Welsh Government | Wales making good progress towards becoming more sustainable nation

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Wales making good progress towards becoming more sustainable nation

Air quality, recycling, and greenhouse gas emissions are some of the many areas Wales has made improvements over the last year according to new figures published today (Thursday, 21 August).

Thursday 21 August 2008

The latest Sustainable Development Indicators for Wales show clear improvements in 15 of the 39 areas measured. But 12 of 39 indicators show little or no change and 6 show a clear deterioration.

The Minister for Environment, Sustainability and Housing, Jane Davidson said that Sustainable Development was key to everything the Assembly Government was trying to achieve.

I’m delighted to see that we have made progress in a number of areas including air quality, river quality, biodiversity, recycling and greenhouse gas emissions but we now need to build on this good work and improve on the areas where we have not made an improvement or where there has been deterioration.

We still have a long way to go to be truly sustainable but we must grasp the opportunity to do so.

Now is the time to set out our journey to make Wales more sustainable: in how we do our business, how we manage our environment, and how we work with others to get there. Through this we can deliver real and lasting changes to transform people’s lives across Wales.

The indicators, published annually, were agreed by the previous administration in 2006 reflecting commitments made in the Sustainable Development Scheme.

For the first time the indicators are published using an “In Your Pocket” booklet for Wales, which is similar to the UK Sustainable Development Indicators booklet published in July 2008. The Welsh booklet presents comparisons with the UK indicators, where available, in the form of traffic lights for progress.

Printed copies of the booklet will become available in early September.

To accompany the booklet, an online version including some extra information, such as Local Authority breakdowns where available, will become available on the Statistics for Wales website in early autumn 2008.

21 August 2008