The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee has strongly criticised the Government for failing to set out a clear plan to deliver the Sustainable Development Goals here in the UK, together with criticising the lack of leadership from the Prime Minister on the issue.

The EAC says Theresa May should take personal responsibility for ensuring a promised report from the Government setting out how it intends to take an integrated, cross-government and policy-coherent approach to implementing the Goals in the UK is published by summer 2017.

The comments come in the Committee’s newly-published report Sustainable Development Goals in the UK which is highly critical of the Government’s current approach and efforts to date.

Current approach leaves  “doughnut-shaped hole” in place of efforts to implement Goals in UK

According to the MPs, while the Government is making  “big claims” about what it is doing to deliver the Goals internationally, it is “doing little at home, leaving a doughnut-shaped hole in place of efforts to implement the Goals in the UK.”

The Global Goals were agreed by nations at the UN in 2015 setting targets to end extreme poverty, tackle climate change and reduce inequality by 2030.

Implementing the Global Goals presents the UK with significant economic opportunities, according to the Committee's report. However, the MPs say that the Government has done little to promote the Goals and few people have heard of them.

The EAC is now calling for the Government to start a national conversation about implementing the Goals, working with the BBC and other national media, and provide the public with ways to get involved. This could take place as part of Red Nose Day and Comic Relief, and link with charities working in the UK and overseas, the report says.

UK businesses and charities are outpacing Government on the issue

The report says that UK businesses and charities are outpacing Government on the issue, and that despite the Government's failure to embrace the Goals, some UK businesses are embracing the Goals, and looking at how they contribute to the ambitious agenda.

The Business & Sustainable Development Commission have estimated that the economic prize to business of implementing the Goals could be worth up to US$12 trillion by 2030.

However, giving evidence to the Committee, Steve Waygood, Chief Responsible Investment Officer at Aviva, warned the EAC that risks posed by climate change, for example, could wipe $43 trillion off the economy in the future. He said:

 “I think the biggest opportunity to business is avoiding the very significant negative macroeconomic consequences of the markets failing to be sustainable”.

The report says the Government should support those companies who are already adopting the Goals, and incentivise or require others to do likewise. In particular, the Government should look for effective ways to promote responsible business behaviour.

Government inaction leaves “doughnut-shaped hole”  in strategy to implement UKSDGs

According to the MPs, while the Government is making “big claims” about what it is doing to deliver the Goals internationally, it is “doing little at home, leaving a doughnut-shaped hole in place of efforts to implement the Goals in the UK.”

The report says that the fact that Cabinet-level Ministers were not willing to appear before the Committee was “a worrying sign that the issue is being quietly dropped in Government.”

The MPs are calling for the Government to keep its promise to publish a report setting out how it intends to take an integrated, cross-government and policy-coherent approach to implementing the Goals in the UK and should so by summer 2017. The Committee also criticises the lack of leadership from the Prime Minister, who should take personal responsibility for ensuring the report is implemented, commenting:

“She should publically endorse timely and regular Government updates, through a Cabinet Committee set up for this purpose, on progress to achieve the Goals in the UK to Parliament and to the public in an annual report. As the UK leaves the European Union, demonstrating a deep and meaningful commitment to meeting these global commitments domestically would send a powerful signal about the Government’s ambition for a “Global Britain” in which no one is left behind.”

Government should create independent SDG advisory body modelled on Committee on Climate Change

The EAC are calling for the creation of an independent advisory body tasked with providing independent, evidence-based advice to the responsible minister and the Prime Minister, and whose job it is to audit successive governments’ performance against the long-term targets enshrined in the Goals.

The EAC says this should be modelled on the independent Committee on Climate Change and should utilise data collected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS)  to produce regular audits on the progress towards achieving the Goals and provide evidence-based advice on what the Government could do to promote sustainable development and progress.

It also wants a Cabinet-level Minister to be appointed  to the Cabinet Office with strategic responsibility for implementing sustainable development, including the Goals, across Government.

Failure to develop set of national indicators “an attempt to bury data?”

However, the EAC is concerned that the Government appears to have changed its mind about the ONS developing a set of national indicators, saying it is now almost two years since the Government adopted the Goals and that having a proper accountability framework in place is key to ensuring the Goals are met. The report says:

“This suggests an attempt to bury data which will be seen by the public - and us - as going against the spirit of the Goals.”

“This would undermine UK leadership on the Goals. If this is the case then two years of work by the ONS will have been wasted by the Government. It means there will be no aggregate scorecard or baseline against which to measure progress towards the Goals. This will harm public accountability and moves the country away from achieving the Goals.”

Risks of cherry-picking data in areas where Government is performing well

The EAC also expressed concern that integrating the indicators into the Government’s Single Departmental Plans would risks reducing the level of engagement and participation from non-government bodies and increases the temptation for the Government to “cherry-pick indicators and focus on areas where it is performing well. “

The Government must clarify urgently in its response to this report whether the ONS will report on national progress towards the Global Goals.

The report is recommending that the ONS should hold an open competition seeking ideas for how the results could be branded and communicated and look for partnerships with organisations who have expertise in communications and marketing, as well as working with stakeholders, effectively to communicate its findings in an accessible way and promote them to the widest possible audience.

The report says the ONS requires secure and sustained funding to carry out its job in relation to the Goals, and the Government should set out how much funding the ONS will receive at the start of every Parliament.

Aviva –SDGs are seventeen market failures

The report draws attention to evidence given to the Committee by Steve Waygood, Chief Responsible Investment Officer at Aviva who emphasised the need for a business case perspective to the Goals, saying:

 “We are commercial entities and so from a business-case perspective, what the business case associated with sustainable development Goals looks like is crucial”.

Describing the Goals as seventeen market failures he said:

“Now, they would not exist as goals if the markets were functioning properly. I think the [Goals] represent 17 market failures. The role of business could be therefore—with Government support, with better-defined markets, with rule of law more clearly specified, with other incentives set out—to help deliver, close gaps and provide solutions, particularly in areas like health care, education, climate-friendly energy solutions. So, there is money to be made with market development. They would not exist as problems if the markets were not failing; it is a self-evident fact.”

Steve Waygood set out the potential opportunities and risks to engaging or not engaging with the Goals. He highlighted a Business & Sustainable Development Commission report that recently estimated that “sustainable business models could open economic opportunities worth up to US$12 trillion and increase employment by up to 380 million jobs by 2030”.

Steve Waygood suggested incentivising business engagement with the Goals using the power of leagues tables and benchmarks. He highlighted his belief in the power of “name, shame” and “fame” to “drive that race to the top”.

He said that “any board of any real brand would be worried if they were at the bottom of a robust, credible benchmark” and that this could be achieved by utilising sustainability reporting.

Launching the report, Mary Creagh MP, Chair of the Environmental Audit Committee, said:

"As the UK leaves the EU, the Government has a once in a generation opportunity to use the Global Goals to forge a cross-party consensus on sustainable development in the UK.”

"However, the Government seems to regard the Goals as a developing world issue and has no clear plan to implement them domestically.”

Click here to download Sustainable Development Goals in the UK in full