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Business: Sustainable Development

Volume 477: debated on Monday 16 June 2008

To ask the Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform what research he has (a) commissioned and (b) evaluated on the ways in which adoption of sustainable development practices and technologies is likely to affect businesses. (209333)

BERR jointly chaired the Commission on Environmental Markets and Economic Performance (CEMEP) into sustainability and the potential benefits of a transition to a low carbon economy. The Government published their response on 1 May. BERR has commissioned research, due to report later this month, to investigate the business opportunities for the UK in moving to a low carbon economy and is supporting work by the OECD which will enable businesses and government to better understand the impacts on the environment, and company performance, of business activity on sustainable development. BERR is also working to develop an environment-adjusted productivity measure which may in the future be used to evaluate policies at the aggregate and sectoral level. In general, all published research commissioned by the Department is made available on the website.