last updated 20th July 05
by 4ecotips.com

A statistical baseline covering four priority areas

A free pocket-sized booklet presenting a new set of sustainable development indicators is published DEFRA within the UK Government's sustainable development strategy “Securing the Future”. It provides a statistical baseline for 68 indicators in four priority areas: sustainable consumption and production; climate change and energy; natural resource protection and environmental enhancement; and sustainable communities.

The aim of the booklet is to make the indicators easily accessible to a wide audience. It includes a variety of economic, social and environmental issues of everyday concern including health, housing, jobs crime, education and our environment.

It is hoped this handy-sized publication will be a useful reference to mainly experts but also to others less familiar with the concept of sustainable development or indicators. Around 63,000 copies of the first edition of the booklet were distributed last year and it proved to be particularly popular with schools and colleges.

Called “Sustainable Development Indicators in Your Pocket 2005” it is a compendium publication which has drawn on indicators and National Statistics from across Government.

Further details of tthe publication and associated data are presented on the sustainable development website www.sustainable-development.gov.uk.

The booklet highlights:

UK emissions of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas, were provisionally estimated at some 158million tonnes (carbon equivalent) in 2004, about 4% lower than in 1990. Emissions increased by about 1% between 2003 and 2004, mainly owing to increases in industrial and transport sector emissions.

Following a drop in domestic carbon dioxide emissions in the late 1990s, there has been an 8% increase in emissions since 1999.

Carbon dioxide emissions from private cars increased by 8% between 1990 and 2003.

In 2003, UK renewable sources represented 2.7% of all electricity generated, increasing from 1.8 % in 1990.

The amount of household waste recycled or composted has increased and accounted for 17% of UK household waste in 2003-4.

UK farmland bird populations fell by 42% between 1970 and 1993, but remained fairly stable thereafter. Woodland bird populations in 2003 were about 20% lower than the peak of the mid 1970s but remained fairly stable from 1991.

In 2004, 38% of fish stocks around the UK were at full reproductive capacity and were being harvested sustainably, up from 24 % in 1998.

Between 1990 and 2003 UK emissions of air pollutants were reduced: ammonia by 19%, nitrogen oxides by 44%, particulates by 51% and sulphur dioxide by 74%.

The number of robberies recorded by the police in England and Wales increased from about 36,000 in 1990 to 67,000 in 1998-9 and 101,000 in 2003-4. However 2003-4 represented a fall of 6% from 2002-3.

Although infant mortality rates have fallen for all socio-economic groups in England and Wales, the difference in rates between the lowest and highest socio-economic groups has widened. In England and Wales in 2001-3, there were 4.5 more infant deaths per 1,000 live birth within the 'semi-routine' socio-economic group than in the 'large employer and higher managerial' socio-economic group.

The prevalence of obesity in 2-10 year-olds increased from 10% to 14% of children between 1995 and 2003.

Walking or cycling are still the main ways for children to get to school. However the percentage doing so fell from 58% in 1989-91 to 47 % in 2002-3.