Sustainable development has been placed at the centre of decision-making in South Gloucestershire Council. It underpins all other goals, policies and processes and provides a framework for integrating economic, social and environmental concerns over time.
The community strategy sets out the long-term social, economic and environmental goals for South Gloucestershire. The council's Corporate Service Plan sets out the way in which it will work to achieve this, through its guiding principles and improvement priorities. In combination they provide the strategic decision-making framework for the council.
We recognise that we need to align our activities and decisions with this framework and acknowledge that this will mean assessing and managing competing goals and priorities. The sustainability appraisal has been devised to help us achieve this.
A sustainability appraisal involves the systematic identification and evaluation of the social, economic and environmental impacts of a proposal. Council policy is to carry out a sustainability appraisal of all key decisions. Please see the sustainability appraisal guidance and sustainability appraisal checklist under 'Read more' on the right-hand side of this page.