Case studies

Sustainable Development Commission (SDC): Establishing a panel to inform the SDC's policy and future engagement work programme

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The Brief

In 2007 the Sustainable Development Commission wanted to recruit a large group of specialists to form a stakeholder panel. The aim was to recruit people with a particular interest in sustainability from different walks of life. This panel could then be called upon regularly to comment on the SDC's programme of work, including topics such as quality of life indicators and sustainable aviation.

The Process

Dialogue by Design established a 600 strong stakeholder panel composed of people who in their working and/or private life had a strong interest in and knowledge of sustainability in fields such as water, transport, and waste.

This panel was to be consulted regularly, either as a whole or in selected groups, using several engagement techniques. These included:

• Online consultations - structured debate consisting of two three-week sessions
• Online forums - unstructured debate direct with other members
• Online polling - structured surveys
• Workshops - group discussion and exercises with a facilitator

When choosing panel engagement themes the SDC project team would consider the relevance to the SDC work programme, the relevance to panel members and the most appropriate method to engage with members.

The Outcome

The Sustainable Development Panel was successfully established and began to provide expertise and feedback to the SDC.

The outputs of some of the online consultations with the panel have formed the basis for engagement with government, industry and other interested stakeholders in a series of workshops, including two on aviation in a low carbon economy. These workshops were also designed, facilitated and reported on by Dialogue by Design.

Quotes

"The exercise demonstrates the possibilities of gathering information from a wide ranging and diverse number of informed citizens in a way which would have been impossible in the timescale less than a generation ago. This should help the SDC in the formulation of proposals that reflect informed opinion." - SDC Panel Member

"I'm very glad that I have been able to share knowledge and gain from other panel members views. Being an SDC panel member has been an extremely useful and interesting learning experience for me." - SDC Panel Member