SNI's Recent Milestones, Achievements and Outcomes

Sustainable Development Survey of District Councils

Key Project Outcomes

A survey of district councils was undertaken to provide an overview on how they were engaging with sustainable development. The results were used to help formulate a Strategic Plan for Sustainable Northern Ireland.

Established baseline data on each district councils understanding of sustainable development and the new duty on sustainable development.

Focus group meetings with District Councils

Meetings were held to gather additional information from district councils on the level of support they required to help integrate sustainable development into their organisations.

Information on the type of information and level of support needed by district councils to implement sustainable development.

Manuals for implementing Sustainable Development

Three documents were produced, each with a different target audience. The first manual provided a strategic overview of sustainable development and was aimed at council Chief Executives and elected members. The second focused on the actions for different council departments with their areas of responsibility. The final manual provided more detail and identified a number of actions and targets for councils under the SD Strategy's priority areas for action.

Manuals distributed to all Elected Members, council Chief Executive and SD Officers.

The manuals are still the most downloaded item on Sustainable Northern Ireland's website, since launch they have been downloaded over 8,000 times.

Summit of Sustainable Development (June 2007)

This event re-invigorated the need for action on sustainable development and provided a platform to launch the three manuals (page 7). It increased the level of work being undertaken within councils to develop sustainable development action plans.

Reinvigoration of sustainable development activity within the councils by helping councils identifies actions they could take.

Climate Change Survey for NICCIP

Key Project Outcomes

In March / April 2008 Sustainable Northern Ireland designed and carried out a comprehensive climate change survey on behalf of the Northern Ireland Climate Change Impacts Partnership (NICCIP). Surveys were sent to the public, MLAs and key decision makers within central and local government to ascertain their views as well as what they were doing or would be prepared to do to help reduce climate change.

Realisation that the majority of people in Northern Ireland accepted that climate change was in part due to anthropogenic activities. An understanding of the type of lifestyle changes people would be willing to make in order to reduce CO₂ emissions.

sustainABLE Newsletter

Every quarter, Sustainable Northern Ireland publishes a newsletter to communicate examples of sustainable development good practice, highlight upcoming legislation and inspire action for sustainable development.

Increased awareness of sustainable development issues and activities in Northern Ireland. Promotion of Sustainable Northern Ireland's work activities.

Making the Links

This document highlights the specific elements of sustainable development that exist in other Government Strategies, actions and targets. It demonstrates that sustainable development is not a standalone concept but rather one which provides a framework for environmental, social and economic issues to enable better decision making and a more co-ordinated approach to government's work.

Highlighting the existing strategies, actions and targets that already contribute to sustainable development to enable district councils to demonstrate how every department has responsibility of sustainable development.

Sustainability Exchange

Key Project Outcomes

The Sustainability Exchange is a social networking website for people working within (or related to) sustainable development in Northern Ireland. It is designed to share examples of projects, ideas, research papers or pilot projects and it is a forum to ask peers for advice and guidance.

Establishment of a social networking platform for exchanging ideas and research and testing of the site to launch in 2011.

Sense and Sustainability: Financing the Path to Sustainability in a Tough Economy

In May 2009 Sustainable Northern Ireland assembled a group of experts for a conference focusing on how to use sustainability as a mechanism to help Northern Ireland out of the economic recession.

Demonstrating how sustainable development thinking can be used to stimulate the economy in tough economic times. This was followed by the publication of a factsheet based on the key points made during the conference.

Sustainability Audit Matrix (SAM)

This project helps district councils to recognise their existing contributions to sustainable development across the whole organisation. It was originally developed as a pilot that developed into a self-assessment mechanism to allow councils to assess their own progress and identify a suitable action plan embedded within the corporate planning function of their council.

Nine councils are participating in this scheme to help them identify a sustainability framework that they can map then current and future activities to across all council departments and functions.