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Wondering how you can effectively build environmental sustainability into development policies? Jamieson Temple, of the official development assistance team for International Biodiversity and Climate at Defra, highlights the priorities to focus on. Sustainable development was defined in the World Conservation Strategy report 1991 as: "The integration of conservation and development to ensure that modifications to the planet do indeed secure the survival and wellbeing of all people”. Sustainable development deals with the attainment of human development goals while preserving ecological systems, and limiting negative impact on the environment and resources in achieving these goals. This is based on the principle that many of today’s environmental problems and risks are largely a consequence of the unsustainable consumption of natural resources, and the mismanagement of waste products. While we can summarise that sustainable development focuses on "improving the quality of life for all", this concept offers different things to different people, as it is not only about environmental protection, but also related to sustained economic growth and social equity. To achieve environmental sustainability, policies must prioritise the following elements. Reduce gender gaps politically, economically, and socially so that access to resources is protected. The Human Development Report (2003) states: "Gender equality is at the core of whether the goals will be achieved-from improving health and fighting disease to reducing poverty and mitigating hunger, to expanding education and lowering child mortality, to increasing access to safe water, to ensuring environmental sustainability." Ensure equity and inter-generational equality is at the foundation of sustainability. This means giving all people similar rights, opportunities, and access to all forms of community capital. This is included in Article 3 of the Climate Change Convention, which states: "Parties should protect the climate system for the benefit of present and future generations of humankind, on the basis of equity and in accordance with their common but differentiated responsibilities." Preserve indigenous territorial rights that protect biodiversity and local culture, including knowledge and resource. The World Summit on Sustainable Development at Copenhagen in 1995 recognised that "social development is central to the needs and aspirations of people throughout the world and to the responsibilities of governments and all sectors of civil society." Developed by the United Nations Development Programme, the Human Development Index measures quality of life and has brought into focus the widening gap between the countries of the North and the South. A wealthy minority of the world’s population is consuming at an unsustainably high level, causing disproportionate damage to global ecosystems, while protecting only their local environment. A poor, larger, and rapidly growing proportion of the world’s population is being forced, through poverty, to degrade the natural resource base on which it is directly dependent. Developing countries have sought to rectify perceived asymmetries in international law regarding resource access, distribution, and consumption, calling for the creation of a new international economic order. In the South, the key environmental problems are poverty and underdevelopment, and other issues directly related to these two phenomena. More recently, developing countries have emphasised the link between third world poverty, environmental degradation, and northern consumption. For developing countries, resource control and unequal distribution through financial and other structural levers by the North, to maintain industrialised countries' lifestyles, are perceived as the major sources of the widespread poverty and underdevelopment in the South, as well as major contributors to environmental degradation. While developed countries are at loggerheads on what should be solved first - ozone layer depletion, climate change, biodiversity conservation, or the asymmetries of the international financial system - these all have deep linkages with the social and environmental problems of the South. The inextricable links to the consumption and globalisation patterns of developed countries in impacting the environment highlights the shared nature of global sustainable development goals.

Welcome to The Branch Editors Blog. We’re so happy to see CSCEN growing at pace, and our newsletter is rapidly filling with events, updates and opportunities. We’ve moved our monthly wrap into this rolling blog, so that you can catch up on our top news and conversations from members of the CSCEN committee every month. March edition March has been another busy month for CSCEN. We have been celebrating (and recovering from) the first ever Civil Service Climate and Environment Conference, which was held by the network in London on 21 February. As well as being a fantastic event in itself (with 700 attendees, more than 70 speakers and over 40 stalls), the conference has had a huge impact on the wider network: our membership increased by record levels across January and February with 1,500 new joiners, bringing our total membership to 7,500. We received constructive feedback on the conference, which we’ll be factoring in to our planning of future events, so thanks to everyone who made time to send us their thoughts and experiences of the day. If you weren’t able to attend the conference or would like to re-visit some of events, many of the sessions were recorded and we are in the process of making the recordings available on our website. You can watch our ministerial panel discussion and circular economy sessions now, and look out for further additions, coming soon. This month, we’ve held two fascinating events (a talk and discussion group) themed around Green Finance. This is a rapidly growing sector that recognises the need to integrate climate and environmental factors into financial products and decision making in order to tackle the impacts of climate change. "Greening finance" is one of the government's top priorities and is key to transitioning to net zero, but it can present challenges for traditional approaches to financial investing. The talk was hosted at the Old Admiralty Building in London (which also included 250 people attending online) where three fantastic speakers from Defra, Finance Earth and the Green Finance Institute came together to discuss their work. The talk covered the governments green finance strategy, cross sector work to accelerate the transition to a green economy as well as some example projects. You can watch the recording online. Linking back to our previous theme of Green Utopias, a new episode of the Environment Deep Dive Podcast launched this month featuring a fascinating discussion of protopias - culturally, socially and environmentally engaged designs for our future world. December Edition Happy New Year, CSEN members! As we round off another year – and what a year it has been – everybody on the CSEN committee would like to thank you all for your support and involvement with the network this year. Over the last months we have more than doubled our membership, created and published more content on climate and environment policy across government than ever before, secured our first sponsorships to help grow our events, and planning is well underway for the inaugural CSEN Climate and Environment Conference in February. None of this would be possible without your continued interest, your thoughtful feedback, and the contributions you make to our shared values of bringing like-minded colleagues together from across the Civil Service to empower each other and make climate policy a priority. Thank you. We hope you’ve managed to take some restful time off over the festive period, whatever that means for you. If you’re looking for a gentle, yet thought-provoking, way to ease back in, have a read of our latest blog from the Plastic Champions Network on why intersectionality is and must be central to the environmental sector. For more reading, we kicked off our new “pick of the policies” blog series – inspired by the brilliant speaker applications received for the CSEN Conference – with an exploration of what the Welsh Government is doing to address emission levels linked to social care as part of its Net Zero 2030 Public Sector ambition. Under our December theme of “Education and Skills” – neatly summarised in this month’s Environment 101 – we published our Deep Dive podcast featuring Phil Korbel and Will Gibb from the Carbon Literacy Project discussing how education can aid the fight against climate change and grow the green economy. At our December talk, we heard from experts at the Department for Education and University College London’s recently launched Centre for Climate Change and Sustainability Education about work underway to provide sustainability-focused learning materials to teachers and help the UK become the world’s leading education sector in climate change by 2030. Our volunteering opportunity of the month showcased Good Gym: the programme helping you find active local volunteering gigs that will get you moving. Perfect to help burn off those holiday calories. Checking in with our Offshoots series, we hosted a short talk with the British Ecological Society discussing what governments around the world can do to help develop an international guide to halt and reverse nature loss through protected areas. See the society’s report on protected areas, showing how 30% of land and sea in the UK can be protected for nature and biodiversity by 2030. In January, we are making a fresh and inspirational start by exploring the concept of Green Utopia. Watch this space for more in 2023! November Edition This month was Trees and Forests month, and for the self-proclaimed tree-huggers amongst us, brought a good opportunity to geek out. If you don't yet consider yourself a tree-hugger, our Environment 101 videos might be a good place to start. We also had two fascinating and complimentary speakers for the November Trees and Forests talk - the Director of the England Tree Planting programme at Defra and Jenny Schofield from the Woodland Trust. Both emphasised the necessary use of partnerships to promote the UK's trees and forest agenda and reach Net Zero targets. Both speakers received many informed (and challenging!) questions from our virtual and in-person attendees. The CSEN Surge and Innovation team launched their new Offshoots series, with the first event launching on December 5th - Nature Recovery, Global Biodiversity Conference and 30x30. November's 'All of Government' podcast, featuring the three CSEN co-chairs, unpacked how the UK Government can collaborate on environmental policy, how we can coordinate different departments on joint goals, and what can be done to overcome the challenges of cross-government working. The Civil Service Climate and Environment Conference is getting closer and closer. We had an incredible 130 submissions, and if you're still waiting to hear from us on this you should do so over the next few days. We've also had a huge number of people volunteer to help at the conference - as always we're so happy to have the chance to bring CSEN members together. Stick with us next month as we start to explore Education and Skills with our usual offering of learning materials, events and blogs! October Edition With the changes that have been taking place at record-breaking speed across government over the last weeks, this month’s climate diplomacy theme could not be more timely. During her premiership, Liz Truss’s plans for solving the energy crisis put fracking back on the news agenda, Just Stop Oil protestors made headlines with a series of paint-throwing statements targeting internationally recognised businesses and monuments, and King Charles’ ascent to the throne raised questions about how he will continue his work championing and campaigning for the environment. To tackle this broad topic, we’ve brought you two Environment 101 videos, covering the basics of climate diplomacy, the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement. As many of you prepare for next month’s COP27 in Egypt, we also delve into the legacy of the international meeting and how it works. COP27 inevitably became a key theme for this month’s panel talk; another successful hybrid with more than 230 people joining in-person and online. We heard from the UK Lead Climate Negotiator Archie Young, environmental economist Professor Elizabeth Robinson, and the FCDO’s Head of Climate Diplomacy Andrew Francis about the challenges that different parties will bring to the table in Egypt, and the importance of including a diversity of roles in a national delegation. Our speakers discussed the disparity between the effects of pollution and climate change on human health in more and less affluent countries, whether richer countries should be leading a shift in how growth (particularly in energy and agricultural sectors) is perceived and, ultimately, how climate change issues cannot be separated from the energy and cost of living crises. In other news, our latest blog on “why we need to clean our act up in space” touches on how our relationship with other nations can be leveraged to improve sustainability in our exploitation of space. More on this next year during our Beyond Earth month. We hope to meet many of you in person at our inaugural CSEN Conference in February 2023. Submissions to present at the conference have now closed, with a massive 129 submissions from across government. Details on how to book your place will follow soon, so keep an eye on our newsletters and conference page. Fran September Edition This month has been another big one for CSEN: in the last four weeks alone we have jumped from 4,500 to 5,000 members! For those of us who have been with CSEN for several years, this number seems pretty astonishing and is testament to the brilliant work of the CSEN committee, who volunteer up to 10% of their working time to deliver everything we offer our members, from our website to our events to our newsletters. So thank you to the team – and welcome to all our new members! As co-chair, I’m humbled by the speed of our membership growth, and even more so when I reflect on everything we’ve delivered this month, as well as what’s next on the agenda. In early September, the events unit travelled to Defra and Natural England’s Bristol office to deliver our second ever hybrid event. We were joined by three brilliant speakers: professors Daniela Schmidt and Steve Simpson from the University of Bristol, as well as James Smith from Defra Marine. As well as a fascinating talk that offered a diversity of perspectives on the topic of oceans, we were thrilled to host a networking lunch afterwards, for all 55 CSEN members who joined in person. Delicious sandwiches, fruit, and snacks were kindly provided by PolicyBristol – so a big thank you to them. Mid-month, our connections unit ran the climate anchor career workshops in collaboration with HMG’s policy profession. It was wonderful to see so many of you there, and we can’t wait to share our findings with you. Most recently, we travelled back to London for our ‘All of Government’ panel event, kindly supported by our partners Kin + Carta. We often hear the criticism in government that we work in silos and don’t talk to our counterparts in other departments enough. Our panellists shared brilliant insights into the power of collaboration, especially at times of crises, from their perspectives in local government, Defra, and DLUHC. A recording of the talk will be available on the CSEN website soon. You can find out more about cross-government collaboration in our content team’s brilliant Environment 101 series. I look forward to seeing you at our October events soon! Charlotte August Edition Hi CSEN and welcome to the first edition of The Branch Editors Blog. It’s felt like an incredibly long month. Despite being summer, and summer recess, the work hasn’t stopped. The exiting news this month is that CSEN has reached a huge 4500 members, meaning we now represent 1% of the Civil Service! Oceans and rivers has been our theme of the month, but our August talk hasn’t happened yet so there’s still time to join us online or in Defra’s Horizon House on 5 September, where we’ll hear from experts from the University of Bristol and the DD for International Marine Environment at Defra. Our discussion group went ahead last week with huge numbers attending – thanks to everyone that shared in the session. Our discussion groups are designed to be a safe forum where you can share some successes and air your frustrations with Government’s work towards our themes. “None of us can survive without a healthy ocean, whether we’re in landlocked cities or living on the coastline itself”. With the worrying backdrop of water companies in the UK pumping extremely damaging raw sewage into the sea around the south coast, it was an important month for our Environment Deep Dive podcast. Justine Solomons-Moat from CSENs Content Team sat down with Hugo Tagholm, Chief Executive of Surfers Against Sewage. Right at the end of July we also hosted a pilot focus group for the developing Climate and Environment Career Anchor. We’re working with the policy profession to develop the career anchor, which has been commissioned by Head of Policy Profession Tamara Finkelstein. CSEN members have vast and valuable knowledge of working in climate and environment roles in the Civil Service, and I’d encourage you to sign up to the next workshops on 13 and 20 September. Our Environment 101 videos this month set the context for oceans and rivers, but also veered off-theme to continue our exploration of digital sustainability. NFTs, cryptocurrencies and blockchain might be headline grabbing terms, but their impact on our climate and environment is often overlooked. As always you can catch up with the Environment 101 videos on our YouTube channel, the Environment Deep Dive Podcast wherever you get your podcasts, and keep an eye on our blog for recordings of August’s events. See you all in September! Rebecca Contribute to the CSEN Blog If you're interested in contributing to the CSEN Blog, get in touch with us at environment.network@faststream.civilservice.gov.uk. We'd love to hear your ideas!

We are recruiting an extra member to join the CSEN committee as part of our Conference Team. The inaugural Civil Service Environment Conference will bring together civil servants from across the UK, in a one-day session of events, networking and awards in early 2023. The Conference Team is responsible for planning and executing the conference, including sourcing speakers, stallholders, and sponsors - as well as coordinating with other CSEN teams to deliver a high-quality event. We are recruiting for an additional member of the existing Conference Team, as work picks up and we move closer to conference delivery. What roles are available? Conference Team The existing team sits within the CSEN Committee’s Events Unit. Desirable (but not essential) experience: ● Events planning and management and/or, ● Sponsorship/partnerships/sales ● Logistics Please note: The Conference will be held in London; therefore, we are ideally looking for a team member based in London, or with easy access to central Westminster. You will be required to attend the conference in person, and to support as needed in person ahead of the event. However, please do not be discouraged from applying if you are based elsewhere in the UK Eligibility and time commitment? CSEN is open to all civil servants – and so is our committee. You need to be able to spend approximately 5% of your working week on CSEN and show flexibility at peak times. It is likely that in early 2023, especially in the weeks leading up to the conference, this time commitment will increase. Previous committee members have agreed with their line 1 managers that CSEN counts as their corporate objective, so you may be able to do the same. The CSEN Committee meets once a month to coordinate activities across workstreams and take collective decisions. Each team also meets on a regular basis away from the central committee. The role will start from the beginning of August 2022 and will run until April 2023 when the committee will hand over to the 2023-24 committee. When you accept a role on the committee, you are expected to commit to this role until April 2023 (unless there are extenuating circumstances, such as leaving the civil service). How do I apply? To apply for a committee role, please complete the EOI form here by 23:59 on Wednesday 27th July. The form includes the following questions (150 word limit per question): ● Why are you interested in joining the CSEN committee? ● What relevant knowledge, skills and/or experience would you bring to the roles? ● How would you shape and deliver the roles? Short, informal chats may be held to help select committee members. Any questions? If you have any questions, please get in touch via the CSEN mailbox: environment.network@faststream.civilservice.gov.uk.