Watchdog critical of sustainability plans

New plans to embed sustainability across Whitehall and build a "greener" government have been described by the chair of the independent environmental watchdog the Sustainable Development Commission (SDC), Will Day, as "lacking ambition".

Day also described the plans as “vague” on how the government will make sustainable development the core of its policies and how departments are run.

The proposals follow the coalition government’s decision, last July, to withdraw funding from the SDC, which, since 2000, has been advising government on sustainability.

The government claims the package of measures will guarantee that government policies have been “sustainability-proofed”. Day, however, criticised the absence of the “five principles of sustainable development”, including living within environmental limits, that the SDC had employed to assess whether or not a policy delivery is sustainable.