The WA collaboration: Facilitating integration of sustainability issues in a community and civil society context

As a more long-term and integrative approach to policy-making, sustainability is a concept that exercises the minds of policy-makers, business representatives and citizens alike. Policy that pursues a sustainability agenda therefore attracts a vast array of stakeholders, each keen to pursue often disparate interests or causes. Through a case study of the WA Collaboration's experience with sustainability policy-making in Western Australia, this paper considers the way in which innovative engagement between government and civil society organisations can contribute to enhancing more integrative and strategic policy-making capacity. In particular, this paper examines the role of the WA Collaboration in facilitating policy integration through the deliberative opportunities it provides for developing more encompassing positions amongst its diverse membership. The paper suggests that this style of engagement, while not without its difficulties and tensions, is valuable for making progress in highly contested policy contexts.