Sustainable Development Strategy for Northern Ireland
Sustainable Development - definition
The Sustainable Development Strategy for Northern Ireland has adopted the following widely used definition of sustainable development:- "Development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their needs" (Our Common Future - The Brundtland Report - report of the 1987 World Commission on environment and Development). This definition encompases economic, socal and environmental considerations - the three fundamental pillars of sustainable development.
Sustainable Development - Guiding principles and priority areas
The Northern Ireland strategy - "first steps towards sustainability" - sets out the principles which must underpin all decision making processes to ensure we can achieve our objectives of a healthy environment, a thriving economy, prosperity and quality of life for all.
The Northern Ireland sustainable development guiding principles are:
- Living within environmental limits
- Ensuring a strong, healthy & just society
- Achieving a sustainable economy
- Promoting good governance
- Using sound science responsibly
- Promoting opportunity & innovation
and the Northern Ireland priority areas are-
- Sustainable consumption and production
- Climate change and energy
- Natural resource protection / environmental enhancement
- Sustainable communities
- Governance for sutainable development
- Learning and communication
Sustainable Development - Key procurement related objective and targets
The strategy identifies a key objective “To make the Northern Ireland Public Sector a UK Regional leader in Sustainable Procurement”.
The key targets identified to achieve this objective are:
•All Public Sector procurement to be channelled through recognised Centres of Procurement Expertise (CoPEs). This target was subsequently revised in Objective 5 of PSA 21 of the Programme for Government 2008 - 2011 to "A minimum of 95% value of procurement to be subject to Centre of Procurement Expertise influence by 31 March 2009". If this is not met, Departments, their Agencies and Non Departmental Public Bodies (NDPBs) must seek to reduce Non CoPE spend by 25% year on year 2008 - 2011.
•Ensure that sustainable development principles guide capital investment decisions on all major publicly funded building and infrastructure projects.
•Produce a Sustainable Procurement Action Plan for Northern Ireland.