27th October 2006 - Professor James Curran

Professor James Curran

'Sustainable development is a journey – but are we on a cheap day return?'

As the former head of environmental strategy at the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA) James investigated the way the environment should be treated in the future, and emphasised that careful nurturing is fundamental to sustainable development and essential to existence.

He presented a different overview of sustainable development where the environment is overarching and encompasses social and economic activity. It is our life support system. Sustainable development is about developing long term synergies - being creative to generate opportunities between the social, economic and environmental elements. In other words, creating win, win, wins. James discussed his views on environmental protection and regulation which can be over-burdensome.

He discussed prospects for environmental regulation to become smarter. For example businesses have to engage their staff in improving health and safety issues. There is scope to complement this by improving environmental awareness at the same time. This would reduce businesses environmental impact, raise their productivity by 5-10% and educate two and a half million Scottish employees about environmental issues. “Smart regulation”.

James also mentioned the challenge of climate change and the particular role of peatland in rural Scotland. It will only take the erosion of 0.1% of Scotland’s peat deposits to release carbon dioxide equivalent to Scotland’s annual man made emissions.

James concluded by suggesting that for areas like the Highlands and Islands there needs to be a new approach to how we protect the environment. The environment is dynamic and each generation faces different issues. Regulation is needed but often only offers a quick fix. In future we need to be more creative in our thinking. This is a hearts and minds issue where individuals will need to take more responsibility for their action. If we can do this, we will be able to genuinely deliver win, win, wins.

The streaming audio file here allows you to sample key points from James's full presentation. His supporting slide presentation and questions and answers that followed are also available here in Adobe Reader pdf format.