The recently abolished Sustainable Development Commission held a launch event for their report on empowering communities to improve their neighbourhoods a few weeks ago. I went along because I needed some convincing to support the Big Society concept and how it might work for sustainability. I’m not at all convinced, but after some time to reflect over my summer holiday I think I’m finally able to put my thoughts into words. Many planners and sustainability professionals will agree that community groups are more likely to form and raise their voice on issues they oppose, rather than organising themselves to build schools and local energy schemes.
Phillip Blond, Director of ResPublica, spoke at the SDC launch event about the ‘increasingly fragmented’ nature of our society and how people are not associating. He spoke about how it’s problematic to get people to form groups on lots of separate issues like crime and health because it leads to disaggregated communities. Not everybody in the audience agreed with this but I found it very thought provoking. In terms of the environment, he said that climate change is the only topic on the environment agenda, but people just don’t get it. Carbon is invisible: “have you ever seen any?” Continue reading “Carbon is invisible, money is tangible”