Bradford MBC wanted to develop a supplier facing document that explains what they define sustainability to be and what sustainability issues they want to respond to. They also required the document to provide their partners with resources to respond to the sustainability agenda.

FSquared has consistently supported its clients to adopt a comprehensive view of sustainability to ensure better quality social, economic and environmental outcomes for communities. In developing Bradford Together we used our knowledge and understanding of sustainability to successfully carry out the following activity:

• Desktop Research – through involvement in a range of other projects we already had a strong understanding of sustainability. To consolidate this understanding and to develop some initial ideas, we carried out desk-top research.
• Stakeholder Workshop – it was important to bring interested parties and stakeholders together in a well facilitated creativity event to generate some collaboration, fresh thinking and imagination. The workshop also acted to stimulate interest and support from key stakeholders and to mark the inception of the process. The stakeholder workshop drew in colleagues from across the Council from areas such as economic regeneration, legal, audit, sustainable communities, environmental policy and planning. We presented our initial ideas and obtained stakeholder feedback on them.
• Development of draft standard – having obtained stakeholder feedback we refined our ideas and developed a draft sustainability standard 
• Circulation and consultation – the draft sustainability standard was reviewed by a range of stakeholders. Once reviewed, we responded to comments and incorporated any changes required.
• Final Sustainability Standard – we then developed a final Sustainability Standard which is called Bradford Together.

Bradford Together defines the local sustainability agenda within 12 key themes, which are environmental, social and economic. The advantage of the approach is that Bradford Together is portable between projects. The response sought is not prescriptive, as the approach leaves room for responses to be proportionate to the size and duration of the opportunity and to reflect the evaluation weighting given to sustainability. The key facet is consistent theming – helping to shape responses to local strategies. The approach is designed to be educative and supportive – with links to potential sources of help and advice. An advantage of this approach is that sustainability is treated with a clarity and consistency within Bradford – helping to focus efforts and achieve greater impacts.