News that the government has decided to withdraw its funding for the Sustainable Development Commission is prompting comment in a number of locations.  I particularly enjoyed George Monbiot’s observation that the £1.9mn being saved is no more than ‘a rounding error’ on the Trident missile invoice.

Having once been a Commissioner on the London Sustainable Development Commission, I have some sympathy for an entity such as the SDC.  It exists, in large part, to act as a ‘critical friend’ to government, which can sometimes make life difficult.  Speaking truth to power is never easy, and if you wanted to ask, for example, whether prosperity is necessarily the same thing as economic growth, you’d better be ready to have lots of arguments about the presence or absence of a question mark in the title of your report.

You need also to strike an appropriate balance between speaking out and speaking in.  The SDC hardly has a high public profile, so it would be easy to presume that it doesn’t do very much and, on the back of that, conclude it can easily be abolished.  But what if its work behind the scenes is actually making a subtle but vital difference? What if the multiplier effect of its influence is considerable?

Things start to get really interesting when one notes the distinction between ‘abolish’ and ‘withdraw funding from’.  Because, unlike many quangoes, the Sustainable Development Commission is actually a company (company no. 06798740, official name “The Sustainable Development Commission Limited”, registered office 55 Whitehall, London SW1A 2EY).  The SDC, just like any other company, could regard this announcement from the government as merely the loss of its biggest client.

As any of you with experience of working in the private sector will know, the loss of your biggest client is hardly comfortable, but it doesn’t automatically mean your business goes under.  In fact, if you are good at business, you spot the difficulty your biggest client is in and you begin to make alternative arrangements: you foster new clients, or new areas of work.  When the proverbial hits the fan, you bust a gut to bring in the new clients and the new work, because you believe in your company, you believe in whatever it is you are doing and you want to carry on doing it.

Do the Commissioners want to carry on? Are they ready with their Plan B, their discussions with the devolved authorities, with the Department of Health, with the charitable foundations and philanthropists and big businesses who think that something like the SDC is a Good Thing? Sadly, on the basis of their response to Defra’s decision -  – it would appear not.

OK, here’s an alternative: what if we – we the wider community of researchers and activists and academics and communities with an interest or a stake in sustainability – what if we thought that the SDC was a Good Thing?

Maybe we could buy it.

In fact, isn’t that what the Big Society is all about?  Freely associating activist citizens running the services that have accreted over the decades to the state?  We could each chip in a modest amount, and then we’d have our very own Sustainable Development Commission!

So, come on, who’s in? Put me down for a tenner.