merrion street

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, accompanied by Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore and Environment Minister Phil Hogan today published Our Sustainable Future, a Framework for Sustainable Development for Ireland.

The green economy and sustainable development agendas are a key element of Ireland’s economic recovery strategy and the Framework launched today sets out the range of environmental, economic and social measures required to move these agendas forward from vision to reality.  The Framework will be Ireland’s main contribution to the Rio +20 conference on sustainable development which takes place in Rio de Janeiro later this month.

Our Sustainable Future is a joined-up approach to policy making on sustainable development, it sets out 70 measures that will ensure we improve our quality of life for current and future generations and sets out clear measures, responsibilities and timelines in an implementation plan. These include areas such as the sustainability of public finances and economic resilience, natural resources, agriculture, climate change, transport, public health, education, innovation and research, education, skills and training, and global poverty.

While considerable progress has been made in integrating sustainability principles into public policy making in Ireland since the first national strategy in this area was published in 1997, significant gaps remain across a range of economic, social and environmental policy areas.

Launching the Framework, the Taoiseach commented;

Our Sustainable Future is very deliberately ambitious in both scope and intent. The Green economy is a central plank to our economic recovery and this was recognised in the Action Plan for Jobs 2012. This Framework sets out a medium to long-term plan to guide the essential work we need to do to progress the sustainable development agenda and more fully embrace the green economy in Ireland.