11 June 2020 How can core cities use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reinvigorate the UK economy? In partnership with:
How can core cities use the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to reinvigorate the UK economy? 11 June 2020
In partnership with:
Chair: Toby Fox Managing director, 3Fox
Panelists: Cllr James Lewis - Deputy leader, Leeds City Council Maria Machancoses - Director, Midlands Connect Henri Murison - Director, The Northern Powerhouse Partnership Luke Strickland - Environment and sustainability lead, Mott MacDonald Cllr Sam Webster - Portfolio holder for finance, growth and the city centre, Nottingham City Council
OVERVIEW The discussion ranged widely and this report contains a sample and summary. Watch the webinar in full at thevoiceofauthority.co.uk, and subscribe to stay updated on future episodes.
Post Webinar Report DISCUSSION SUMMARY This webinar session was inspired by a reference that Mayor Marvin Rees of Bristol City Council made in the first Core Cities discussion about the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and their importance for post Covid-19 recovery and future growth. While that first session had a geographic focus on the south-west and the midlands, this session sought to move the focus northwards. Giving then the Leeds perspective, Cllr James Lewis opened the conversation. Cllr Lewis spoke about the importance of playing upon the city’s existing strengths in manufacturing and the digital sector, maintaining investment into public institutions and universities, and the enshrinement of inclusivity as part of its recovery strand.
The lowest earners in society are currently twice as likely to be made unemployed or to be furloughed, and so Leeds wants to make sure as opportunities for jobs return that those opportunities are for green jobs. Cllr Lewis said: “We want to see strong apprenticeships and strong training come forward to make sure that everyone is included, specifically around the green jobs agenda, which I think links in really strongly with the Sustainable Development Goals agenda.” He also raised the importance of devolution for Leeds and by extension Yorkshire. West Yorkshire is currently looking to elect a mayor for the combined authority in May 2021. The combined authority provides a means of getting financial commitment for improved infrastructure, and to “direct the resources of both national government and local government on the skills agenda in a really targeted way”. Devolution gives West Yorkshire the ability to “set a plan and programme for the years ahead and get on with it. We’re not constantly going backwards and forwards to London to see government ministers and officials for what are relatively small projects.” Cllr Lewis also called on government to deliver on promises regarding replacement funding for monetary support that was previously coming from the EU.
“We’ve been here before. I think it is a question around how the resources of government are distributed and how we can look for new and maybe less traditional forms of finance.” – Cllr James Lewis
Cllr Sam Webster of Nottingham agreed with much of what Cllr Lewis had to say. He stressed the importance of supporting younger people, and being able to continue offering training and apprenticeship opportunities. Currently, one of his top asks of government is that they return unspent apprenticeship levy funding to cities, regions and local enterprise partnerships so that local authorities can continue to deliver apprenticeship schemes. He also spoke about Nottingham’s green ambitions – the city aims to be the first in the UK to be carbon neutral by 2028, and is actively working to achieve this goal through retrofitting, the provision of sustainable transport, and other such methods. However, Cllr Webster thinks that there is more to do to link up this sustainability programme with education and training, “to help young people move into these kinds of green jobs in the future”. Cllr Webster also called for a new city deal for Nottingham. “What started as a public health crisis could quickly become and looks as though it is becoming an economic crisis…Government needs to respond to that challenge with core cities in particular as the drivers of the economy in the country.”
“Many things have changed in a very short period of time. We have to understand what those changes are and what they mean going forward.”– Cllr Sam Webster
Henri Murison agreed that the overly centralised natures of government and other institutions that have been at the heart of the response to the current crisis has hindered our ability to respond. Speaking of the aforementioned West Yorkshire deal, Murison said: “It will enable West Yorkshire to respond much more effectively to the response to the crisis and to lead the recovery than if it was left to local individual authorities to try and come to an agreement with government bilaterally.” Murison described a model of collaborative working that is bottom-up, rather than top-down. “Local government needs to remain and be invested in, as well as the strategic-tier city region level, and the level say of a Cumbria or places like the north bank of the Humber or Cheshire, Warrington, that also aspire to devolution. If you hollow out the capacity of local government, which in the end is the delivery engine for most of the projects you want
Post Webinar Report to do, even if you have the capacity to think at the level of a city region and deal with those wider trends and issues, then you lose the ability to respond to them.” Murison also called on businesses to act as advocates for devolution. “It’s incumbent on all of us who have a role in the economies that we live and work in to play a positive part in demonstrating where investment needs to go.”
“My suggestion is empowering local authorities to do that placemaking agenda. Give them freedom, they know their towns, their places, their communities.” – Maria Machancoses
And once that investment is attracted to an area, and given over to a local authority to spend, where should they spend it? Maria Machancoses was keen to emphasise that historically, investment in infrastructure has always been a very good tool for recovery. While many of us are currently working from home, and there have been discussions as to the degree that such arrangements might continue into the future, Machancoses believes that people will want to travel again after the current crisis. “History has shown that after major crises globally, the demand comes back. People are eager to connect to new places, to new people”, Machancoses affirmed, expressing likewise her belief that people will choose to use public transport to do so. However, they “will expect a much improved public transport network”, and will want it to be the most sustainable transport network that it can be. Government on its own can’t achieve this – it has to be a collaborative effort between public and private sectors. Machancoses added: “When it comes to transport, you have to decarbonise the network, you have to start investing in electric charging infrastructure, you need to start thinking about a much wider range of matters. So opportunities are huge, and it's just how you focus your efforts and make decisions so people know where you're heading.”
Luke Strickland was emphatic that efforts for a speedy economic recovery could entail a high carbon rebound. However, with smart thinking and good planning, we can decarbonise and create green jobs and make that a part of the recovery programme and efforts. He said: “We've
got an opportunity to start embedding in our recovery planning, the opportunity to overlay our response to the climate crisis.” The SDGs provide a framework that local authorities can use, and are ideal for this programme as the language they use is “inclusive, holistic, big picture”. Strickland also raised the important point that the SDGs are not only about protecting the environment – equally they are about tackling inequality. “As a society, we don’t want people to be left behind.”
“You can't disconnect the economic recovery and decarbonisation from one another. We can't pay for two different journeys.” - Henri Murison
The question was also raised about how this potential green, inclusive growth will be financed. Cllr Webster referred to some of the measures they are introducing in Leeds, including the council’s new green bond scheme. Murison also pointed out how wide-ranging the benefits of decarbonisation can be, and thus returns on investment. He offered fuel poverty as an example – it is often viewed as a social problem, but “the solutions to dealing with fuel poverty have significant decarbonisation benefits…Technologies like carbon capture, use and storage, building small modular reactors. In reality, those will generate profit to the UK, if you can make the economic case for doing them such that the government creates the certainty and the initial investment to make them happen.” Murison called for integrated solutions, rather than silo policies.
Local authorities and regional authorities are best placed to develop those solutions – but they need Whitehall to give them the backing and the financial support to do so. Cllr Lewis added to this by calling on government to give more support to businesses. Without significant immediate interventions, recession will only be delayed. He said: “I don’t think we should con ourselves that things are OK, because things are not OK. This is the biggest economic hit that any of us have gone through in our lifetimes.” It is important that those large parts of the population who might see discussion about SDGs and sustainable growth as something
Post Webinar Report abstract and unrelated to the predicaments that they now face feel that any programmes for sustainable growth provide jobs and speak to their immediate concerns and needs. As Strickland put it, green growth can’t just be “hypothetical” – it has to be connected to local people and communities.
“Global events have shown that we have the opportunity to take great action now. So we just need to seize that, in all our regions.” – Luke Strickland
What lessons then have we learned from the past three months that we can carry forward into the recovery and that we can apply to sustainable development? Strickland summed it up well: “We've learnt lessons about community response, the importance of local decision-making, and we've talked, we've learned lessons about behavioural change, the role of government regulation, the need for action based on science.” Going forward, the UN SDGs can provide a framework for local authorities to develop people-focused solutions that while being ostensibly and overtly green and sustainability-focused, in reality can tackle a wide range of societal and economic issues. Green recovery is about the environment, yes, but equally and ultimately it must be about people too.
POLLS AND INSIGHT On a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being not very important, 5 being very important), how important is a green recovery to you? 1
2
3
4
5
4%
4%
4%
28%
60%
Should future planning policy be re-framed around the UN SDGs? Yes
No
Unsure
69%
3%
28%
Do you see a role for the UN SDGs in framing investment decisions in your region? Yes
No
Unsure
46%
8%
46%
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