The impact of the public sector on the overall quality of the environment and more generally towards sustainable development is significant. An essential part of the UK Strategy for Sustainable Development is the commitment to put `sustainable development at the heart of every government...

This article examines the use of the term sustainable development in Acts of the Scottish and UK Parliaments. It begins by examining the UK's traditional reluctance to legislate on sustainable development, the more recent reversal of that approach and some definitional issues surrounding the...