Developed western nations are recognised as consuming resources as though they had access to three planets and the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment* concluded that two thirds of the world’s ecosystems were in decline or managed unsustainably.
The concept of ‘environmental limits’ recognises that the environment is irreplaceable and provides the foundations for human activity. It also shows that there are limits to the capacity of the environment to accommodate development, beyond which unacceptable change will result.
‘Living within environmental limits’ is a central theme of Government policy for sustainable development, reflected in PPS1 and the UK Sustainable Development Strategy. A substantial body of research has examined the extent to which environmental limits are scientifically or socially determined, but there is concern that processes such as SEA do not go far enough in identifying when environmental limits are being breached.
LUC was commissioned by the East of England Regional Assembly and Regional Partners to assess the effect of new development proposals through the planning system. Our methodology brings the concept of environmental limits to a practical level, using the environmental services and benefits identified by the Millennium Ecosystems Assessment to assess their importance and to define and validate limits beyond which unacceptable change would result. This approach was tested on the Haven Gateway, a sub-region of the East of England that has ‘Growth Point’ status. The methodology is accompanied by a GIS tool which allows diverse environmental data to be simplified and presented in a common format.
The principle behind this project goes to the heart of LUC’s ethos as an environmental consultancy. It was a challenging and absorbing project that aimed to break new ground in environmental planning. We were inspired by the opportunity to make a real difference through developing a methodology that recognises the fundamental importance of the natural environment. In the longer term, we hope that the method will help to maintain the profile of the environment in the move to the new regional planning arrangements which will bring economic, social and environmental policies together into a Single Regional Strategy.
