Our approach
The Environment Council’s charitable purpose focuses us on seeking new ways to resolve and build truly sustainable solutions to the challenges facing society in the quest for sustainable development. By its nature sustainable development requires consideration of the often-competing agendas of environment, social and economic drivers. Such complexity requires a different approach to decision-making, one that enables truly sustainable solutions to be created by those organisations and people with a stake and interest in the future.
Since the early 1990s The Environment Council has pioneered the use of more collaborative and interactive techniques to co-create or inform decision-making in the sustainability arena. Our principal focus is on the way in which decisions are made and informed and believe that only through authentic engagement with stakeholders can truly sustainable solutions be developed and realised. Sustainable solutions often come as much from the process that has been used to create them as the outcome itself.
The key dimensions of our inclusive approach to environmental decision- making are:
| > | Bringing together everyone affected by a decision |
| > | Sharing responsibility for the planning and process with stakeholders |
| > | Managing processes and facilitating discussions professionally and independently |
| > | Ensuring equality of input into the decision-making process by all stakeholders |
| > | Ensuring that information is recorded and communicated clearly and transparently to all stakeholders |