Richard Sandbrook's Place

Richard Sandbrook's Place is for sharing experiences, stories and strategies for re-imagining and achieving sustainable development - a place where people can learn from the past, reflect on the present and work out how to transform the future. It's run by the Richard Sandbrook Trust.

We have invited key figures in the sustainable development movement to reflect on progress to date in a series of perspectives: what's worked, and what hasn't. And we have collected a timeline of the key milestones in the history of sustainable development.

Share what you find, post your opinions, or get in touch about contributing to the site.

Authors

Francesca de Ga...

Francesca de Ga...
London, UK

Francesca ran the Europe office of the Green Belt Movement (GBM) since its inception in 2005 after GBM founder Wangari Maathai was awarde

Yolanda Kakabadse

Yolanda Kakabadse
Gland, Switzerland

Yolanda Kakabadse is WWF’s International President and the former Ecuadorian Minister of Environment.

Bjorn Stigson

Bjorn Stigson
Sweden

Bjorn Stigson, former president of the WBCSD and visiting professor at the Gothenburg School of Business, has extensive experience in int

Barbara Frost

Barbara Frost
London, UK

Barbara Frost is Chief Executive of WaterAid in the UK.

Dominic Waughray

Dominic Waughray
Geneva, Switzerland

Dominic Waughray is Senior Director and Head of Environment and Sustainability Initiatives for the World Economic Forum; responsible for

Rubens Born

Rubens Born
Sao Paulo, Brazil

Rubens builds powerful networks and coalitions of civil society organizations addressing major issues of environmental protection and sus

Malcolm McIntosh

Malcolm McIntosh
South Bank, Queensland,...

Dr Malcolm McIntosh FRSA is Professor and Director of the Asia Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise at Griffith University in Queens

Stephen Joseph

Stephen Joseph
London, UK

Stephen Joseph has been executive director of Campaign for Better Transport since 1988.

Mark Halle

Mark Halle
Geneva, Switzerland

Mark Halle is Executive Director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Europe.

Crispin Tickell

Crispin Tickell
UK

Sir Crispin Tickell has long been a pioneer in linking environmental and in particular climate change to the worlds of politics and busin

David Okali

David Okali
Ibadan, Nigeria

David Okali is currently the Chairman of the Board of Directors of NEST.

Dr Ranjendra Pa...

Dr Ranjendra Pa...
New Dehli, India

Dr. R.K.

See all authors

Perspectives

The Centre for Science and Environment, Sunita Narain

CSE was set up in 1980 in New Delhi as an institution that would work on topical issues of sustainable development, looking at the linkages between science, technology, and environment. The objective was to create public consciousness on the need for sustainable development, and influence public policies, as Sunita Narain describes.

Sunita Narain has been with the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) since 1982.

Biodiversity conservation and sustainable development, Bill Adams

Bill Adams looks at development in the field of biodiversity conservation, an area where success stories are often rivalled with news of extinctions, but also an area where tackling isolated issues of protection has moved to an understanding of biodiversity's integral importance to sustainable development.

Bill Adams holds the Moran Professor of Conservation and Development in the Department of Geography at the University of Cambridge.

Progress of human settlements and sustainable development over the last 50 years, Diane Diacon

As the world population increases and moves into cities, our human settlements may endanger the poor or present the solutions for sustainability. Diane Diacon explains that we have the solutions but we need to start applying them.

Diane Diacon is an independent researcher, focussing on scaling of successful housing practices.

Green parties, Sara Parkin

Green parties have been gathering political power since their early days in the 1970s. They're now becoming a coordinated diaspora, as Sara Parkin describes.

Sara Parkin founded Forum for the Future, along with Jonathon Porritt and Paul Ekins (who is currently Professor of Energy and Environment Policy...

Local no longer: water resources and sustainable development, Dominic Waughray

Water sustainability - both problems and solutions - have generally been seen as local. But when you take a global perspective, you see a new scale of challenge. Dominic Waughrey gives us 10 years to act...

Dominic Waughray is Senior Director and Head of Environment and Sustainability Initiatives for the World Economic Forum; responsible for the World...

WWF: a reflective narrative, Yolanda Kakabadse

In 1961, the year in which WWF was established, the world was a very different place. Then, around a billion people lived in the world, fewer than half the number now alive, global average life expectancy was around 30 per cent lower than today, and air travel was a luxury for the few while mobile phones and the internet were part of science fiction.

Yolanda Kakabadse is WWF’s International President and the former Ecuadorian Minister of Environment.

The curious but encouraging evolution of the World Trade Organisation, Mark Halle

Mark Halle takes a look at the development the World Trade Centre, and the role that the environment has played within it.

Mark Halle is Executive Director of the International Institute for Sustainable Development, Europe.

Energy and sustainable development: the view from me, Walt Patterson

Walt Patterson looks back at campaigning successes and challenges for energy and sustainable development, and ultimately at the campaigning challenges for climate change.

Walt Patterson is Associate Fellow in the Energy, Environment and Development Programme at Chatham House in London, UK, and a Visiting Fellow at...

Establishment of the IPCC and its contributions to global society, Dr Ranjendra Pachauri

Ranjendra Pachauri describes how climate change and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have brought together a scientific collaboration on a unique scale to influence thought, policy and strategy.

Dr. R.K. Pachauri has been the Chief Executive of TERI since 1981, designated initially as Director and since April 2001 as Director-General.

Population, Crispin Tickell

Crispin Tickell surveys the rampant rise of human population - from being a species to a geological period - and wonders if our size will eventually be our ultimate undoing.

Sir Crispin Tickell has long been a pioneer in linking environmental and in particular climate change to the worlds of politics and business.

Turning away from cars? Transport and sustainable development, Stephen Joseph

Understanding about the harm caused by motor vehicles is widespread, but moving away from cars seems just too difficult. Stephen Joseph looks at some of the whys and the hows of alternatives for travel and transport.

Stephen Joseph has been executive director of Campaign for Better Transport since 1988.

The development of The Club of Rome, Ian Johnson

Starting with a motley group of businessmen, academics and scientists meeting in Rome in the 1960s, Ian Johnson looks at how the Club of Rome has influenced global thinking about sustainable development.

Ian Johnson is currently Chairman of the Commission for Land Use Change Ecosystems with GLOBE International and CEO of Idea Carbon, a London based...

Big questions for sustainable development

Looking across perspectives, timelines and discussions, we've pulled out some answers to key questions in working towards sustainable development.

Speed of change: how can we move fast enough?

The modern-day sustainable development movement has developed principally over the past 50 years. But forecasts today suggest we don't have that long again to overcome perhaps much bigger challenges. So how can we move fast enough?

How do we handle the scale of the challenge?

The challenges of sustainable development are often huge, inter-connected, comprehensive and fundamental. Some practical steps from authors’ perspectives on getting over the sense of futility and making effective change.

Multistakeholder approaches: why bother?

One of the characteristics that almost all sustainable development work has in common is working with a variety of different stakeholders. But multi-stakeholder working is complex and hard work: competing agendas, different ideas, managing egos, maintaining relationships... Why not just do it alone?

Empowering marginalised communities: why and how?

It's easy to focus on big, hard-hitting targets: corporate strategies, government policies, intergovernmental agreements etc. But often, the big achievements in sustainable development have come from working with ordinary people in extraordinary ways.

Richard Sandbrook Ingredients

Vision

Being able to see beyond the here and now to a bigger, better picture of the future.

Confidence communication and rhetoric

Having the confidence, skill and understanding to communicate effectively and persuasively.

Hard work and determination

Being hard-working, devoted and determined with energy and bloodymindedness.

Fun and a license to poke fun

Believing in the importance of fun and playfulness, being able to poke fun at yourself and also at others. (Sometimes laughing at yourself gives you a license to laugh at other things, that need laughing at.)

Passion compassion and a belief in the underdog

Having passion and harnessing it, having compassion and acting on it, and having a belief in the potential of the underdog, which often lies latent beneath the surface, but which, time after time, is shown to be worth believing in.

Inside the rainforest Biome at the Eden Project

Divergent thinking and insight beyond the obvious

Being able to stand back and see the wood for the trees, being able to think laterally and creatively about challenges, hurdles, solutions and opportunities that are sometimes not the obvious ones.

Provocation and playing with off-limits territory

Being provocative and not afraid to ask difficult questions, including about things that others are reluctant or afraid of probing into.

Effecting change from within

Being a 'tempered radical' - seeking to change people, policies and practices not so much by fighting against them but working with them.

Forging unlikely alliances

Bringing people together in combinations, collaborations and partnerships that perhaps they, or other people, wouldn't have thought productive, so as to achieve particular results.

Local Service Provider connecting low income areas

Knowledge understanding and empathy

Working with people and with experience, by taking the time to understand people and their experiences, and by establishing knowledge and understanding yourself.

Focus on process and learning - changing hearts and minds

Paying attention to processes and practices, and also to people's learning: looking to effect sustainable change by changing hearts and minds.

Main menu

Sustainable development themes

Authors

Perspectives

Big questions for sustainable development

Richard Sandbrook Ingredients