FabianPattberg.com

The topic of the week for me was the decision of the UK government to discontinue the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC).
This decision is a catastrophe for the Sustainability field here in the UK in my opinion.

The Sustainable Development Commission (SDC) has been a champion of responsible business and government practice since its inception. It has celebrated many successes and nothing will be gained in my opinion by its discontinuation.
So what happened to the aim of being the ‘greenest UK government ever”? I guess it will turn out to be another hollow statement.

We are left to see what effect this discontinuation of the SDC will be. But there is one thing that has been become clearer than ever for me over the past few days: Never trust a politician actually delivering change if we are not in good economic times. Especially if his/her background is in media business such as for David Cameron , the current UK prime minister.

Here are some other news articles about this topic for you to get a better overview of various the reactions:

• Time: British Government Cuts Green Group
• Reuters: Watchdog says green steps can help close budget gaps
• Dash24.com: Shortsighted government to axe watchdog

And not to forget James Delingpole’s blog post about the topic: Government decides Sustainable Development Commission is unsustainable. He is known to take topics such as this apart to a point where they only serve him and his publicity. Obviously I had to comment as I am very passionate about this topic. And I received the public backlash I expected!

So let me know what you think about this decision to scrap the SDC. Do think it is a good decision or do you disagree?

P.S.: I also wrote a news item about this on the SustainabilityForum.com News two days ago.

Today’s post is a video from TED about enabling individuals to lead a better life and the cruel practice of ‘Dancing Bears’ in India.

These two subjects seem to be very different from each other but once you will have watched the video below you will see that if you want to solve a problem such as the cruel practice of the ‘Dancing Bears’ in India you need to enable the person earning a living from this practice to lead a different life and not just penalizing them for animal cruelty.

Kartick Satyanarayan describes how he and his organization changed the lifes of bear handlers by giving them an opportunity and not a jail sentence.

Today’s post is about interesting videos in the Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) I have come across recently.

Here are three interesting videos on the topic of Sustainability.

They are all different but interesting never the less.

Sustainability from Josh Munson on Vimeo.

What is Sustainability? from Info CVC on Vimeo.

Campus Sustainability from Open Dome Studios on Vimeo.

Which video do you prefer?

I prefer video number 3.