BMSE 04

Business Management for a Sustainable Environment Unit 4 The State of the Environment 15-May-08 2 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Contents Introduction ........................................................................................ 5 Learning outcomes ............................................................................ 7 State of our environment ................................................................... 8 State of our consumption ................................................................. 12 North and South – population and consumption issues .................. 12 SoE – a framework for analysis....................................................... 16 Pressure–state–response model ....................................................... 16 SoE reporting: Global, national, state and local............................ 19 Global, national and regional SoE Reports ..................................... 21 Indicators ......................................................................................... 24 Business consideration of key environmental impacts.................. 27 Substances from earth’s crust must not systematically increase in nature............................................................................. 27 Substances produced by society must not systematically increase in nature............................................................................. 28 Physical basis for productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically deteriorated ................................................... 33 Human needs must be met by fair and efficient use of natural resources.............................................................................. 40 Conclusion ......................................................................................... 43 References and further reading....................................................... 44 Readings ............................................................................................ 47 Unit 4 The State of the Environment 3 4 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Introduction In Unit 3, we examined the Environmental Management System (EMS) and saw that a key starting point for establishing an EMS is to conduct an initial environmental review. An important part of that review is to determine the environmental aspects of the organisation – those elements of an organisation’s activities, products or services that can interact with the environment. This interaction can be two-way. The first obvious aspect is the impact of the organisation’s activities on the environment – whether detrimental or beneficial. However, we are not just concerned with obvious impacts, such as discharge of a pollutant into a water body. At a less direct level, we need to consider the impacts that might be associated with the use of an organisation’s products, eg, whether or not a particular whitegood is efficient in its energy use; whether products can be designed to reduce the likelihood of harmful substances escaping into the environment on disposal (batteries and light bulbs containing mercury); or whether takeaway food containers can be designed to reduce use of virgin materials and enhance recyclability. In other words, we are being asked not just to take an ‘end-of-pipe’ approach to considering our impacts on the environment, but to focus our attention more strategically – further up the production process – so that we avoid: • • production of harmful emissions during manufacture products that cause environmental harm during their use, either through lack of efficiency (eg, energy inefficiency causing higher than necessary greenhouse gas emissions) or because they are inherently harmful (eg, pesticides that are harmful to humans or the environment) products that cause environmental harm on disposal • The second type of environmental aspect we are concerned with here is the influence of the environment on the organisation – that is, the state of the environment (SoE) at various spatial levels – global, regional and local. Each has the potential to impact on community and government expectations of the organisation’s environmental performance. At a global level, we are now aware that climate change is occurring due to the build-up of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Among other things, this is leading to pressure on both governments and organisations to use their influence and/or take actions to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide (from burning of fossil fuels directly or indirectly through use of electricity generated by fossil fuels – see Unit 7/8). Unit 4 The State of the Environment 5 At a regional or local level, increasing degradation to the environment from a range of human activities and increasing community awareness of the need to protect the environment is leading to stricter regulations and/or economic disincentives on industry’s environmental performance (see Units 5, 6, 9). Hence the ‘state’ or ‘condition’ of the environment – not just in the local area in which an organisation operates but also at a much broader, even global level (eg, for climate change issues) – has the potential to influence community expectations and external regulations within which an organisation must operate. This means that keeping a watching brief on the state of the environment is a second important aspect for organisations to consider as part of their EMS. In this Unit, we will provide information that should help you to appreciate: • • the range of environmental impacts your organisation may have the changing state of the environment and consequent expectations that society may have regarding ‘acceptable’ levels of impacts Hence, our aim is to help in that initial (and ongoing) review of all environmental aspects required for the EMS. We cannot possibly cover all the impacts that might be relevant – it would require an entire degree to do that, not just one part of one course! Nevertheless, within this course we can attempt to: • • • provide a broad picture of the type of impacts, their causes and possible corrective responses that you should consider most importantly, provide some ongoing sources of information that you can use to seek out more detailed, localised and continuously updated information highlight some key issues and broad approaches to considering environmental problems, their causes and remedies In providing this information, it is acknowledged that participants in this course may come from a wide range of geographic locations and will be employed in a wide range of business activities. Accordingly, in this Unit we will try to accommodate these differentials – although that is no small task, considering that the impacts each person will be concerned with will inevitably be strongly influenced by location and type of industry or business. 6 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Learning outcomes When you have completed this Unit you should be able to: • • • • • • • discuss the rationale underpinning current interest in sustainable production and consumption and the possible means to achieve this discuss key global environmental issues that represent ‘unsustainability’, including their underlying causes and recommendations for solutions discuss the role of state of the environment (SoE) reporting and the pressure–state–response (PSR) framework for this explain how this framework can be used by organisations explain the nature and role of indicators for SoE reporting discuss key environmental problems at your national and local levels start to document and explain the key impacts of your organisation and/or your household on the environment, at scales from the local to the global, and suggest solutions to remove/minimise these Unit 4 The State of the Environment 7 State of our environment Imagine a world in which environmental change threatens people’s health, physical security, material needs and social cohesion. This is a world beset by increasingly intense and frequent storms, and by rising sea levels. Some people experience extensive flooding, while others endure intense droughts. Species extinction occurs at rates never before witnessed. Safe water is increasingly limited, hindering economic activity. Land degradation endangers the lives of millions of people. This is the world today. (UNEP 2007) This quote is from Global Environment Outlook 2007, the United Nations Environment Programme’s (UNEP) major assessment of the state of the world’s environment. The Global Environment Outlook (GEO) project comprises major pieces of work, bringing together a coordinated network involving a vast number of individuals and agencies around the world, to both keep the state of the globe and regions within it under review, and to provide guidance for regional and international policy setting and planning for sustainable development. GEO reports 1, 2, 3 and 4 can be accessed at: [Accessed 2 May 2008]. Thirty years ago, environmental problems were mainly considered local or regional. While some crossed national borders, they were still relatively confined geographically. Today, most of these problems remain, many have greatly worsened. Some have improved, but in some cases only to be replaced by other, newer problems. For example, in Sydney, particulate air pollution from industry is now much improved over that of 40-50 years ago, but photochemical smog from motor cars is much worse. A striking change however, has been the emergence of truly global or large, regional-scale problems. Globally, the depletion of the stratospheric ozone layer and the enhanced greenhouse effect are the two key examples. Biodiversity loss, while occurring locally, is also an issue of key global concern: it is part of our common heritage. The extensive 1997 Indonesian forest fires is an example of a large-scale regional problem, where pollution spread to a number of other SE Asian countries. Similarly, air pollution from SE Asian cities has been picked up by measuring devices on the west coast of North America; and persistent organic chemicals (such as DDT) have been found in fauna in remote locations such as Antarctica, far away from the site of original application. 8 Unit 4 The State of the Environment The following extract from GEO 3 provides a summary of environmental achievements over the period 1972-2002 and current challenges. There is a wealth of material in GEO 3 and you are encouraged to peruse it. After reading this extract you might be interested to return to your initial thoughts in Exercise 1.1 in Unit 1 and compare them with the information in the summaries below. Environmental achievements The policies articulated in documents such as the Stockholm Declaration and Programme of Action, the World Conservation Strategy, Our Common Future, the Rio Declaration and Agenda 21, have driven the environmental agenda in the period 1972-2002. Binding legal regimes – some from before 1972 – now form the body of international environmental law, providing the appropriate muscle necessary to encourage compliance. Along with the policies and legal framework, the past three decades have also seen a proliferation of environmental institutions across public and private sectors, and civil society in general. Ministries or departments of environment are now common in all regions. Sustainable development and environmental standards have become part of the lingua franca of major corporations, with many now making annual environmental reporting part of the corporate agenda. Civil society has come of age, recording many successes at different levels — from community to the international level. Some of the successes that have been achieved since 1972 include the following: • • Addressing stratospheric ozone depletion is notable victory for global environmental governance. However, it needs continuing vigilance. Concern over levels of common air pollutants has resulted in encouraging reductions in many countries, achieved through specific policy measures, including emissions and air quality standards, as well as technology-based regulations and different market-based instruments. More holistic approaches to land management, such as integrated plant nutrition systems and integrated pest management, have been introduced with positive results for the health of agricultural ecosystems in some regions. Freshwater policies have begun to move away from a riparian rights focus and towards exploring efficiency improvements and river basin management. Integrated water resources management is now widely accepted as a strategic policy initiative. A new theoretical understanding of the benefits of ecosystem services has emerged but, in practice, information and policy instruments to protect these have been lacking or sporadic. There has been a recent evolution from ‘end-of-pipe’ approaches to goals for sustainability and a modest shift to a more integrated approach to environmental policies and management, focusing on the sustainability of ecosystems and watersheds, for example, rather than on sustaining yields. It is now recognized that poverty reduction, economic development and environmental stability should be mutual goals. This breaks with the old thinking prevalent in the 1970s and 1980s which regarded environmental protection and economic development as conflicting aims. Prosperity and an informed and active civil society have been key drivers of policies to address various environmental problems that became apparent early in the 30year period in developed nations. Ambient air quality and point-source water pollution have been addressed satisfactorily in many areas; recycling has become more common; wastewater treatment has improved; pulp-and-paper industry effluents have declined and hazardous waste threats have been reduced. Protected areas have been increasingly set aside for conservation and recreation. • • • • • • Unit 4 The State of the Environment 9 • • • • Successes in the developing world have been mixed: there has been a growing democratization and participation process positively underpinning environmentdevelopment in some regions, with a growing civil society awareness of the debate. A natural ‘cluster’ of biodiversity policies is emerging, of which the CBD is the core regime, but which also includes a host of other treaties and initiatives such as CITES, CMS and the Ramsar Convention. Technological change has helped to relieve some environmental pressures: lower material intensity in production; a shift from materials and energy supply to the provision of services; a modest boost in renewable technology; and a significant clean-up in some regions in previously ‘dirty’ industries. In recent years, risk reduction has been placed higher on political agendas, and response mechanisms and early warning systems have been strengthened. An overall observation is that many of the policies mentioned in this chapter have either no clearly defined and specific performance criteria or the criteria are not readily related to environmental performance. This is true of, for example, economic policies related to taxation, trade and investment. Although some of them have significant links to environmental issues (in some cases, they are key drivers of environmental change), their built-in evaluation criteria are usually limited to economic performance. This has made their evaluation particularly challenging from an environmental and sustainable development perspective. Environmental challenges Despite these achievements, a growing world population — to more than 6 000 million people (and still climbing) — is exacerbating the demand on resources and services, and increasing the generation of wastes to meet many of these demands. Overall, policy measures have not been adequate to counteract the pressures imposed by increasing poverty and uncontrolled consumption. Preceding Chapter 2 sections show indisputable evidence of continuing and widespread environmental degradation. • • Recent human impacts on the atmosphere have been enormous, with anthropogenic emissions a prime cause of environmental problems. Emissions of almost all Greenhouse gases continue to rise. Ground-level ozone, smog and fine particulates have emerged as significant health risks, triggering or exacerbating respiratory and cardiac problems, especially in vulnerable people such as children, the elderly and asthmatics, in developed and developing nations alike. Overexploitation of many of the surface water resources and great aquifers upon which irrigated agriculture and domestic supplies depend has resulted in more and more countries facing water stress or scarcity. About 1 200 million people still lack access to clean drinking water and some 2 400 million to sanitation services. The consequences include the deaths of 3–5 million people annually from water-related diseases. The Earth’s biological diversity is under increasing threat. The extinction rate of species is believed to be accelerating. Habitat destruction and/or modification are the main cause of biodiversity loss but invasive species are the second most important pressure. There has been a sharp global trend towards increasingly intense exploitation and depletion of wild fish stocks. Numerous fisheries have collapsed and others are threatened with overexploitation. Land degradation continues to worsen, particularly in developing countries where the poor are forced onto marginal lands with fragile ecosystems and in areas where land is increasingly exploited to meet food and agricultural needs without adequate economic and political support to adopt appropriate agricultural practices. Many remaining forest ecosystems have been degraded and fragmented. Since 1972, extensive forest monocultures have been established in the developing world but these do not replace the ecological complexity of natural forests. Crop and livestock production has contributed to the large increase in reactive nitrogen in the global biosphere, contributing to the acidification and eutrophication of ecosystems. • • • • • • 10 Unit 4 The State of the Environment • With almost half of the world’s population living in less-developed countries, urban areas and megacities, infrastructure and municipal services are inadequate to accommodate millions of the urban poor. Urban air pollution and deteriorating water quality are having major health, economic and social impacts. An increase in the frequency and intensity of natural disasters over the past 30 years has put more people at greater risk, with the greatest burden falling on the poorest communities. (http://www.unep.org/geo/geo3/english/487.htm) [Accessed November 2006] Exercise 4.1 Consider the information on current environmental challenges outlined above. What pressures or influences do you think these trends in the state of the environment might have on your business/industry activities and priorities? (At this point we are just looking at overall trends on a broad scale, not at specific local issues.) ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Unit 4 The State of the Environment 11 State of our consumption There have been many gains in our understanding of the environment and our impacts on it, in developing more efficient technologies to reduce materials and energy use and in devising cleaner production methods. However, as outlined in Unit 2, the gains we have made have been overtaken by (a) population growth leading to increasing demands for materials and energy use, and (b) continuing per capita increase in resource use. So overall, environmental degradation continues and we are moving away from rather than towards sustainability. These increasing pressures in resource use and consequent environmental impacts have seen much emphasis placed on sustainable consumption and production as we have entered the 21st century. This issue has taken a central place in UNEP work. It was endorsed as a 10-year program at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg in 2002 (the 10-year program commenced in April 2004) and was the theme of the Worldwatch Institute’s annual State of the World Report for 2004. North and South – population and consumption issues Again, as outlined in Unit 2, this picture is further complicated by the wide disparities between the North (developed countries) and the South (developing countries). To date, per capita consumption in the North has far exceeded that of the South, with the roughly one-quarter of the world’s population in the North being responsible for about three-quarters of resource consumption. As one example, per capita consumption rates in Germany are about 15 times higher than in India, so that the ecological burden caused by 80 million Germans (figures from around the mid-1990s) is likely to be higher than that caused by the 900 million people in India (von Weizsäcker, Lovins & Lovins 1997). Reading 4.1 is an extract from Factor 4: Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use. As the sub-title suggests, this book addresses this very issue. Doubling wealth and halving resource use means a ‘factor 4’ gain in efficiency. 12 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Yet, some contend that this will not be enough, and that “sustainable levels of material flows will not be reached unless and until the material intensity of the OECD countries is reduced by a factor of 10” (von Weizsäcker, Lovins & Lovins 1997, p. 244). This would mean a 90 per cent reduction in energy and material intensity of our society. Reading 4.1 examines these issues in the context of the 1992 Earth Summit and the concept of sustainable development. Reading 4.1 von Weizsäcker E, Lovins AB & Lovins LH, 1997, Factor 4: Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 213-222. Exercise 4.2 The Global Footprint Network: [Accessed 2 May 2008] gives a detailed explanation of ecological footprint analysis and a comparative measure of the footprints of nations. (The ecological footprint will be discussed further in Unit 7/8.) How can the ecological footprint concept be used to help address sustainability issues? ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Unit 4 The State of the Environment 13 The relative total impacts of the North and the South are now starting to change, and “a lifestyle and culture that became common in Europe, North America, Japan and a few other pockets of the world in the twentieth century is going global in the twenty-first” (Gardner, Assadourian & Sarin 2004, p. 4). Although the proportion of people belonging to the so-called ‘consumer class’ in countries such as the United States, Japan, Germany, UK and Australia (North) is greater than 85%, whereas in countries such as India and China it is 12% and 19% respectively, the top three national consumer class populations (in terms of overall number of people) are (Gardner, Assadourian & Sarin 2004): 1. 2. 3. United States (242.5 million) China (239.8 million India (121.9 million) Gardner, Assadourian & Sarin (2004, p. 6) suggest that “the story of consumption in the twenty-first century could be as much about emerging consumer nations as traditional ones” and point to the potential for enormous growth in the consumer class in countries of the South, which is demanding its right to develop and needs the ecological space to do so. This theme is further highlighted in the Worldwatch Institute’s State of the World Report 2006, which is dedicated to China, India and a New World Order. The following extract from this report (pp. 3-4) highlights the global implications of these fast-growing economies: The pace of economic change in China and India is breathtaking. Since embarking on economic reforms two decades ago, China’s economy has averaged a remarkable 9.5 percent growth rate, doubling in the last decade alone. The evidence of growth is everywhere, from the construction cranes dotting urban skylines to the home appliances that are fast becoming ubiquitous. India’s economic transformation is at an earlier stage, with income of roughly $2,500 per person, compared with $4,600 in China. But India’s economy is accelerating. Deutsche Bank in Germany projects economic reforms and a growing work force will lead India to overtake China as the world’s fastest-growing major economy over the next 15 years. China and India are on the verge of becoming far more than economic powers, however. These two countries are now also planetary powers that are shaping the global biosphere and are therefore central to whether the world succeeds in building a healthy, prosperous, environmentally sustainable future for the next generation. As China and India become world-class economies, they are set to join already industrialized nations as major consumers of resources and polluters of local and global ecosystems. And while the largest burden of these developments will fall on China and India themselves, the global impact is clear. 14 Unit 4 The State of the Environment This economic growth in the South coupled with high population growth provides for a staggering prospect of resource use and consequent impact on the planet into the future. It also places enormous pressure on the North to reduce its consumption to leave ecological space for development in the South (see Reading 4.1). The need for a reduction in materials intensity by a factor of 10 in industrial production in the North is seen as a necessary goal by many commentators (eg, von Weizsäcker, Lovins & Lovins 1997). This clearly has enormous ramifications for business and industry! This North/South issue is critical to any consideration of industrial activity and environmental performance, since it is likely to provide a key driving force on the environmental performance of organisations and industries in the near future – through pressure on the North to reduce its intensity of resource use, and on the South to adopt clean production paths in any development. A clear example of why this issue will not be resolved easily is the US’s refusal to be part of the Kyoto Protocol plans for greenhouse gas emission reductions until countries from the South are similarly bound to reduction targets in emissions. The broader issues related to management of materials and resources and the various strategies, techniques and tools available to address these and dematerialise our economies are discussed in detail in Unit 7/8. These include eco-efficiency, cleaner production, industrial ecology, extended produce responsibility, life cycle assessment, etc. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 15 SoE – a framework for analysis Reading 4.1 and our discussion above demonstrate the need to examine resource use and environmental issues in a broad context, seeking out interlinkages between cause and effect, and across different political and natural boundaries. Pressure–state–response model An important framework for addressing and reporting on the state of the environment was introduced by the OECD in 1993 – the pressure–state– response (P-S-R) model based on the concept of causality. Human activities exert pressures on the environment, change its quality and the quantity of natural resources – the state of the environment. Society responds to these changes through environmental, economic and sectoral policies – responses. In other words, the model forces us to seek out the links between the state of the environment (generally meaning degradation) and the pressures that have caused the degraded state, and then to ‘close the loop’ by identifying responses designed to lessen the pressures on the environment and improve its state. By regularly reporting on the pressures, states and responses for a region, we should be able to determine the success or otherwise of our environmental management responses, and modify these accordingly. Figure 4.1 shows the P-S-R model as developed by the OECD. Applying an example to this model, we can see that humans may exert pressure on the environment through an activity, such as driving a car that emits the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. Among other responses, the SoE is altered since the added carbon dioxide will increase the concentration of this greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. In turn, we have responded by bringing in an international treaty, the Framework Convention on Climate Change and its associated Kyoto Protocol, to attempt to put rules in place that will lead to lower emissions of greenhouse gases. 16 Unit 4 The State of the Environment (OECD 2003, p. 21 ) Figure 4.1: OECD Pressure–State–Response Model Unit 4 State of the Environment 17 The P-S-R model has been used widely as the framework for SoE reporting. Variations of the model have been produced, as briefly outlined below, and alternative models have been proposed. Whatever its shortcomings, the P-S-R model does provide a framework that forces us to seek pressures for environmental degradation, and the driving forces underlying (and causing) these pressures, and facilitates thinking about responses to environmental problems and the effectiveness of our responses. It remains widely used. Modifications of the P-S-R model include the following: • Condition–pressure–response (CPR) analogous to human health, where one first inquires about the condition of a person, what pressures may be affecting their condition, and their response to that condition (ACT Office of the Commissioner for the Environment 1997). Driving force–state–response (DSR) includes the addition of social, economic and institutional indicators as driving forces affecting ‘state’ (United Nations Conference on Human Settlements 1996). Pressure–state–impact–response (PSIR) an additional category refers to impacts due to ambient consequences (Environmental Systems Program, Harvard University 1996). Pressure–condition–response–implications (PCRI) 1 looks at the implications of the environment’s condition. • • • The P-S-I-R or Pressure-State-Impact-Response model inserts further detail by identifying the impacts of the change of state. So, using the above example, the impact would be climate change and in turn its effect on a range of activities, as a result of the increased concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. 1 Commonwealth SoE Advisory Council for the 1996 SoE Report, Ian Lowe (pers comm). Unit 4 The State of the Environment 18 SoE reporting: Global, national, state and local The 1972 UN Conference on the Environment (see Unit 1) saw a call for nations to report regularly on the state of their living resources, and UNEP produced a global SoE report in 1974. UNEP has continued this reporting via the GEO reports outlined above. The OECD has played an important role in fostering SoE reporting at national level, calling on its member countries in 1979 to develop SoE indicators and to produce regular reports. Many nations responded to this call, and by the early 1980s were producing SoE reports. Australia issued its first national report in 1986 and then began regular (5 year intervals) national reports from 1996. The latest Australian National SoE report was published in 2006. These reports can provide a most important source of information for you on the state of the environment in your country and on environmental impacts of various activities. Mostly they will provide not just data on trends in environmental conditions, but also good background information to assist understanding of the environmental issues relevant to your country. However, while they might provide case studies of particular regions, national reports generally take a fairly broad-scale view of the state of the environment and associated pressures and responses. For a more detailed look at the situation relevant to the region in which you live or your organisation operates, you will need to consult state or regional reports. In Australia, all states (except Victoria, but this is under review) produce a SoE report at regular intervals, and this is typically mandated through legislation. For even more detail, your local government area may produce a SoE report. There are around 900 local governments in Australia, with reporting carried out by some, but it is not mandatory in all states. The Local Government Act 1993 (NSW) requires NSW local government authorities to produce annual SoE reports. The first SoE report for the year ending after each local election must be a comprehensive report that addresses the eight environmental sectors of land, air, water, biodiversity, waste, noise, Aboriginal heritage and non-Aboriginal heritage. All major environmental impacts have to be reported on, as well as related activities including management plans, special council projects relating to the environment, and the environmental impact of council’s activities. Some councils also address sustainability trends in their local government area as part of this reporting. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 19 A good example of a NSW local government SoE report that covers trends in sustainability is from the Northern Sydney Regional Organisation of Councils: [Accessed 2 May 2008]. Supplementary local government SoE reports must be prepared in the intervening years between major reports. These need to identify any new environmental impacts since the last SoE report, and update trends in environment indicators that are important to each environmental sector activities (NSW Government 1999). Why all this attention to SoE reporting in this Unit when it is clear that it is not possible to provide information on all the areas of environmental impact likely to be relevant to your business? The scope is indeed vast, so while we will briefly consider a few broad themes, the intention of this section is to provide you with an understanding of how you can readily acquire relevant and up-to-date information for yourself. This is far more important and useful than attempting to cover the whole range of issues here, since they differ in their relative priority and new issues are continually emerging. Below is a brief overview of access points for SoE reports at various levels of governance. For readers outside Australia, much of the background information on environmental issues in the Australian reports may also be relevant as it is not necessarily location-specific. For information covering your own location, search online for the environment department in your country and from that site determine if SoE reports are prepared, and at what jurisdictional levels. You can then seek out those which appear to contain the most relevant information for your locality and business or industry. 20 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Global, national and regional SoE Reports Global Environmental Sustainability Index (ESI) [Accessed 2 May 2008] The ESI is a measure of overall progress towards environmental sustainability, developed for 142 countries. The ESI permits cross-national comparisons of environmental progress in a systematic and quantitative method. European Environment Agency – Europe’s Environment, Third Assessment (2003) [Accessed 2 May 2008] This is the latest pan-European state of the environment report produced by the EEA, the most comprehensive overview currently available of. SoE reports of individual European countries can be accessed from: [Accessed 2 May 2008] UNEP – SoE reports [Accessed 2 May 2008] [Accessed 2 May 2008] Web links to a wide variety of global SoE reports. US National Council for Science and the Environment – SoE reports [Accessed 2 May 2008] Provides a fairly comprehensive list of Web links to SoE reports for international organisations, NGOs, countries, states and regional governments. Australia National: Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and Arts [Accessed 2 May 2008] National report and portal for individual websites for each state and territory. Victoria [Accessed 2 May 2008] The 2008 report currently being developed is Victoria’s first SoE report. Western Australia: Environmental Protection Authority [Accessed 2 May 2008] Queensland: Environmental Protection Agency [Accessed 2 May 2008] Unit 4 The State of the Environment 21 South Australia: The SoE report is located at: [Accessed 2 May 2008] Tasmania – Resource Planning and Development Commission http://www.rpdc.tas.gov.au/soe_reporting/soe_docs/soe_reporting.htm [Accessed 2 May 2008] Local government Use the respective state links or council websites to search for local government reports. A Web resource for local Councils in preparing SoE reports is: [Accessed 2 May 2008]. This site provides online access to several NSW EPA data resources for SoE reporting. Linking SoE reporting to environmental and adaptive management cycle The purpose of SoE reporting is to inform both the public and decision makers in government and the private sector about the condition of the environment, the pressures we place on it and the effects of these, as well as the effectiveness of the environmental management responses we put in place. If these functions are to be effective, clearly SoE Reporting must be integrated into an overall planning, operations and reporting cycle, as shown in Figure 4.2. At the level of the organisation, the same is true. Remember the ‘Plan-Do-Implement-Review’ cycle required by ISO 14001 for an EMS. 22 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Figure 4.2: Envisioning Sustainability and Measuring Progress Towards It Although Figure 4.2 illustrates a process at a local or regional level, the principles illustrated can be just as usefully applied at the organisational level. Perhaps one of the clear failings in SoE reporting in Australia to date is that the feedback loops between the SoE reports and environmental planning and management have not been clearly evident. As well, there has been a reluctance to set targets for environmental management for sustainability. Without these aspects in place, SoE reporting cannot play its intended role in environmental management. Corporate sustainability reporting Some organisations have also started to produce public environmental and sustainability reports to provide their management, staff and the public with information about their environmental performance. These include both private and public sector organisations. (We will explore corporate sustainability reporting in Unit 12.) Although the ISO 14001 EMS standard does not require a formal environment report, it is clear that such reporting is an important means to ‘close the loop’ back to the policy, objectives and targets in the EMS, and that it is also an important means for transparently displaying an organisation’s commitment to its policy. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 23 Indicators Indicators may refer to media or compartments of the environment, such as air, water or land. They may also cover themes resulting from human activities such as acidification 2 or eutrophication 3, or they may reflect sectors of human activity such as agriculture, forestry or fishing. Within each of these categories, pressure, state or response indicators may be developed. Indicators may also relate to environmental aspects of socioeconomic parameters, such as human health or waste production. As a day-to-day comparison, consider the taking of body temperature as providing an indicator of sickness in humans. Environmental indicators help track changes in the environment by selecting key measures – which may be physical, chemical, biological or socio-economic – that provide useful information about the whole system. Using indicators, it is possible to evaluate the fundamental condition of the environment without having to capture the full complexity of the system. (ANZECC 2000, pp. 4-5) Note in the above ANZECC definition the emphasis on information about the whole system. As the following definition from Bakkes et al (1994, p. 5) highlights, indicators belong within a specific management context. They describe an indicator as: … a piece of information which: • is a part of a specific management process and can be compared with the objectives of that management process • has been assigned a significance beyond its face value Bakkes et al (1994, pp. 2-3) stress that this is a key point because it means that an indicator must be tailored to a specific process or task and hence, “there is no such thing as a universal set of environmental indicators”. Rather, indicators need to be developed specifically for different purposes. The reference value against which indicators are compared can take on a number of forms. It may be a legal standard of international or local significance, a standard defined by government policy or a goal set by a community. Indicators may also be normalised by a temporal comparison; that is, by comparing against the level of a parameter in a particular year. Standards are increasingly likely to be set to represent sustainability, but such standards remain difficult to define both for scientific and socially based reasons (as discussed in Unit 2). 2 3 Process by which soils or other aspects of the environment experience a decline in pH to a more acid condition; either human-induced or naturally occurring. Enrichment of the nutrient level of a waterbody either through natural causes or as a result of human activities. Typically involves input of organic material or surface runoff (eg, fertilisers) containing nitrates and phosphates. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 24 Also clear from this definition is that indicators are not merely statistics; turning statistics or data into indicators involves some manipulation to give additional features, generally comparison with some reference value. It is this comparison with a reference value, which may correspond to the difference between a desired and an actual value, that steers human action (Bakkes et al 1994). Again, consider the use of body temperature as an indicator of health in humans. The temperature is compared with a reference point that is the normal body temperature. Indicators – what is their role? The OECD (1991) identified the four broad purposes of indicators are to: • • • • measure environmental performance integrate environmental concerns into sectoral policies integrate environmental concerns into economic policies report on the state or condition of the environment Indicators are aimed at providing information to policy makers and the general public in order to produce action to solve problems that are identified, tracked and summarised by those indicators. Indicators help us to track changes in the condition of the environment as well as linking these changes to human activities and with the social and economic effectiveness of policies. We will increasingly rely on indicators as we attempt to move towards sustainability. Strong and clear messages, which indicators should provide, are necessary if people are to be motivated to make requisite responses for sustainability (Adriaanse 1993). Unit 4 The State of the Environment 25 The ANZECC State of the Environment Reporting Task Force (2000, p. 5) outlined the rationale for use of indicators, as follows: Environmental indicators simplify state of the environment reporting in two important ways. Firstly, indicators have a well-understood meaning and can be measured regularly. Trends in the indicators are thus readily interpreted to yield valuable information about important aspects of the environment. Secondly, environmental indicators can be an aid to communication. They allow information about the environment to be communicated effectively. As users of information about the environment become more familiar with the agreed indicators, they will be able to absorb this information more quickly. Thus the efficiency of decision-making should be enhanced. Environmental indicators can also help focus and rationalise environmental monitoring programs by drawing attention to the critical measures required to evaluate environmental trends and conditions. Following is an extract from the 2005-6 Report Card of Hornsby Shire Council (NSW) that identifies the environmental sustainability indicators used to assess sustainability. It is interesting to note that more and more local governments in NSW are using sustainability indicators as well as specific indicators within the themes (human settlement, water, atmosphere, soil landscape, bushland and biodiversity) required for SoE reporting. (http://www.hornsby.nsw.gov.au/environment/index.cfm?NavigationID=874) [Accessed 2 May 2008] 26 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Business consideration of key environmental impacts As stressed above, it is not possible in this course to cover all the possible impacts that an organisation might have on the environment. However, it is important to provide a framework to guide consideration of possible impacts. One such framework that is useful for this purpose is the Natural Step model, which was outlined in Unit 2. As a reminder, the four system conditions for sustainable human society as outlined in Unit 2 are: 1. 2. 3. 4. Substances from the earth’s crust must not systematically increase in nature. Substances produced by society must not systematically increase in nature. The physical basis for the productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically deteriorated. Human needs must be met by a fair and efficient use of natural resources. We will now consider each of these system conditions to provide a framework for outlining the range of environmental impacts that an organisation needs to consider. Substances from earth’s crust must not systematically increase in nature This statement is about the flow of materials and elements through the surface of the earth, and suggests that to achieve sustainability we must not extract materials from the earth’s surface at a rate faster than their redeposition or re-absorption. The topic of materials flow and the issues raised by this system condition in terms of resource use and waste disposal are discussed in detail in Unit 7/8. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 27 Substances produced by society must not systematically increase in nature Some substances are produced by humans at a faster pace than they can be broken down and integrated back into the building blocks of nature (EcoSTEPS, undated). While these substances may be naturally occurring but produced at a far slower rate in nature, certain substances produced by humans do not exist in nature. These include a wide range of chemicals, many of which are very persistent and do not readily break down in nature. Their continued use means that they will accumulate in natural systems. Naturally occurring substances produced by society Considering the first class of substance – those that do exist in nature – a key issue is the extraction and oxidation (through burning) of carbon from fossil fuels leading to the enhanced greenhouse effect (EGE). There are a range of other substances that we extract from the earth’s crust and use for numerous purposes, leading to their concentration in parts of the environment where they may not naturally be found in such concentrations, and/or to their presence in different forms. An example is the methyl mercury discharged by certain industries into water bodies that gets into fish and is harmful to humans who ultimately eat that fish). Such substances include a wide range of metals and minerals, with the heavy metals such as lead, mercury and cadmium being of special concern. Nitrogen used in fertilisers may run off into water bodies, leading to algal blooms and harm to humans drinking the water. And so on – there are many examples. Substances causing EGE EGE involves more than just energy use, and those other aspects need to be mentioned here. The main greenhouse gases involved in the EGE are: • • • • carbon dioxide (CO2) methane (CH4) nitrous oxide (N2O) halocarbons, eg, chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) All these gases reflect heat back to the earth. The first three, which occur naturally, make up less than one-tenth of 1% of the total atmosphere, which consists mostly of oxygen (21%) and nitrogen (78%). Halocarbons are manufactured, but will be discussed here for simplicity. 28 Unit 4 The State of the Environment The concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are measured globally using standard methods endorsed by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), the foremost international authority on the EGE and its effects. To compile inventories, emissions are estimated by assessing the processes that produce greenhouse gases. • Carbon dioxide The increase in CO2 is largely caused by the burning of fossil fuels (mainly for electricity generation and fuel for motor vehicles), as well as by agricultural practices, amongst other things. Extensive clearing of vegetation contributes to the problem because plants take in some CO2 from the atmosphere through photosynthesis and store the carbon as biomass. According to the National Greenhouse Gas Inventory of 1997, CO2 accounts for 67% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions (National Greenhouse Inventory Committee 1999, p. xiv). • Methane CH4 is the primary component of natural gas and is produced by organic decomposition. There has been a steady increase in methane emissions due to increased agricultural production, particularly in rice paddy fields. Cattle and other livestock also contribute to methane emissions, as cows excrete as much as 500 litres of methane per day. Leaks from natural gas pipelines and coalmines are a further source of methane in the atmosphere. Although methane accounts for only 2% of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by volume, it accounts for 27% of net greenhouse gas emissions (ie, once all gases have been standardised to CO2 equivalents, to be discussed later) (National Greenhouse Inventory Committee 1999, p. xiv). • Nitrous oxide There are many small sources of N2O, both natural and manufactured, that are difficult to quantify. The main sources created by human activity are agriculture (especially the development of pastures in tropical regions), biomass burning and a number of industrial processes. N2O production accounts for 6% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions (National Greenhouse Inventory Committee 1999, p. xiv). • Halocarbons Halogens are a class of extremely active chemicals such as chlorine (Cl) and fluorine (F). Halocarbons are compounds of carbon with large numbers of halogens attached. Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) are halocarbons that were developed in the 1930s in the search for an efficient refrigerant. Hence they are not naturally occurring but are manufactured, and used extensively as propellants, refrigerants and foaming agents. Perfluorocarbons (PFCs), another type of halocarbon, are produced during aluminium production. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 29 The realisation that halocarbons were responsible for ozone depletion in the stratosphere led to their phasing out under the 1987 Montreal Protocol. CFCs have been replaced with hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs). HCFCs are less reactive than CFCs and therefore less ozone depleting, but they still have enormous greenhouse warming potential (see below). Although the amount of halocarbons emitted annually is not large relative to total greenhouse gas emissions, because they are such potent gases they are regarded as significant for global warming (see below). All Australian states now have legislation, such as the NSW Ozone Protection Act 1989, limiting the use of HCFCs, prohibiting the use of CFCs, and outlining procedures for their safe handling and disposal. Useful websites The following websites are useful and, in particular, the background information to the Australian national and NSW SoE reports provides a good outline of the scientific understanding of this issue. Australian Academy of Science: [Accessed 2 May 2008] Australian Government Department of Climate Change: [Accessed 2 May 2008] CSIRO Marine and Atmospheric Research: [Accessed 2 May 2008] UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change: [Accessed 2 May 2008] Pacific Institute: [Accessed 2 May 2008] Pew Center on Global Climate Change: [Accessed 2 May 2008] UN Framework Convention on Climate Change: [Accessed 2 May 2008] United Nations Environment Programme: [Accessed 2 May 2008] 30 Unit 4 The State of the Environment New substances produced by society Regarding the second class of substances identified above – those not found in nature but developed by humans – there has been particular concern in recent years over persistent organic pollutants (POPs). POPs are very stable chemicals that do not break down readily once released into the environment, which includes some pesticides and industrial chemicals. They can be transported between countries by the earth’s oceans and atmosphere, and can enter the food chain with resultant harmful health effects on both animal and human life. The substances may bioaccumulate (accumulate in living tissue; eg, DDT bioaccumulates in the fatty tissues of animals moving up the food chain) and have been traced in the fatty tissues of humans and other animals. POPs are used as pesticides, industrial chemicals, or produced as unintentional by-products from most forms of combustion, including wood burning, industrial processes, power plants, and diesel engines. They cause serious harm to both the environment and human health, and have been linked to reproductive failure and cancer. POPs pollutants are problematic due to the following intrinsic characteristics (US Department of State 2000): • • • • toxicity potential to bioaccumulate in the food chain stability and resistance to natural breakdown propensity for long-range transport One related issue that has emerged as a potential environmental impact ‘surprise’ in the past few years is known as ‘endocrine disruptors’. The following extract from the US EPA Endocrine Disruptor Screening Process website (http://www.epa.gov/scipoly/oscpendo/)[Accessed 2 May 2008] provides a good description of this new environmental problem: In recent years, some scientists have proposed that chemicals might be disrupting the endocrine system (glands and hormones) of humans and wildlife. The endocrine system also referred to as the hormone system – is made up of glands located throughout the body, hormones which are synthesized and secreted by the glands into the bloodstream, and receptors in the various target organs and tissues which recognize and respond to the hormones. The function of the system is to regulate a wide range of biological processes, including control of blood sugar, growth and function of reproductive systems, regulation of metabolism, brain and nervous system development, and development of an organism from conception through adulthood and old age. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 31 A variety of chemicals are known to disrupt the endocrine systems of animals in laboratory studies, and compelling evidence has accumulated that endocrine systems of certain fish and wildlife have been affected by chemical contaminants, resulting in developmental abnormalities and reproductive impairment. However, the relationship of human diseases of the endocrine system and exposure to environmental contaminants is poorly understood and scientifically controversial. Because of the potentially serious consequences of human exposure to endocrine disrupting chemicals, Congress included specific language on endocrine disruption in the Food Quality Protection Act and amended Safe Drinking Water Act in 1996. The former mandated that EPA develop an endocrine disruptor screening program, whereas the latter authorizes EPA to screen endocrine disruptors found in drinking water sources. The Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program focuses on providing methods and procedures to detect and characterize endocrine activity of pesticides, commercial chemicals, and environmental contaminants. While we do have extensive data – including some endocrine-related data – on pesticides, there currently is not enough scientific data available on most of the estimated 87,000 chemicals in commerce to allow us to evaluate all potential risks. The Endocrine Disruptor Screening Program will enable EPA to gather the information necessary to identify endocrine disruptors and take appropriate regulatory action. The cases of POPs, and especially endocrine disruptors, are classic situations requiring application of the precautionary principle (see Unit 2). This is especially so with the endocrine disruptors, where scientific uncertainty regarding impacts on humans remains high. The Australian government’s Department of Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts website provides access to information about chemicals and the environment: [Accessed 2 May 2008]. These are but a few of the examples that could be given to illustrate the way in which human activities are not meeting this essential ‘system condition’ as defined by the Natural Step. 32 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Physical basis for productivity and diversity of nature must not be systematically deteriorated Nature provides us with renewable ‘free’ goods and services. These goods include all the products that we harvest from nature – food, fibre, timber, and so on. They are renewable in the sense that as long as we do not overharvest (exceed the yield) or disrupt the balance in ecosystems by altering the flow of materials and/or energy such that the particular tolerances of living organisms are exceeded, these products will keep being produced. The services of nature are all those processes carried out by ecosystems that provide for the capture of the sun’s energy in order to build complex molecules of living organisms (productivity) and carry out the degradation of substances so that the basic building blocks of life (nitrogen, sulphur, carbon, phosphorus, etc) are continually cycled. But, they involve much more than this. As Crass & Jones (2003) put it: The functioning of natural ecosystems provides services essential to human survival. Collectively, these services maintain the Earth in a state that can support life. Ecosystem services maintain the atmosphere, provide clean water, control soil erosion, pollution and pests, pollinate plants, and much more … Terrestrial animals need air with the correct balance of gases, which includes at least 20% oxygen. Oxygen is provided by plants and algae through photosynthesis. So clearing vegetation and polluting the ocean may threaten the very air we breathe. Water is also essential for survival. The water cycle of rain and evaporation is partly controlled by vegetation. For example, forests can affect entire regional climates because they pump enough water from the soil to the air, causing more rainfall. Large-scale deforestation could cause serious drying of regional climates. The transpiration stream of trees keeps the water table down, but only if there are enough trees. This prevents the salinisation of topsoil, already a huge problem in the mostly treeless Murray-Darling farmlands. Vegetation also controls soil erosion, which is another huge problem. Every year, over 20 billion tonnes of the Earth’s topsoil erodes and a centimetre of new soil takes possibly a millennium to form. Vegetation and soil ecosystems purify water. For example, wetlands are increasingly being used to treat sewage effluent, and vegetated water catchments supply much cleaner water to water storages than cleared catchments. The quality of our drinking water is directly affected by the quality of our catchment areas. (http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/ecosystem_services.htm) [Accessed 2 May 2008] Unit 4 The State of the Environment 33 Humans have been remarkably efficient in abusing these ‘free’ goods and services. This has occurred over a very long period, but it has intensified since the Industrial Revolution – and the onslaught on nature continues to escalate. We have caused a massive decline in the earth’s biodiversity and a loss of integrity of ecological systems. Maintenance of biodiversity is a key principle of sustainability. Biodiversity refers not only to the variety of all life forms – plants, animals and micro-organisms – but also to the ways they relate to one another and to their physical-chemical surroundings; that is, maintenance of ecosystems. It also refers to maintaining genetic diversity within species. While extinction of species is a ‘normal’ event in nature, the rate of extinction has increased enormously due to human activities. It is suggested that we may be losing as many as 70,000 species a year and that over the next century, species extinctions may reach a rate of between 1,000 and 10,000 times the background rate of extinction, that is, before the advent of ‘industrial humans’ (Yencken & Wilkinson 2000). Australia has a particularly poor record in terms of biodiversity loss since the time of European settlement. This is particularly concerning in view of the unique fauna and flora of Australia and its status as one of only 12 megadiverse regions in the world (areas classed as having very high biodiversity). Importantly, Australia is the only developed country among the 12 regions, meaning that we surely have the means to conserve our biodiversity as a contribution of global stewardship. We should not underestimate the value of nature’s ‘free’ products and services. Crass & Jones (2003) advise that their “total annual value in Australia has been estimated by the CSIRO to be $1,327 billion and they are free!” However, it would be a mistake to think of these services ‘just’ in monetary terms: The scale of most of these services is so large that it would be impossible to find technological substitutes. In addition, many of our aesthetic, educational and spiritual needs are provided for by the natural environment. Our wellbeing and future are inextricably linked with that of our ecosystems. Consequently, we need to protect ecosystems and their natural services for future generations. (http://www.austmus.gov.au/factsheets/ecosystem_services.htm) [Accessed 2 May 2008] We are now seeing the high costs of ecosystem damage in many regions, and in Australia nowhere more so than in relation to land and water systems, in large part as a result of agricultural and irrigation practices. 34 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Yencken & Wilkinson (2000, p. 240) cite a number of sources in summarising the costs of this damage: … the cost of restoring the damage done to the continent’s land and waters is more than the 37 billion dollar annual value of agricultural production’; ‘the off-site as well as the on-site costs of dryland salinity may be in the billions of dollars. This figure is significantly more than the costs of lost production to farmers – estimated at 200 million dollars for soil structure decline, between 134 and 300 million dollars for soil acidification and some 170 million for dryland salinity. Reading 4.2 is taken from the executive summary of the State of the Environment: Australia, 2001 report. It provides a summary of the key findings for each of the themes covered in this SoE report, environmental issues in Australia, their causes and remedial actions required. This reading is particularly relevant to this third ‘system condition’ of the Natural Step, but its coverage is far broader than that. From an Australian perspective, it is relevant to the whole of this Unit. The 2006 Australian SoE report has been published, and it would be useful for you to read the summary at: [Accessed 2 May 2008]. Note, however, that the 2001 summary provides more useful information on the key findings. Reading 4.3 is a chapter written by Professor Ian Lowe in In Search of Sustainability, which further discusses environmental issues facing Australia and issues related to social cohesion, economy, resource use and health and well-being – all critical for achieving sustainability. Reading 4.2 Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2001, Australia State of the Environment 2001, Independent Report to the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Heritage, CSIRO Publishing, pp. 1-9. Reading 4.3 Lowe I, 2005, ‘Achieving a sustainable future’, in Goldie J, Douglas B & Furnass B (eds), In Search of Sustainability, CSIRO Publishing, ch. 12, pp. 165-175. For students not based in Australia, there are messages in these reading that are more broadly relevant than just the Australian situation. Nevertheless, you may prefer to ignore Reading 4.2 and find a SoE report for your home country or region. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 35 Exercise 4.3 Consider the summary of environmental issues facing Australia and use this as a basis to explore your impacts on the environment. You may find it useful to also refer to a SoE report from your local area. Overseas-based students should ideally access their national or state SoE report. Firstly consider your personal situation (but keep in mind the situation of your organisation also, as this is covered in Exercise 4.4). List areas where you think you/your household might particularly contribute to environmental degradation (resist the temptation to say your contribution is so small it won’t be noticed!). ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Consider what you/your household could reasonably do to lessen that impact. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 2. 1. 36 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Consider the factors that might hinder your taking actions to lessen your impacts and what might be done to overcome these. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 3. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 37 Exercise 4.4 Consider the information in Reading 4.1, Reading 4.2 (or if you are an overseas student, your national or state SoE report) and Reading 4.3 and use this as a basis to explore your organisation’s impacts on the environment (remember an important part of developing an EMS is the initial review involving the identification of environmental aspects). List those areas in which you think your organisation might particularly contribute to environmental degradation (both directly and indirectly). You have already attempted this in Unit 3, but may want to re-consider now, given the further information you have examined. Also, try to give some ranking here in terms of importance of the impacts. There may be many impacts that you can think of, but for now, choose those you judge to be the major impacts. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 1. 38 Unit 4 The State of the Environment 2. Consider what could reasonably be done to lessen these impacts. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ Consider the factors that might hinder your organisation taking actions to lessen its impacts, and what might be done to overcome these. ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 3. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 39 Human needs must be met by fair and efficient use of natural resources This final system condition from the Natural Step that needs to be met in order to achieve a sustainable human society has, in part, already been considered (Unit 2 and earlier in this Unit). We have discussed the equity issues required for sustainability, emphasised the wide disparity between countries of the North and South, and the need for dematerialisation in the North in order to leave space for the countries of the South to develop. However, to avoid continuing and perhaps catastrophic impacts, it will be also necessary for development in the South to use low-impact technologies and low materials and energy throughputs. Of relevance to this Natural Step system condition is the current emphasis on modes of decision making for environmental and sustainability issues. Do present modes lead to fair decisions? Do present systems of governance lead to efficient use of resources and, more generally, to outcomes that will lead us towards sustainability? A major publication of the World Resources Institute is World Resources 2002-2004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, Voice and Power, which takes a detailed look at governance modes in relation to sustainability, including the roles of corporations. The following extract from Chapter 1 provides a background, and emphasises the importance of appropriate decision-making modes for moving towards sustainability. Who makes environmental decisions? Who should decide whether to build a road or a dam, or how much timber or fish to harvest? What difference does it make if the public is consulted? Do democratic rights and civil liberties contribute to better environmental management? Should local citizens or advocacy groups have the right to appeal a decision they believe harms an ecosystem or is unfair? What is the best way to fight corruption among those who manage our forests, water, parks, and mineral resources? These are all questions about how we make environmental decisions and who makes them -the process we call environmental governance. Who decides the fate of ecosystems? Who manages nature? Earth has no CEO. No Board of Directors. No management team charged with extracting resources responsibly or maintaining the living factories -- the forests, farms, oceans, grasslands, and rivers -- that underlie our wealth. No business plan for a sustainable future. Of course, the biosphere is no standard corporation. But every day we make what amount to management decisions that affect the planet’s bottom line -- the habitability and productive capacity of ecosystems. In fact, managing Planet Earth is a collective and largely uncoordinated affair. It is the sum of the myriad decisions we make that directly or indirectly bear on the environment. In essence, the state of Earth’s environment is a living reflection of our daily decisions. 40 Unit 4 The State of the Environment The scope of our decisions Our environmental decisions occur in many contexts. They begin with personal choices like whether we will walk or drive to work, how much firewood we will burn, or whether we will have another child. They encompass the business decisions that communities or corporations make about where to locate their facilities, how much to emphasize eco-friendly product design, and how much land to preserve. They include national laws we enact to regulate pollution, manage public land, or regulate trade. They take in the international commitments we make to abide by fishing limits, regulate trade in endangered species, or limit acid rain or CO2 emissions. Our decisions also involve a wide range of actors: individuals; local, state, and national governments; community and tribal authorities; civic organizations, interest groups, and labor unions; national and transnational corporations; scientists; and international bodies such as the United Nations, the European Union, and the World Trade Organization. Each of these actors has different interests, different levels of authority, and different information, making their interactions complex and frequently putting their decisions at odds with the ecological processes that sustain the natural systems we depend on. Maybe that is why our record of environmental care is so poor. Year by year, as our population and consumption levels increase, our impacts on the environment spin out on a wider arc. More forests are converted to farmlands and suburbs; a greater share of freshwater resources is siphoned off, dammed, or diverted; the genetic wealth of species is lost to uncontrolled harvests and habitat loss; the global atmosphere is steadily compromised by Greenhouse gases. Each of these trends marks a failure of our environmental governance -the term we use to describe how we as humans exercise our authority over natural resources and natural systems. Governance is crucial World Resources 2002–2004 explores the importance of environmental governance -- how we make decisions about the environment and who participates in these decisions. How we decide, and who gets to decide often determines what we decide, so questions of governance are crucial. They can mark the difference between environmental improvement or harm, between an effective environmental policy or one that is ignored, between success and failure in managing ecosystems and natural resources. In this report we put forth the thesis that improving the processes and institutions we use to make important environmental decisions -- from whether to build a dam to how to manage a park or where to build a road -- will bring better results, with less environmental impact and a fairer distribution of costs and benefits. Likewise, if we do not address our governance failures -- from corrupt or inept agencies to decision-making that doesn’t reflect the needs of people or the complex nature of ecosystems -- our attempts to manage the environment will continue to be ineffective and unfair, with little chance of finding a path toward sustainability. (http://www.wri.org/publication/world-resources-2002-2004-decisions-earthbalance-voice-and-power#) [Accessed 2 May 2008] Unit 4 The State of the Environment 41 Reading 4.4 is the final chapter from this publication. Its central message is about moving towards a better balance in decision making, where “balance means making environmental decisions that foster ecosystem health, treat people fairly, and make economic sense” (http://archive.wri.org/item_detail.cfm?id=1826§ion=pubs&page=pub s_content_text&z=?) [Accessed 2 May 2008]. Reading 4.4 UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme, World Bank, World Resources Institute, 2003, ‘Toward a better balance’, World Resources 2002-2004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, Voice and Power, ch. 9, pp. 1-16. [Accessed 2 May 2008] Exercise 4.5 Reading 4.4 discusses governance. What is the difference between ‘governance’ and ‘government’? ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ What are the key messages you take from the reading in relation to corporate operations and strategy? Think broadly and deeply about this! ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________ 2. 1. 42 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Conclusion In this Unit, we have outlined a starting point for conducting the initial environmental review – the first stage in the development of an EMS. We have provided an introduction to the SoE reporting process and the Pressure–State–Response (PSR) model, which is typically used as the framework for SoE reporting. The PSR framework is also useful for considering an organisation’s environmental impacts, their causes and possible responses by the organisation. SoE reports at a range of levels, from global to the local, provide an important source of information for organisations in considering their impacts on the environment. The local reports can provide specific information, while the larger-scale reports help to set the organisation’s impacts in the broader context. This assists both prioritising the importance of various impacts and responses as well as helping to look forward at likely emerging priorities for action. We provided summaries of the state of the environment at both a global level and at a national and more localised level for Australia, as well as links for accessing such information for other nations. Finally, we discussed a number of key environmental issues, using the Natural Step four system conditions as the framework for doing so. Importantly, this discussion has included environmental decision making and the role of governance in achieving outcomes that are both fair and result in efficient resource use. It is hoped that the commentary within this Unit, the Readings and Web links provided will enable you to access any information you may need to understand and prioritise for action your personal and your organisation’s impacts on the environment. Discussions in this Unit build on Units 1 and 2 regarding disparities in resource use between the countries of the North and South, and the necessary shift to greater equity in order to move towards sustainability. Unit 7/8 contains an examination of specific areas of environmental impact – materials flows, resource conservation, water management, waste management and energy. This Unit also sets the scene for our consideration of corporate environmental or sustainability reporting in Unit 12. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 43 References and further reading ACT Office of the Commissioner for the Environment, 1997, State of the Environment Report 1997. [Accessed 2 May 2008] Adriaanse A, 1993, Environmental Policy Performance Indicators: A Study on the Development of Indicators for Environmental Policy in the Netherlands, Ministry of Housing, Physical Planning and the Environment, The Netherlands. ANZECC State of the Environment Reporting Task Force, 2000, Core Environmental Indicators for Reporting on the State of the Environment, ANZECC Canberra. Bakkes JA, van den Born GJ, Helder JC, Swart RJ, Hope CW & Parker JDE, 1994, An Overview of Environmental Indicators: State of the Art and Perspectives, National Institute of Public Health and Environment Protection (RIVM), The Netherlands, in cooperation with the University of Cambridge. Study commissioned by UNEP. Crass K & Jones A, 2003, Fact Sheet on Ecosystem Services, Australian Museum. [Accessed 2 May 2008] EcoSTEPS, (undated), The Natural Step – The Four System Conditions, leaflet. Environmental Systems Program, Harvard University, 1996, Environmental Indicators and Indices – Draft Final Report, (TA 5542Reg) Sponsored by the Asian Development Bank and the Government of Norway. Gardner G, Assadourian E & Sarin R, 2004, ‘The state of consumption today’, in The Worldwatch Institute (eds), State of the World 2004. Progress Towards a Sustainable Society, Earthscan, London, pp. 3-21. Hawken P, Lovins AB & Lovins LH, 1999, Natural Capitalism. The Next Industrial Revolution, Earthscan, London. National Greenhouse Inventory Committee, 1999, National Greenhouse Gas Inventory 1997, Australian Greenhouse Office, Canberra. NSW Department of Environment and Climate Change. [Accessed 2 May 2008] 44 Unit 4 The State of the Environment NSW Government, 1999, Environmental Guidelines: State of the Environment Reporting by Local Government. Promoting Ecologically Sustainable Development. OECD, 1991, Environmental Indicators – A Preliminary Set, OECD, Paris. OECD, 2003, OECD Environmental Indicators: Development, Measurement and Use, Reference Paper. Prime Minister’s Science, Engineering and Innovation Council, 2002, Sustaining our Natural Systems and Biodiversity, Australia, 8th Meeting, May. UN Conference on Human Settlements, 1996, Housing and Urban Indicators: Report of the Secretary–General, A/CONF.165/CRP2. UNEP, 1999, Global Environment Outlook 2000: UNEP’s Millennium Report on the Environment, Earthscan, London. UNEP, 2007, Global Environment Outlook: Environment for Development (GEO-4), United Nations Environment Programme. US Dept of State, 2000, Fact Sheet: Dept. of State Overview on Persistent Organic Pollutants, International Information Programs Washington File, Washington DC. von Weizsäcker E, Lovins AB & Lovins LH, 1997, Factor 4. Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use, Allen & Unwin, Sydney. Working Group 1, IPCC, 1996, ‘Contribution of Working Group 1 to the second assessment report of the IPCC’, Climate Change 1995. World Resources Institute (earth trends, environmental information portal). [Accessed 2 May 2008] World Resources Institute Annual Report. [Accessed 2 May 2008] Worldwatch Institute, 2004, State of the World 2004. Progress Towards a Sustainable Society, Earthscan, London. Worldwatch Institute, 2006, State of the World 2006. Special Focus: China and India, WW Norton and Company Inc. NY. Wuebbles DJ & Edmonds J, 1991, Primer on Greenhouse Gases, Lewis Publishers Inc, Michigan USA. Yencken D & Wilkinson D, 2000, Resetting the Compass. Australia’s Journey Towards Sustainability, CSIRO Publishing, Melbourne. Unit 4 The State of the Environment 45 46 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Readings Contents Reading 4.1 von Weizsäcker E, Lovins AB & Lovins LH, 1997, Factor 4: Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 213-222. Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2001, Australia State of the Environment 2001, Independent Report to the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Heritage, CSIRO Publishing, pp. 1-9. Lowe I, 2005, ‘Achieving a sustainable future’, in Goldie J, Douglas B & Furnass B (eds), In Search of Sustainability, CSIRO Publishing, ch. 12, pp. 165-175. UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme, World Bank, World Resources Institute, 2003, ‘Toward a better balance’, World Resources 2002-2004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, Voice and Power, ch. 9, pp. 1-16. [Accessed 2 May 2008] Reading 4.2 Reading 4.3 Reading 4.4 Unit 4 The State of the Environment 47 48 Unit 4 The State of the Environment Reading 4.1 von Weizsäcker E, Lovins AB & Lovins LH, 1997, Factor 4: Doubling Wealth – Halving Resource Use, Allen & Unwin, Sydney, pp. 213-222. Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by and on behalf of the University of New South Wales pursuant to Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under this Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. 213 216 Reading 4.2 Australian State of the Environment Committee, 2001, Australia State of the Environment 2001, Independent Report to the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment and Heritage, CSIRO Publishing, pp. 1-9. Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by and on behalf of the University of New South Wales pursuant to Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under this Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Reading 4.3 Lowe I, 2005, ‘Achieving a sustainable future’, in Goldie J, Douglas B & Furnass B (eds), In Search of Sustainability, CSIRO Publishing, ch. 12, pp. 165-175. Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by and on behalf of the University of New South Wales pursuant to Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under this Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Reading 4.4 UN Development Programme, UN Environment Programme, World Bank, World Resources Institute, 2003, ‘Toward a better balance’, World Resources 20022004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, Voice and Power, ch. 9, pp. 1-16. [Accessed 2 May 2008] Commonwealth of Australia Copyright Regulations 1969 WARNING This material has been reproduced and communicated to you by and on behalf of the University of New South Wales pursuant to Part VB of the Copyright Act 1968 (the Act). The material in this communication may be subject to copyright under this Act. Any further reproduction or communication of this material by you may be the subject of copyright protection under the Act. Do not remove this notice. Chapter 9. Toward a better balance Source: 2003. World Resources 2002-2004: Decisions for the Earth: Balance, voice, and power. United Nations Development Programme, United Nations Environment Programme, World Bank, World Resources Institute. Balance means making environmental decisions that foster ecosystem health, treat people fairly, and make economic sense. Global environmental trends show that we have yet to find this balance. Environmental governance still relies on government institutions whose missions and structures are ill-matched to the task of managing ecosystems and don't always acknowledge the importance of public participation or the need for equity. Private sector performance is likewise driven by short-term economic goals that often conflict with the longterm needs of the environment. Public transparency and accountability can help resolve this conflict, but are relatively new imperatives for most companies. How do we move toward a better balance? At least five steps must define our drive for better environmental governance. Adopt environmental management approaches that respect ecosystems To match human needs with Earth's biological capacities, governance structures must adapt to the innate constraints of living systems. Ecosystems are the planet's primary biological units-the sources of all the environmental goods and services we rely on for life, and the ultimate foundations of the global economy. They must therefore become the ultimate points of reference for our environmental decisions. Such an ecosystem-level focus defines what we can call an "ecosystem approach" to environmental management (Young 2002:55). An ecosystem approach includes explicit consideration of people's needs for food, shelter, employment, and all the varied economic and spiritual benefits we derive from nature. To accomplish this, social and economic goals must be integrated with biological information about the functions and limitations of ecosystems. Our environmental governance must provide the mechanism to negotiate this difficult integration-by giving each stakeholder a voice without losing track of what the ecosystem itself is saying about its capacity for alteration and human use. This means creating a forum where ecosystem science and monitoring can influence management goals and inform public input into environmental decisions. It demands an equal role for social science-tracking the social outcomes of decisions in order to maintain a focus on equity. Making ecosystems the fundamental units of environmental management will require innovative approaches. One such approach is to promote decentralized management of natural resources, so that local stakeholders take a primary role in governing the ecosystems around them. Larger, regional associations-such as river basin authorities linking users across many jurisdictions-may also be useful. In practice, a variety of new institutional and economic arrangements will be needed to connect people with the ecosystems they depend on, to the benefit of both. In Quito, Ecuador, for example, city water users pay a small fee into a special fund used to protect the watershed in the Antisana Reserve-the source of the city's water supply. This arrangement allows city residents to see themselves as stakeholders in a distant ecosystem who have decided to help manage and pay for the vital service the ecosystem renders. A similar plan, where downstream users elect to pay for upstream services, is being considered to help manage the watershed that feeds Panama City and the Panama Canal Authority (Zurita 2002). On a much larger scale, the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor project links local community planning efforts with management of protected areas in the seven Central American countries along the corridor route. The project seeks to find economic uses of the land that will also help maintain its ecological richness-activities such as low-intensity agriculture and forestry. The plan effectively combines regional ecosystem-based goals with a decentralized, community-based approach to landscape management. 1 Restoration of the Chesapeake Bay on the East Coast of the United States demonstrates that managing a regional resource in a complex social setting can require a battery of governance innovations, such as new partnerships among government agencies and community organizations, new economic incentives, and a new role for science. The Chesapeake's enormous watershed spans 4 states and over 1,600 individual communities. With the help of a citizens' advisory board and a panel of science advisors, state agencies and the federal government have forged a common set of Bay restoration goals and biological benchmarks to measure their progress across all jurisdictions. Each state has pursued its own regulatory approach to this Chesapeake Bay Compact, as the regional agreement is called. These approaches include tax incentives, land use restrictions, and harvest limits on fish and shellfish. Meanwhile, a number of local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) have played important roles in helping farmers, fishermen, and Bay communities embrace the effort and actually carry out much of the restoration work (WRI et al. 1996:74; Chesapeake Bay Program 2003). These examples suggest the governance innovations possible with an ecosystem approach to environmental management. In some cases, adopting ecosystem-level management practices will mean reconfiguring existing agencies or creating new institutions and relationships that better reflect ecosystem realities. This need not mean wholesale abandonment of the centralized model of most state agencies, which will continue to fulfill important coordinating, monitoring, or oversight functions. But it does imply more flexibility to assign discretionary powers to other levels in order to match management structures to ecosystems. Sound knowledge is also needed to support decision-making at the ecosystem level. In response, government agencies and other environmental management organizations could support data collection consistent with an ecosystem approach, or pool data from different organizations to get a comprehensive economic and environmental picture of the whole ecosystem. Build the capacity for public participation Reformulating our natural resource management to respect ecosystems requires vigilant application of the principles of access and participation. In this context, public participation means not only wide access to information and direct participation in decision-making, but also effective representation, judicial redress, and other mechanisms that enable meaningful, democratic environmental governance. Managing ecosystems inevitably involves trade-offs among different ecosystem uses. For instance, a forest can be managed to maximize timber and pulp production through intensive harvesting, but only by trading off some of its potential to support biodiversity, agroforestry, or nature-based tourism. Public participation-at the appropriate level-provides the best means to negotiate such trade-offs equitably and to make sure the goals that drive the day-to-day actions of natural resource agencies reflect the priorities of the community of stakeholders. Too often, however, government agencies, private businesses, NGOs, and the media fail to play their parts in promoting transparent and inclusive decision-making. Even where the political will is present, public participation is hampered by these institutions' lack of capacity to supply relevant information, coordinate the public input process, and digest the results. At the same time, the public often doesn't know its rights to environmental access or how to use them, and doesn't understand the full context of the decisions that affect their lives. Both problems require attention. A first step is to make sure that public institutions recognize, as part of their core missions, the need to build the capacity for public participation. That means committing staff and budget resources for training and outreach to ensure that opportunities for access are clear and straightforward. It also means committing to build basic environmental literacy among the public, as in South Africa, where the government incorporates environmental education programs into public school curricula and adult education programs (Petkova et al. 2002:107). Decentralizing natural resource management is another way governments can empower citizens and increase public participation in the decisions that affect them most. 2 Care must be taken however, to devolve power to local institutions in a way that actually benefits natural resources and favors democratization. That requires, first and foremost, that governments transfer authority only to those bodies that are accountable at the local level. But it also requires a commitment to strengthen local institutions by providing technical expertise, training in skills like land use planning and resource mapping, guidance in participatory methods at town meetings, and support for the inclusion of women and other underrepresented groups. Instituting minimum environmental standards to guide local resource decisions may also be necessary to make sure these actions do not compromise larger environmental goals. One important way governments can build public capacity for participation in environmental decision-making is to provide good foundations for the growth and maturation of NGOs and other civil society groups. This means strengthening their rights of access to information through freedom of information laws, and recognizing their right to represent their members in whatever forum decisions are being made. It also requires recognizing-and funding-the ability of NGOs to respond quickly to community needs and provide services the government can't efficiently provide. Empowering civil society groups as environmental stewards thus means more than just official tolerance-it implies active support for partnerships among these groups, government agencies, and businesses. Nonetheless, as civil society groups gain in influence, they must practice the same good governance principles of transparency and accountability they demand of governments and businesses. These include openness about funding sources, operations, goals, and accomplishments. NGOs that purport to advocate in the public interest should take care to maintain contact with the communities they serve through public consultations, newsletters, and formal progress reports and financial statements that foster accountability. Only when NGOs are transparent and accountable to their constituencies can they effectively facilitate participation. For the business community, facilitating public participation starts with support for and compliance with regulations governing information disclosure. Companies can go further by adopting corporate codes of conduct that recognize community interests, following clear environmental reporting processes that make data publicly available, and establishing community liaisons. As guardians of transparency, media companies should adopt their own ethical codes of conduct, report all their lobbying activities, and disclose commercial ties that could influence their editorial decisions. Building capacity for more effective public participation is a critical first step toward better environmental governance, but not one that is sufficient in and of itself. Recognize all affected stakeholders in environmental decisions Who should have standing to influence decisions affecting an ecosystem or negotiate for rights to ecosystem goods and services? Traditionally, the parties with influence and access have been few, creating public tension, local resistance to decisions, and a grossly unequal distribution of burdens and rewards. A commitment to building the capacity for public participation must include broadening the definition of who the "affected public" is. Public acceptance of environmental management decisions-and greater fairness in those decisions-will only emerge if a broader approach to environmental standing takes root. One useful model might be the "rights and risks" approach recently put forward by the World Commission on Dams to guide decisions on large dams that affect a wide array of stakeholders. In this approach, anyone holding a right (such as a water right) or facing a risk from a proposed action (such as displacement by a dam) must have the opportunity to participate in the decision-making process. This includes not just those who reside in the affected ecosystem, but also those who depend on or value that ecosystem, no matter where they live. It is also important to recognize the standing of those who can speak for the ecosystem itself-whether they be scientists, natural resource managers, or members of an environmental or recreationfocused NGO. 3 As governments begin to broaden their conceptions of standing, civil society's role in representing the public interest in decision-making takes on greater significance. It is imperative to remember that civil society is not monolithic, but wildly diverse. It may be appropriate to seek the input of several different groups in a participatory process, since a single NGO, labor union, or neighborhood group rarely reflects the pluralism of public opinion. For example, the World Commission on Dams included representatives from three different categories of civil society on its Advisory Forum-indigenous groups, public interest advocacy groups, and environmental groups. This was intended to reflect the diversity of stakeholders in the dam debate (Dubash et al. 2001:7). Integrate environmental sustainability in economic decision-making Many of today's environmental impacts originate in decisions about economic development, trade, and investment-decisions outside the traditional "environment" sector. To make progress in reversing environmental decline, governments and businesses-not just natural resource agencies-must accept environmental sustainability as a principal mandate. That means assessing how each policy and investment strategy will affect equity and the environment. Strengthen global environmental cooperation Examining the equity and environmental impacts of privatization, for example, could bring immediate benefits. Governments privatize responsibility to deliver water or provide electric power largely for reasons of economy and efficiency. But they must also make sure to transfer responsibility for environmental stewardship and equitable service as they cede control over these essential tasks. Contracts should be structured to require or reward saving water, generating green power, extending service to low-income areas, and other beneficial practices. This same principle must apply when governments grant forest, mining, grazing, or other resource concessions to private interests. Some companies are already exploring ways to integrate environmental objectives into their businesses. Fully incorporating "sustainability" into business thinking will take time, but embracing standardized procedures for measuring environmental performance-and relating this to financial and social performance-is a critical first step. Only by evaluating this data against social norms and their own expectations can companies effectively guide their investments in sustainable business practices. The Global Reporting Initiative offers one well-accepted framework for this kind of performance measurement, including a combination of guiding principles and core indicators that companies can use to prepare "sustainability reports." A growing list of the world's major corporations have accepted the Initiative's voluntary guidelines, which emerged from consultations among businesses, advocacy groups, accounting bodies, trade unions, and investor groups. Negotiating forums such as the World Trade Organization (WTO) and financial institutions such as export credit agencies must also adopt environmental sustainability as a guiding principle. This means that they must explicitly recognize environmental protection as a critical factor in trade and investment policies, making sure these policies do not undermine current international environmental agreements and national environmental laws. Greater transparency and participation in these institutions' internal decision-making practices, which are now largely hidden from public view, will also be important. The WTO's current negotiating round, called the Doha round, may make a start at greening global trade rules. Negotiators have promised to look into reconciling trade rules with international environmental treaties, and to address environmentally harmful subsidies that also interfere with trade, such as fishery and agricultural subsidies. Global economic growth increasingly depends on trade-so the WTO has a special responsibility to ensure that the rules are crafted in a way that builds environmental responsibility and equity into the world's economic engine. 4 Strengthen global environmental cooperation Efforts to manage environmental impacts and develop sustainable systems for Earth's future suffer from a lack of coordination at the global level. This is evident in the nearly 200 international environmental treaties that exist independently, and in nations' uneven efforts to implement Agenda 21, the Rio Summit's plan of action for achieving sustainable development. The community of nations also lacks a strong central institution to carry the environmental agenda forward-nations have shown little interest in embracing a World Environment Organization, or similar institution with executive and enforcement powers. Nevertheless, improved integration of environmental efforts is possible even within the array of existing treaties and institutions. Stressing the link between poverty and environment will be important in strengthening global environmental governance. Global support for environmental activities is enhanced whenever they coincide with poverty eradication goals like those established by the UN Millenium Declaration. Integration of the precautionary principle and the ecosystem approach into national development plans and environmental treaties is likewise an essential part of making global environmental governance more effective. One first step in this process is to increase the global commitment to environmental monitoring and threat assessment. Science-based assessments by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment and others have set the stage for global consensus on urgent environmental problems, and can also guide national development onto more sustainable paths. Through an integrated approach that looks across ecosystems, using predictive models and scenarios, these assessments show the effects of different land use patterns, energy strategies, and regulatory regimes on national well-being. Increased commitment must translate not only into regular funding for environmental assessments, but also into involvement by nations in their design and conduct, so that the results will be seen as valid and useful at the national level. A second step in improving global environmental coordination will be a concerted effort to harmonize and strengthen international environmental treaties. These agreements represent our collective will to address environmental challenges jointly, and embody the primary legal obligations to carry out this will. Harmonizing these treaties entails exploring the complementarity between them, identifying where greater coordination of obligations, action plans, and financing could bring heightened impact and reduced administrative costs. Strengthening environmental treaties involves negotiating meaningful benchmarks for progress and firm deadlines for attaining them. These will be meaningless, however, without standard monitoring protocols to measure progress, robust enforcement mechanisms to encourage compliance, and mechanisms for settling disputes among signatories. The Montreal Protocol's success in reducing emissions of ozone-depleting gases, for example, depended strongly on careful monitoring and well-enforced national initiatives (GEF 2002:15-16). Existing regional entities such as the European Union (EU), the Organization of American States (OAS), and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN), or new organizations, such as river basin authorities, may be useful in helping to implement and monitor agreements. The United Nations Environment Programme's mandate is to provide an institutional home for coordinated action on the environment. However, fulfilling this mandate requires more adequate funding and a clearer framework for its role as coordinator. Strengthening the Global Ministerial Environmental Forum, UNEP's forum for deliberation among national environment ministersperhaps by expanding the Forum's work to include ministers from outside the environment sector (Hyvarinen and Brack 2000:56)-could be one way to accomplish this. The Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) could also serve as an institutional focal point for global environmental action, if it were transformed from a forum for policy and political debate to a mechanism for monitoring and enforcing accountability for government commitments. Over the long term, however, other institutional options for better global environmental governance should be explored. 5 Better governance for sustainable ecosystems Adopt Environmental Management Approaches that Respect Ecosystems. Make ecosystems the fundamental unit of environmental management and governance. Build the Capacity for Public Participation.Increase the public's environmental literacy and ability to give useful input into environmental decisions. Increase the government's willingness and capacity to deliver environmental information and digest public input. Recognize All Affected Stakeholders in Environmental Decisions. Broaden the definition of who can participate in environmental decisions to include all affected parties. Integrate Environmental Sustainability in Economic Decision-Making. Incorporate sustainability into the mandates of agencies, businesses, and financial institutions beyond the usual environment and natural resource sectors. Strengthen Global Environmental Cooperation. Harmonize and strengthen environmental treaties. Increase the global commitment to environmental monitoring and threat assessment. Enhance civil society's consultative role at the international level. Increase funding to implement global environmental commitments. Decisions for the Earth No matter how governments decide to strengthen global environmental institutions, greater use of multi-stakeholder processes to give voice to civil society and business and build consensus on contentious issues will be key. Institutionalizing such processes in the CSD and other environmental bodies is an important first step. But multi-stakeholder processes must also be improved to more effectively facilitate interaction between governments and other stakeholders. Useful changes might include clearer rules on selection of participants, fuller integration into official conference agendas, creative facilitation to ensure that real dialogue takes place, and, perhaps most important, accountability mechanisms to ensure that the results are taken seriously by governments. Civil society's role in global environmental governance is not limited to participation in multistakeholder processes. Indeed, such processes are just one vehicle for their involvement. NGOs can also provide objective information and new ideas, and hold governments, through media and political action, accountable for their commitments. Doing so effectively requires strong global civil society coalitions that bring together NGOs from the North and the South as well as from non-environmental interest areas, such as global justice. Finally, global environmental governance can be strengthened by improving the financial mechanisms that underlie the present system. The Global Environment Facility has proven a useful mechanism for supporting implementation of environmental treaties and piloting innovative approaches, but its resources are dwarfed by those channeled through other public and private sources. Accordingly, mainstreaming the objectives of environmental sustainability into the decision-making of public and private development finance is important, as are new mechanisms to respond to environmental needs. The principle of Common but Differentiated Responsibility, which enshrines the idea that nations differ in their capacity to respond to international environmental threats and to finance obligations under environmental treaties, was a key outcome of the Rio Earth Summit. It calls upon developed economies with greater means and higher consumption levels to do more, at least initially, to meet global environmental challenges. It also obligates high-income nations to help developing nations increase their capacity to comply with environmental agreements. This approach has worked well in such treaties as the Montreal Protocol to address ozone destruction, but has been one of the main stumbling blocks in negotiations on the Kyoto Protocol to control greenhouse gas emissions. At the recent World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, many nations offered only tepid or conditional endorsement of this principle. Though contentious, this principle remains a powerful tool to address questions of equity at the global level. Reaffirming this would seem an important precursor to joint action. 6 Decisions for the Earth Governance is on the global agenda today as never before. As democratic movements flourish and NGOs awaken to new activism, issues of transparency and fairness have come into sharper focus. This is true in the environmental arena as well. In fact, there is growing dissatisfaction with environmental governance in countries around the world. A 2000 Gallup International poll found that in 55 of 60 countries surveyed, the majority of people thought their governments were doing too little to address environmental issues. "Corrupt" and "bureaucratic" were the two most common descriptions people used to characterize their governments. Corporate governance has also come under greater fire as globalization gains momentum, with increasing calls for a global agreement on corporate accountability. At the same time, global consensus has emerged on the basic principles of good environmental governance: access, participation, transparency, appropriate scale, and an ecosystem basis. These elements form the basic toolkit for environmentally empowered and educated citizens-the most potent driver for better environmental decisions. The future lives in the decisions we make now. Moving toward greater transparency and accountability in our decision-making, toward more participation and equity in our environmental choices, is the way we make better decisions for the Earth. Recommendations In the following sections, we bring together recommendations and other opportunities for action drawn from this volume as a whole. These recommendations amount to an action summary that can improve environmental governance and decision-making. Opening up access How can we improve access to information, participation, and justice? Government agencies can: Support independent assessment and monitoring of government performance in applying the access principles. Continue efforts to establish the legal framework for access, and to elaborate these laws in well-defined administrative procedures. Specify which classes of information are in the public domain and which are confidential, in order to reduce administrative discretion in releasing information. Introduce common reporting standards for industrial facilities and procedures for public access to facility-level reports. Establish mechanisms for public notice and comment on projects and policies beyond the narrowly defined "environmental" arena. Extend participation procedures into the earliest phases of the decision-making cycle, as well as into the implementation and review stages. Broaden the interpretation of "the public" and "legal standing" to allow legal challenges by public interest groups and citizens who may not be able to prove direct harm. Invest in training judges and other officials to ensure that they are familiar with rapidly changing laws related to environmental rights. Create favorable conditions for the formation and activities of public interest groups and media outlets. Implement their commitments to improved access under the Rio Declaration, Agenda 21, and the WSSD Plan of Implementation, as well as under related provisions in global environmental agreements and regional instruments such as the Aarhus Convention. 7 Civil society organizations can: Undertake independent assessments and regular monitoring using a framework of governance indicators such as The Access Initiative framework. Collaborate with government and other stakeholders to identify gaps in national practices of access and to set priorities for action. Stimulate and channel public demand for access to information, participation, and justice. Build their own capacity, and the capacity of the communities they live in, to access the public participation system. Media outlets can: Investigate and call attention to lapses in performance by governments in providing access. Provide high-quality coverage of environmental issues and a forum for diverse views on environmental decisions. Donor agencies can: Support continued improvement of an indicator framework for national assessments, and mechanisms for exchange of best practices. Provide financial, institutional, and political support for development of national public participation systems. Support capacity building on both the "demand" and "supply" sides. Model best practices of information disclosure, participation, and accountability in their own operations. International environmental treaties and trade agreements can: Incorporate provisions mandating best practices of information disclosure, participation, and accountability with regard to obligations carried out under the treaty or agreement, and in on-going deliberations on the treaty. Enabling civil society How can we create a climate conducive to civic organizing and the inclusion of NGOs and other civil society groups in environmental decision-making? Governments can: Enact or strengthen freedoms of expression and association. Eliminate or simplify laws governing NGOs and other civic groups, including removing barriers to registration, eliminating burdensome reporting requirements, and dropping limits on NGO longevity. Remove restrictions on Internet and press freedoms. Civil society organizations can: Embrace the same policies of accountability and transparency that they advocate for governments and corporations, including openness about their funding, operations, purposes, goals, and accomplishments. Participate in NGO networks to increase communication among themselves and share successful practices. Join in consensus-building coalitions of NGOs that maximize their voice and increase their influence in public decision-making and multi-stakeholder processes. 8 Foster greater contact with and accountability to the communities they serve through public consultations, newsletters, and formal progress reports. Work with the media to encourage more and higher quality environmental reporting, including the presentation of issues in greater depth, and from more perspectives. Donors can: Increase NGO access to communications tools such as the Internet as a source of environmental empowerment. Support capacity building for NGOs, with particular attention to developing the ability of smaller groups to fund-raise, build coalitions, and develop relationships at the grassroots level. Greening corporate environmental performance How can we encourage corporations to factor the environment into their business strategies and respond to local concerns about their environmental practices? Corporations can: Embrace voluntary environmental disclosure practices, including environmental auditing and sustainability reporting. Using standardized formats such as the Global Reporting Initiative guidelines can increase the credibility of such reporting and its usefulness to shareholders, communities, and the companies themselves. Work to quantify the financial benefits (as opposed to just the costs) of corporate environmental programs, thus advancing the business rationale for these programs to company managers and shareholders. Establish company liaisons or ombudsmen to the communities in which they are located in order to respond to local concerns. Encourage their chains of suppliers and distributors to adopt sustainable manufacturing or extraction practices, green disclosure practices, and sensitivity to community concerns. Pursue corporate philanthropy that promotes employee awareness of the environmentbusiness connection, builds employee capacity for better environmental choices, or mitigates environmental impacts caused by their business activities. Industry trade groups can: Support laws and regulations that reward companies for superior environmental performance. Formulate industry guidelines and codes of conduct-including enforcement mechanisms and training programs to increase compliance-to encourage good environmental practices among their members. Actively participate in and endorse environmental labeling and certification schemes that increase consumer information and choice. Promote industry-wide disclosure, transparency, and community-engagement practices. Participate in civil society efforts to forge consensus around new corporate performance norms. Governments can: Require companies to publicly report on emissions in key areas by establishing Pollutant Release and Transfer Registries (PRTRs), or publicly rate companies' pollution mitigation efforts in order to highlight their environmental performance. Require companies to disclose environmental liabilities such as hazardous material use, toxic waste disposal, or environmental restoration costs (for extractive industries) to 9 make it easier for investors to assess a company's potential environmental risks and thus increase incentives for improved performance. Send the right economic signals to companies by removing or modifying government subsidies for water, fishing, energy exploitation, mining, pesticide use, and other environmentally harmful activities. Consumers and shareholders can: Make use of environmental labels and certifications to purchase products whose harvesting, extraction, manufacture, or disposal is environmentally sound, thus rewarding good corporate environmental performance. Introduce resolutions at shareholder meetings to raise the profile of environmental concerns among top company management and encourage environment-friendly policies and investments. NGOs can: Act as industry watchdogs by compiling, analyzing, and publicizing corporate environmental performance data. Initiate certification and labeling schemes to guide consumer purchase of sustainably manufactured, harvested, or extracted products. In concert with industry, detail best practices necessary to achieve environmentally benign products or to receive green product certification. Partner with corporations to identify targets for corporate environmental philanthropy and to design ecosystem-friendly land management practices on corporate manufacturing and office sites. Encouraging decentralization that supports sustainability Encouraging decentralization that supports sustainability How can governments and communities develop appropriate decentralized systems for natural resource management? National decision-makers can: Create local elected bodies, and give them a mandate to define local natural resource priorities within the state's overall framework for sustainable development. Strengthen the local capacity for governance and natural resource management by providing training for local government staff in key skills such as budgeting, revenue collection, conducting town meetings and other local consultations, land use planning, and mapping and cataloging the local environmental resource base. Reorient state extension agencies to provide services to local people in response to needs and concerns articulated directly by the people and their local representatives, or restructure them to be accountable to local elected authorities. Create positive incentives for good local government performance and sound resource management, such as awards for innovative programs and targeted budget allocations for demonstrated delivery of services. Require local elected and administrative authorities to practice transparency in their operations and budgeting procedures. Educate citizens on their right to be represented, the services they should expect from local authorities, their responsibility to participate in local decisions, and how they can hold local officials accountable. 10 Develop and apply standardized measures of service delivery and community satisfaction to assess local governance statewide and help local governments identify gaps in their performance. Increase the voice of traditionally marginalized groups, such as women and the poor. This may include reserving seats in local decision-making bodies or creating separate opportunities to solicit their input. Ensure that the authority over resources exists at the appropriate ecosystem level (e.g., the watershed) so that the impacts of different land uses and development activities can be assessed and managed in an integrated manner. If this results in the formation of a new institution, such as a regional river basin authority, ensure that this institution is accountable to governments at different levels, including the local level. Institute minimum environmental standards to guide local resource decisions and to make sure these decisions conform to statewide environmental laws. Strengthen or accelerate the creation of a justice system that is independent and accessible to the general public. Make sure contracts for privatizing environmental services such as water provision also contain clauses conferring the responsibility to meet minimum environmental standards, to work within an accepted framework of sustainable development, and to deliver services equitably. Contracts awarding logging, mining, or grazing concessions should contain similar commitments to environmental stewardship and equitable service. Local officials can: Commit to transparency in operations and budgeting, and make sure that opportunities for public participation are well-advertised. Identify which households or groups in the community find it difficult to participate in the consultative process and make special efforts to facilitate their participation. Collaborate with adjacent jurisdictions to manage transboundary ecosystems. Communities can: Demand accountability from their local government representatives. Mobilize to articulate common goals for local development. Enlist NGOs or community groups to carry out independent monitoring of nearby forest, mining, and other concessions to discourage corruption and increase the community's voice in how these concessions are managed. Promote positive exchange with other communities regarding natural resource issues of common concern. Better global environmental governance How can we build better global institutions that catalyze collective action on the environment and foster sustainable national development? Governments can: Remember the poverty-environment link. Prioritize environmental activities that restore or mitigate the loss of resources that the poor most depend on, such as in rural areas, on marginal lands, or in informal periurban settlements. Achievement of the Millennium Development Goals will represent a key milestone in realizing sustainable and equitable development. 11 Commit to comprehensive monitoring. Enhance the capacity for global environmental monitoring and scientific assessment of environmental trends, including their interlinkages and probable impacts on ecosystems as well as on national food supplies, economies, and settlements. Implement the "Precautionary Principle." Reaffirm the "Precautionary Principle" of applying caution to environmental decisions where environmental risks are uncertain, but carry potentially large costs. Commit to applying this approach when configuring national development plans and crafting international environmental treaties. Adopt an "Ecosystem Approach." Use ecosystems as the fundamental unit of natural resource management and governance at the local, regional, national, and international levels. Incorporate ecosystem thinking-framing threats and responses in terms of how they affect the delivery of ecosystem goods and services-into negotiations on current and future environmental treaties. Strengthen and harmonize environmental agreements. Strengthen international environmental agreements (treaties and protocols) with deadlines for significant progress, robust enforcement mechanisms to encourage compliance, competent monitoring protocols to assess progress, and binding mechanisms for dispute resolution. Harmonize and coordinate the action plans of these treaties and streamline their administration. Ensure that trade and environmental agreements are mutually supportive. Enable institutional leadership. Provide the United Nations Environment Programme with a clearer and stronger framework for its current coordinating role and adequate funding to pursue this role. Reorient the CSD to serve as a monitoring and accountability mechanism for government commitments. Build and support regional mechanisms. Support existing regional institutions or design and implement new regional mechanisms such as river basin authorities, and, where appropriate, devolve monitoring and implementation functions to such regional bodies. Make decision-making inclusive. Strengthen multi-stakeholder processes-where stakeholders of all stripes are included in decision processes-so that civil society groups can effectively participate at the international level in setting environmental priorities, specifying the terms and timelines for international action, and crafting environmental treaties. Hold business and industry accountable. Promote corporate responsibility and accountability by developing and implementing intergovernmental agreements, international initiatives, public-private partnerships, and appropriate national regulations. Pursue new partnerships. Join in partnerships with civil society groups and businesses to achieve well-defined environmental objectives. Such partnerships should magnify the efforts of governments, rather than substitute for a lack of government commitment. NGOs can: Provide objective information. Advise governments on environmental issues by identifying, assessing, and disseminating scientific and other relevant information. Build coalitions. Pursue coalitions with each other and with like-minded stakeholders to increase their leverage on governments. Priority attention should be given to expanding alliances with NGOs from developing countries and with social movements engaged in global justice work worldwide. In appropriate cases, as in the case of climate change, working with business and industry on a common objective can yield enormous political and practical benefits. 12 More transparent finance How can multilateral development banks, export credit agencies, and private international financial institutions make their investments transparent and promote good governance practices among loan recipients? Multilateral Development Banks can: Articulate information disclosure rules for project planning documents and environmental assessment reports, permitting external parties such as NGOs and public interest groups to track project decisions. Open to the public the process of developing "country assistance strategies" or other national development plans that determine how development aid is allocated, as well as institutional policies and strategies that determine how assistance is conditioned. Establish mechanisms such as ombudsmen or formal dispute procedures to address and resolve complaints by civil society groups and communities that are affected by project loans and investments. Relax the application of blanket confidentiality rules on loan negotiations and dispute settlements to create a more transparent decision-making process. Finance structural adjustment and sectoral adjustment loans in ways that encourage a broad agenda of good governance reforms and transparency practices in client nations. Export Credit Agencies can: Adopt a set of common environmental guidelines for Export Credit Agency (ECA) investments that include robust transparency, disclosure, and public participation standards. These could include: Annual disclosure of project details (including company, location, financing amount and vehicle) at the level of individual transactions; Publicly disclosing environmental assessments and screening exercises; Allowing periods for public comment on pending financing decisions; Requiring project environmental assessments to include consultation with governments and potentially affected populations; Communicating mitigation measures adopted; Reporting basic environmental indicators for projects receiving ECA support. Both multilateral development banks and export credit agencies can: Commit not only to "do no harm" to the environment through their policies and lending, but to prioritize investments that will positively benefit the environment. For example, Export Credit Agencies can expand their support for energy efficiency and renewable energy projects rather than funding investments that put countries on paths toward fossil fuel dependency. Consider the implications of financing decisions on global systems, such as biodiversity and climate, in addition to local environmental impacts at project sites. For example, international financial institutions should collaborate with other stakeholders to agree on mechanisms for assigning responsibility for the carbon emissions resulting from individual transactions. The World Trade Organization can: Reconcile environment and trade. Recognize environmental protection as a shaping factor in global trade policies. In the short term, this means acting with dispatch and openness on the environmental agenda set forth in the current round of WTO trade negotiations (the Doha round). Specific measures include: 13 Granting observer status at the WTO to the UN Environment Programme and to the secretariats of international environmental treaties. Incorporating the precautionary principle into WTO rules, allowing countries to apply national standards higher than the lowest common denominator of international standards in the health and environmental arenas. Granting favored trade status to environmentally beneficial technologies such as clean energy technology. Permitting the use of eco-labels or certifications for environmentally benign products and services, while building the capacity of developing countries to take advantage of this new market opportunity. Acting to reduce environmentally harmful subsidies that also interfere with trade and sustainable development, such as fishery and agricultural subsidies. Adopt transparent and inclusive processes. Commit to transparent and open processes in the manner of the multilateral development banks, including better public disclosure practices, a more transparent dispute resolution process, and consultation with civil society groups. Private International Financial Institutions can: Adopt information disclosure and environmental assessment procedures consistent with international norms. Adopt investment policies with strong environmental criteria to ensure that their investments support sustainable development. New collaborations: The Partnership for Principle 10 One of the themes of the World Summit on Sustainable Development was the power of collaboration across stakeholder groups, both to build consensus on the way forward, and to implement the sustainable development agenda on the ground. Multi-stakeholder processes such as the World Commission on Dams have demonstrated that representatives of constituencies with widely different perspectives can find common ground on contentious issues. Local efforts to implement Agenda 21 around the world have demonstrated the ability of businesses and civic groups to collaborate with government agencies to share responsibilities for environmental protection and stewardship of natural resources. One initiative unveiled at the Summit-the Partnership for Principle 10 (PP10)-is specifically aimed at improving conditions for good environmental governance at the national level. Principle 10 of the Rio Declaration, adopted by 178 nations at the Earth Summit in 1992, commits national governments to an inclusive process of public participation in environmental decisions. The Partnership, formed a decade after Rio, is an effort to help nations live up to this commitment to good governance. It provides a common forum for governments, civil society organizations, donors, and other groups to design and implement practical strategies to enhance citizen access to environmental information, participation, and justice (the access principles). The Partnership builds on the work of the Access Initiative (see Chapter 3), which has designed a framework of governance indicators to assess how well nations have translated Principle 10 into action. The first requirement of the Partnership is to support such national assessments of public access. Once NGOs have independently assessed a nation's performance using the Access Initiative framework or another acceptable method, the Partnership's work begins in earnest. Partners work together to plan, finance, and carry out projects tailored to each country's need as identified in its national assessment. That may mean financing the development of a new public information system, committing to a program to enhance environmental literacy, or designing a training program to help public employees encourage and properly digest input from advocacy and neighborhood groups. 14 The Partnership for Principle 10 is targeted to the range of groups actively involved in environmental governance: Civil society groups interested in applying The Access Initiative's framework for assessing government performance on the access principles. Governments (including national and local agencies) interested in collaborating with civil society groups to improve access to information, participation, and justice. Donors interested in providing development assistance for the Partnership itself and for independent assessment and capacity building at the national level. International institutions interested in promoting the access principles in their own operations as well as through their engagements with member governments. Commitments, not rhetoric The Partnership for Principle 10 is built around a set of shared commitments. These serve as a statement of the Partnership's values and principles and set the parameters for the scope of work of the Partnership. By joining the PP10, all partners commit to support the accelerated and enhanced implementation of Principle 10 at the national level and in their own policies and practice related to access to information, public participation, and justice by: Encouraging credible and independent assessments of policies and practice using a framework of indicators-such as those developed by the Access Initiative-to identify strengths and weaknesses in implementation; Collaborating with partners and other stakeholders to improve policies and practice by prioritizing opportunities and implementing programs to strengthen capacity and enhance performance; Developing individual specific commitments and being accountable for them. Specific commitments could include: For governments: developing a new Freedom of Information Law; training judges and lawyers on environmental procedural rights; developing a new public legal aid program for environmental laws and regulations; crafting procedures to introduce public participation earlier in the decision-making cycle; developing environmental education programs; developing and implementing Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers. For nongovernmental organizations: repeating a national-level assessment every two years; contributing to the Access Initiative process of refining access indicators and assessment methods. For governments and NGOs together: committing to engage in a process of consultation and dialogue to identify priorities and develop joint activities, such as training courses for government officials responsible for providing environmental information or conducting environmental impact assessments. For donors: providing a specific level of funding to support the Partnership itself or to support capacity building in specific countries. For international institutions: mainstreaming activities that support the access principles in their country offices; adopting internal policies specifying transparent and accountable practices, as well as mechanisms for public participation, in all the institution's activities. Progress toward meeting these commitments must be measured regularly and reported to all partners and to the general public. Commitments should be achievable within a specified time period, and are expected to differ depending on the kind of organization and the income level of the country where they are located. 15 Joining the Partnership for Principle 10, then, is one way groups of all calibers can work locally to advance open and equitable decision-making. Members of the Partnership include governments, international organizations, and national and international NGOs. World Resources Institute is the acting Secretariat. As of April 2003, PP10 members included: Governments: Chile, Hungary, the European Commission, Italy, Mexico, Sweden, Uganda, and the United Kingdom International Organizations: IUCN-World Conservation Union, the United Nations Development Programme, the United Nations Environment Programme, and the World Bank Nongovernmental Organizations: Advocates Coalition for Development and Environment (Uganda), Corporación Participa (Chile), Environmental Management and Law Association (Hungary), European Environmental Bureau (EU), Recursos e Investigación para el Desarrollo Sustentable (Chile), Thailand Environment Institute, The Access Initiative-Mexico, and World Resources Institute (USA) PP10 also allows potential partners to obtain observer status. Observers include the Government of Thailand, the South Africa Environmental Justice Network Forum, the Swedish Society for Nature Conservation, and the International Network for Environmental Compliance and Enforcement. New partners continue to join PP10, please visit our website at www.pp10.org for a complete list of current partners. Last updated: 2003 Jul 18 16 Business Management for a Sustainable Environment Unit 5 Environmental Law 5-May-08