Roger Levett - Pioneer of practical sustainability

Roger Levett is one of Britain's leading thinkers on the subject of sustainable development and his work has informed debate and inspired action since he was a 'fast stream' civil servant in the Department of Energy, where he managed the 1986 Energy Efficiency Year campaign and a pioneering group of cross-sectoral Energy Action City projects. He then spent three years with Scottish Enterprise promoting green business before joining CAG Consultants in 1992, with whom he played a leading role in developing management tools and processes for sustainable development. Since giving up this association he is continuing to make news as in August 2003 the Fabian Society published a pamphlet 'A Better Choice of Choice', of which he is the principal author, which argues that private consumption is not a guarantor of liberty.

He wrote several of the Local Government Management Board's acclaimed publications on local sustainability and Local Agenda 21, culminating in the joint central / local government manifesto 'Sustainable Communities for the 21st century' (1998). He helped develop the Eco-Management and Audit Scheme for UK local government and advised DoE on its adaptation for central government. He drafted the Local Government Association's position statement 'Energy services for sustainable communities' (1998) and researched and wrote a major report on sustainability and energy for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

He has led the development of a new approach to environmental capital for four Government agencies and advised the Countryside Agency on its possible extension to social and economic capital, creating an integrated tool for managing 'quality of life capital' in all its forms.

His other recent work includes an extended critique of the British Government's 'Quality of life' counts indicators for the UK Round Table on Sustainable Development, an overview of how far the UK's environmental planning regimes promote sustainable development for the Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution, work on sustainable development indicators for the Countryside Agency and CPRE, and, with Llewelyn Davies, developing an evaluation framework for sustainable communities for DETR (Millennium Villages and Sustainable Communities, DETR, 2000).

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