HM Treasury - "Plan for Growth" (2011)
DCLG document published by the Environment Agency - "National Planning Policy Framework" (2012) ("NPPF)
Steady State Manchester - "In Place of Growth" (2012)
The language of sustainability comes across in very different ways in each of these reports.
The HM Treasury document seems to describe a sustainable economy as meaning sustained growth, and without a qualifying statement attached to it, almost all readers will take this to mean a permanently growing economy in aggregate. Throughout the document, with one possible exception, I could replace every occurrence of the word "sustainable" with "sustained" (ie perpetual") and I doubt whether the majority of readers would infer any change of the substantial meaning and strategic intent of the document. Is this document perhaps an example of where wordsmithing has been done to ensure that the total economic growth message has been strongly maintained while giving sufficient lip-service to placate those who challenge the notion of perpetual growth?
The NPPF sets out a clear and useful definition of sustainable development - as follows:
Note that this definition uses the term "sustainable economy" not "sustainable growth" and this is an incredibly important distinction made in the NPPF but not made in the HM Treasury report. I don't get any real sense that the meaning of the word "sustainable" as used in the HM Treasury document is the same as that being used by DCLG in the NPPF. The one exception I've seen is that the HM Treasury document mentions "sustainable development" towards the end of the 131-page document and cross-refers the reader to the NPPF document without explaining the meaning of the phrase itself.
The paper from Steady State Manchester sets out some views that paint a more detailed and meaningful picture of what a sustainable world (and sustainable development) might look like in the more local context of the Greater Manchester area - including ideas about how to plan for "de-growth" (in aggregate) as a key to creating a sustainable future. This allows for growth in some sectors (eg low carbon energy) while the economy in total is undergoing a planned shrinkage.
However, with such diverse and conflicting meanings of the term "sustainable" in these key planning and strategy documents, there is an enormous amount of wriggle room for individual businesses to remain unsustainable while appearing to support each of the strategic directions in the various papers. Sometimes, words can be so slippery!