As the recession ends in the private economy, it is just beginning for the 5.8 million public servants in the UK, and the millions more around the world.  Faced with swingeing budget cuts (several percent per year for the foreseeable future) can public sector organisations stay true to their commitments to carbon reduction, sustainable regeneration, ethical procurement, greener healthcare and a wealth of other new practices and initiatives?

In theory, yes.  If sustainable development thinking is no use to you in times of austerity, it is no use at all, and hard times should be when it proves its worth.   Sustainable development was developed as a concept to address the pressing problem of environmental degradation and its impact on human welfare – the mother of all recessions.  But for municipalities, health trusts, police authorities and the many other providers of public services, it’s very tempting to cut spending on expensive-looking ‘green’ activity when you have to slice 5% off the salami –  whether that means abandoning projects or closing down the teams and strategy units set up to run them.

It’s a much braver choice to use sustainability principles to guide where to wield the knife, and, more to the point, to use the same thinking to find efficiency gains, new ways of working, and deliver greater public value.

Doing that means understanding how sustainability relates to the core business of the organisation and its success in the long term.   So it’s a paradox that whilst the business case for sustainable development is regularly articulated and used as a justification for corporate investment – and as a kind of strategic security blanket – the public value case for similar action is seldom expressed. This leaves public bodies with only patchy and partial arguments for their sustainability commitments in tough times. 

Well, not any more.   A new Forum report highlights how sustainability principles hold the key to creating public value in austere times.  In ‘Stepping up: a framework for public sector leadership on sustainable development’ we set out how forward-looking public bodies can go beyond the business case to address market failure, build resilience and reinforce the crumbling social contract when  they use sustainability thinking to create public value. 

What does that mean in practice?  Stepping up sets out a nine-point plan for public sector organisations wanting to take the lead in using sustainability to deliver better services.  It starts with ‘making the case’- setting out that basic argument - examines linking policy and delivery, and goes all the way through to building a learning culture and running demonstration projects.   And there’s a self-assessment tool to check where you are on the journey – from ‘At Risk’ (of failing to comply with legal obligations and suffering financial and reputational hits) to ‘Systemic’ – one of those rare paragons using sustainability principles to maximise efficiency and public value creation over time.

Some are well down this road.  Others have barely begun.  Stepping up picks out some of the best examples of progress from around the world, whether public or private.  Swedish city Vaxjo’s use of bioenergy, innovative food procurement by PCTs in Cornwall, Vodafone’s stakeholder engagement process,  the GLA’s approach to policy integration, and InterfaceFLOR’s investment in staff capacity show how early adopters are pointing the way. 

But we believe any organisation can be a leader on sustainable development, and those that grasp the challenge in difficult times will emerge strongest from the recession, with more efficient services, more productive relationships with their communities and partners, and better prepared for the environmental shocks that lie ahead.