Funders
Our work programme on democracy and sustainable development is currently funded through existing reserves.
In 2007 we were pleased to receive financial support from the Esmée Fairbairn Foundation for an event on democracy and sustainability. This was organised in partnership with The Dana Centre and 21st Century Trust and took place in March 2008.
Partners
Capacity Global www.capacity.org.uk
Capacity Global is a non-governmental organisation and social enterprise. Capacity believes that everyone has the right to live in a clean and healthy environment. Capacity Global works specifically with people and communities in urban areas, who suffer most from environmental injustice, to ensure their voices get heard and fight environmental injustice to create opportunities for environmental justice.
We are partnering with Capacity Global to convene our first Civil Society Leaders meeting on democracy and sustainable development in October 2009. Capacity Global’s pioneering focus on the issues of environmental justice in the UK will help us to bring a strong social dimension to our work.
Salzburg Global Seminar www.salzburgglobalseminar.org
Salzburg Global Seminar is an independent, non-governmental organization which was established in 1947 and is headquartered at the historic Schloss Leopoldksron in Salzburg, Austria. Its mission is to challenge present and future leaders to solve issues of global concern. This it does by convening imaginative thinkers from different cultures and institutions, organizing problem-focused initiatives, supporting leadership development, and engaging opinion-makers through active communication networks.
Salzburg Global Seminar was our partner in a February 2009 event on Democracy and Sustainability in Emerging Markets: India as a case study. Working together with 21st Century Trust, the Paul Hamlyn Foundation and in collaboration with The Energy Research Institute, New Delhi, this was the Foundation’s first event outside the UK.
We plan to work together on future events and discussions that can engage the Seminar’s 20,000-strong Fellows around the world in reflection on how best to strengthen links between democracy and sustainable development.
SustainAbility www.sustainability.com
SustainAbility is a strategy consultancy and think tank working with senior corporate decision makers to achieve transformative leadership on the sustainability agenda.
SustainAbility played in catalytic role in setting us on the road to our focus on democracy and sustainable development. Through the leadership of then-Chief Entrepreneur John Elkington, SustainAbility set up a dedicated part of their website to focus on the interface between democracy and sustainability, inviting a number of prominent thinkers and commentators to contribute their ideas. SustainAbility polled members of their Faculty for views on the relationship between democracy and sustainable development, and wrote up the findings. Some of the written outputs from their efforts can be found in the reports section of this website.
21st Century Trust www.21stcenturytrust.org
The 21st Century Trust is a small charitable organisation based in London. From 1986-2008 the Trust brought together the rising generation of leaders worldwide from government, business, NGOs, academe, the media and other sectors, in conferences where these exceptional individuals, who otherwise would not have had the chance to meet, were able to identify the major challenges and opportunities facing them and hte world in the decades ahead. The 21st Century Trust’s conferences and events have now merged with Salzburg Global Seminar.
21st Century Trust has been very important in the evolution of the Foundation’s work on democracy and sustainable development. We are particularly grateful for the assistance and partnership of the Trust in convening events on democracy and sustainability in London and New Delhi in 2008 and 2009 at a time when the Foundation was a group of trustees without a secretariat and no staff. These events allowed us to begin to explore this agenda with a diverse group of opinion-leaders and interested citizens.
The Dana Centre www.danacentre.org.uk
The Science Museum’s Dana Centre is an adult-only venue that allows public exploration of issues in contemporary science through dialogue, interaction, performance and art whilst enjoying food and drinks in the Centre’s fully-licensed café-bar.
The Dana Centre’s contribution to our work on democracy and sustainable development has been catalytic. As our host and partner in our first event on democracy and sustainability in March 2008, the Dana Centre convened a diverse group of participants for a public event in the Centre’s Café. The insights and ideas of participants in small group discussions during the course of that evening were particularly influential in convincing us that we should prioritise work on democracy and sustainable development for the immediate future.
UK Environmental Law Association www.ukela.org
The UK Environmental Law Association is the UK’s foremost membership organisation working to improve understanding and awareness of environmental law, and to make the law work for a better environment.
We are partnering with UKELA in a special event to focus on the role and work of Hungary’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Future Generations.
Acknowledgements
We would like to acknowledge the work of a number of other friends and collaborators who have helped to launch our work on democracy and sustainable development. They include Keith Burgess, Tom Burke, Lucy and Sir Geoffrey Chandler, Dawn Emling, Sam Lakha, Jenny Pidgin, Tim O’Riordan, Sara Parkin, Mike Shanahan and Tim Smit.
