Sustainable branded a 'vacuous buzzword' by jargon busters » Housing » 24dash.com

An annual guide to political and corporate "newspeak" today identified "sustainable" as one of the year's most annoying and potentially damaging pieces of jargon.

In the rush to appear environmentally-friendly, Government departments and companies are keen to proclaim the "sustainability" of anything from the cups in their office drinks machines to new house estates and transport links, said the 2009 Lexicon of contemporary newspeak published by the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank.

But the use of the term is often questionable and it has become so common that it has been robbed of meaning, warned the report's editor Bill Jamieson.

Linked to anything from development to transport, housing or communities, "sustainable" is "a word whose very looseness and lack of clarity makes it a perfect prefix for any activity where approval is being sought," said Mr Jamieson, executive editor of The Scotsman newspaper.

But in many cases it functions as little more than "a vacuous buzzword thrown as an algae-covered bone to the Green lobby to drape an aura of public good around economic change".

Activities hailed as "sustainable" - like the building of Prime Minister Gordon Brown's "eco-towns" - may be more harmful to the environment than alternatives, while the requirement for businesses to pursue "sustainability" may stifle innovation and lead them to take their eye off the ball of economic growth.

"Few words have become more heavily used or abused in government and corporate affairs than 'sustainable'," said the newspeak report, whose title echoes George Orwell's warning about official manipulation of the meaning of words in his novel 1984.

"It now occupies a lofty position in the towering hierarchy of buzzwords. It is commonplace today to stick the word 'sustainable' in front of almost anything... Its very ubiquity has robbed it of meaning, while corrupting the principle or activity to which it is attached."

Mr Jamieson noted that failed banks like Northern Rock, Bradford & Bingley and HBOS all devoted large swathes of their annual reports to boasting of the "sustainability" of their practices, asking: "Would you, as a customer (and now of course a shareholder) of a bank prefer it to be concentrating on the quality of its loan book or on producing more jargonboogle?"

Other new entries in the 2009 Lexicon include "best practice" - defined as "a procedure determined by a committee of consultants ignoring precedent" - and "far-reaching reforms" used to describe modest changes.

Politicians are lambasted for seeking to hide the failure of their policies by saying they are on a "journey" towards success or have built a "solid platform" for future advances while those who criticise them are "harking back to a golden age".

The guide highlights the growing tendency of ministers to talk about official departments and agencies as "businesses" and describe public sector employees like doctors and nurses as "frontline" workers

And Conservative leader David Cameron is blamed for popularising the tactic of closing down discussion of an embarrassing topic by dismissing it as a "sterile debate".

Mr Brown's description of former Cabinet minister Peter Hain's failure to declare £100,000 of campaign donations as "an incompetence" is pinpointed as an example of politicians using imprecise language to avoid admitting breaking the rules.

In his foreword to the report, Mr Jamieson wrote: "What we see is not just poor use of language. It is the inflation of words and terms. It is particularly evident in the grandiosity of title and function that is now rife across public administration in the UK.

"What more deeply concerns us is the resort to language that shuts out those other than a favoured inner circle of users. It excludes as it confuses.

"Here is the lingua franca of central and local government, intent on missions and purposes over which it has primary access - and the last encoded buzzword. Here is the means by which the empires of public administration extend their remit, their resources and their power.

"That is why campaigns against jargon are driven by more than concern over the beauty of clear language, noble though this is as a cause. It is also to do with good government in the broadest sense - that is, both in public administration and in the corporate world.

"We wish for government that is clear in its explanations and its actions. For without that clarity we are subject to the confused, the muddled, the mediocre - and the Machiavellian."

Here are some of the words and phrases singled out by the guide as blights on the language, coupled with the Lexicon's definition of their true meaning:

• To "not dignify": to refuse to answer a question, as in "I am not going to dignify that question with a response."
• "This is a sterile debate": I don't want to talk about this any more.
• "Anti-social behaviour": anything of which the Government does not approve.
• "Aspiration": a pledge the speaker knows that he is not in a position to make.
• "Bandwagon": something a political opponent is jumping on when he is closely in tune with public opinion.
• "Benchmark": clipboard activity suggesting that measuring a problem is the same as doing something about it.
• "Best practice": a procedure determined by a committee of consultants; ignorance of precedent.
• "Britishness": any combination of values which a politician wants to promote.
• "Capacity building": activities designed to increase the staff, budget and remit of Government departments and quangos.
• "Community group": a special interest group, or a group of people a politician wants to flatter or appease.
• "Consensus": the Government's view.
• "Consultant": private sector worker with leather-bound notebook paid large fees to disguise Government failure and/or tell politicians what they already know.
• "Consultation" (always "wide-ranging"): invitation from Government for comments on policy proposals before embarking on their original plan.
• "Cost-benefit analysis" (often "rigorous"): back-of-the-envelope calculation to prove original hypothesis.
• "Credit crunch": ready-made excuse for any overrun on any budget, any delay in payment or additional £100 billion of additional borrowing required by Government.
• "Calling for a debate": used to imply that talking about a problem is the same as solving a problem.
• "To draw a line under": to get away with, evade responsibility for.
• "Fast track": not allowing Parliament sufficient time to consider the implications of new legislation
• "Investment": current expenditure and/or waste.
• "Leaving a lasting legacy": the next Government will pick up the bill.
• "Let me finish": I will continue talking so that you cannot ask any more difficult questions.
• "Modernisation": downgrading; needless destruction of independent institutions.
• "Multi-agency": policy areas where no one is responsible.
• "National interest": reason for withholding embarrassing information.
• "Real issue": the question that a politician wants to answer, as opposed to the question that was actually asked.
• "Stakeholder": anyone involved with an organisation whose interests the Government believes should counterbalance and if possible outweigh those who (a) actually own the business or (b) work for it.
• "Tipping point": unquantified threat of future calamity used to justify vast current investment.
• "Work-life balance": more time off.