it’s about making Scotland more sustainable, promoting sustainable lives and sustainable places. “We have got to change the way we behave – if there’s no other lesson from the current economic crisis – it should be that the ways things were going weren’t moving society in the right direction.”
“A forum is about a place where different sectors can get together – and that’s about collective problem solving,” he says.
Out-going Chair, James Curran, who has recently joined SEPA as its Director of Science remains on the Board of Trustees as Vice-Chair for the next year, and Pip Tabor, Project Manager for the Southern Uplands Trust, has taken on the role of Treasurer.
SSDF e-bulletin
The July edition of the SSDF bulletin is now available here
The Scottish Green List 2009
Scotland’s 50 sustainable development champions have been named on the first ever Scottish Green List.
At the award ceremony in Edinburgh Environment Minister Roseanna Cunningham praised the initiative and enthusiasm shown by the individuals on the list, and hailed them as examples to follow for a greener Scotland.
The judging panel with representatives from business, media, voluntary sector and sustainable development chose the 50 from over 300 nominations.
See the full list here
Read ex SSDF Chair Professor James Curran on the importance of celebrating champions here
See the coverage in the Scotsman: numbers 1-10, 11-20, 21-30, 31-50
SSDF SPRING CONFERENCE
Attitudes to sustainability and behaviour change - bridging the gaps..
Our afternoon Spring Conference on 22 April 2009 included a presentation from a varied panel of speakers including Jan Webb, University of Edinburgh, Tania Flasck, sustainability manager at global engineering company MWH, and artist Anne Bevan. Both Tania and Anne have carried out (very different) work with Scottish Water and Jan Webb offered a critical perspective on the Scottish Environmental Attitudes and Behaviours Survey (SEABS).
In the first half of the afternoon we heard from the Environment Directors at the Scottish Government, and held a debate about bridging the gap between attitudes and behaviour, and workshops on the next steps for Scotland.
See the presentations here:
Jan Webb, Professor of Sociology, Edinburgh University
Tania Flasck, Sustainability Manager, MWH Engineering Company
Anne Bevan, Edinburgh College of Art
Government speakers presentations:
Richard Wakeford, Director General
Peter Russell, Director Natural Environment
John Mason, Director Environmental Quality
Nicola Hay, Senior Planner
OVER TO YOU
Do you have stories you would like to share? Whether you’re involved with a Climate Challenge Fund project, or have been to an SSDF event, or simply want to comment on the newsletter—please write in, we’d love to hear from you. The SSDF is about bringing together people and ideas about sustainability across Scotland, and we want to promote good practice and share learning, so that people can turn good ideas into reality.
Email info@ssdf.org.uk
