Images of Environmental Management: Competing Metaphors in Focus Group Discussions of Swedish Environmental Quality Objectives

In managing environmental problems, several countries have chosen the management by objectives (MBO) approach. This paper investigates how focus group participants from the Swedish environmental administration used metaphors to describe the mode of organization needed to attain environmental objectives. Such analysis can shed light on how an MBO system is perceived by actors and how it works in practice. Although the Swedish government intended to stimulate broad-based cooperation among many actors, participants often saw themselves as located at a certain “level,” i.e., “higher” or “lower,” in the MBO system—that is, their conceptions corresponded to a traditional, hierarchical interpretation of MBO. Prepositions such as “in” and “out” contributed to feelings of inclusion and exclusion on the part of MBO actors. However, horizontal metaphors merged with vertical ones, indicating ongoing competition for the right to interpret how the system of environmental objectives should best be managed. The paper concludes that any organization applying MBO could benefit from discussing alternate ways of talking and thinking about its constituent “levels.”     

Using Goals in Environmental Management: The Swedish System of Environmental Objectives

In Sweden, environmental policy is essentially carried out through a system of environmental objectives adopted by Parliament in the late 1990s. This system contains principles, objectives, interim targets, strategies, and follow-up mechanisms, which together provide a solid ground for increased efficiency and improved prioritization in environmental policies. Despite the ambitious approach of the Swedish Parliament, the system of environmental objectives suffers from certain shortcomings. Some of the objectives are imprecise and difficult to evaluate, and there are no rules or principles that may be used to solve goal conflicts and to prioritize between different objectives. As a consequence, the environmental objectives tend to differ in their degrees of operationalizability, and the priority-setting between different objectives is often unclear.*Rskr. denotes a written communication (from the Swedish Parliament to the Swedish Government) of a Parliamentary decision. Note: This version was published online in June 2005 with the cover date of August 2004.     

An integrated environmental matrix for a social unit

An integrated network is conceived that qualitatively relates environmental actors and environmental systems within a social unit such as a town, an industrial district or the like. The resulting matrix shows the flow of decisions and information between its active vector representing the environmental objectives, and its passive vector representing the environmental achievements. By way of three additional vectors, the properties of environmental systems are determined and compared to the expectations created by provisions of the environmental actors. The result is a set of residuals that define the living comfort in the social unit. The network motivates interested parties such as administrations, schools or individuals to go through the exercise of finding the causes of the residuals. In order to eliminate them, definite responsibilities have to be assigned to community members. The study pretends to involve all citizens in the flow of information, facts and decisions, and to help them identify themselves in the matrix. It is anticipated that as a result of this educational exercise, individual and collective responsibilities become apparent and are accepted and practiced.     

Forest Biodiversity Monitoring for REDD+: A Case Study of Actors’ Views in Peru

The climate change mitigation mechanism Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in developing countries (REDD+) is currently being negotiated under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). Integrating biodiversity monitoring into REDD+ facilitates compliance with the safeguards stipulated by the UNFCCC to exclude environmental risks. Interviews with actors engaged in REDD+ implementation and biodiversity conservation at the national and sub-national level in Peru (n = 30) and a literature review (n = 58) were conducted to pinpoint constraints and opportunities for monitoring effects of REDD+ management interventions on biodiversity, and to identify relevant biodiversity data and indicators. It was found that particularly sub-national actors, who were frequently involved in REDD+ pilot projects, acknowledge the availability of biodiversity data. Actors at both the national and sub-national levels, however, criticized data gaps and data being scattered across biodiversity research organizations. Most of the literature reviewed (78 %) included indicators on the state of certain biodiversity aspects, especially mammals. Indicators for pressure on biodiversity, impacts on environmental functions, or policy responses to environmental threats were addressed less frequently (31, 21, and 10 %, respectively). Integrating biodiversity concerns in carbon monitoring schemes was considered to have potential, although few specific examples were identified. The involvement of biodiversity research organizations in sub-national REDD+ activities enhances monitoring capacities. It is discussed how improvements in collaboration among actors from the project to the national level could facilitate the evaluation of existing information at the national level. Monitoring changes in ecosystem services may increase the ecological and socioeconomic viability of REDD+.     

“十二五”减排挑战与对策探讨

通过总结"十一五"期间我国环境保护工作取得的主要成果,及对"十二五"环境保护规划目标的分析,论述了"十二五"减排面临的挑战,并从强化法律、管理、行政、经济手段,实施结构减排和清洁生产等方面提出了可行性建议,以期确保国家环境保护规划目标的实现。     

The use of the ecological footprint in local politics and administration: results and implications from Norway

Our experiences calculating a local ecological footprint of Oslo form the basis for a discussion of key methodological aspects supporting the use of local sustainability indicators. The footprint's strength is its ability to communicate simply the complexity of global environmental challenges. Initially developed for measuring per capita consumption at the national level, the footprint has been adopted at local and regional levels. We argue for adjustments in the footprint methodology when shifting from a national to a local policy context, to ensure the indicator's applicability in local politics and administration. First, the analysis should be limited to consumption aspects relevant to the local environmental policy agenda. Second, the analysis should integrate as much genuine local data as possible. We argue also that a standardised methodology based on the national footprint approach, with the main purpose of international benchmarking of cities, cannot but reduce the indicator's usefulness for administrative/political guidance, due to the methodology's lack of transparency and inability to identify local variations.     

USING VALUES IN PLANNING WASTEWATER FACILITIES FOR METROPOLITAN SEATTLE1

ABSTRACT: This paper uses the fundamental values of decision makers to guide a long-term wastewater planning process at Seattle Metro, a major utility district. Multiattribute value assessment is used to elicit the objectives of several elected officials and other key decision makers. The results are structured into a fundamental objectives hierarchy and a means-ends objectives network. A set of measures to indicate the performance of planning alternatives in terms of the fundamental objectives is developed. Preliminary value tradeoffs between objectives are elicited from several elected officials. The results of these steps are useful for many aspects of long-term planning: facilitating communication about values and priorities; designing attractive alternatives that are more likely to serve stakeholder interests; identifying information needed to evaluate alternatives; clarifying the relative importance of information about different impacts; providing a basis for quantitative evaluation of the alternatives with multiple objective analysis; and focusing attention on key tradeoffs that will affect the choice of alternatives.     

OBJECTIVES AND CONSTRAINTS IN FEDERAL WATER RESOURCES PLANNING1

ABSTRACT: The Water Resources Council's Principles and Standards stipulate that plans should be formulated to meet national, regional, state, and local needs or problems. It is not clear, however, how appropriate consideration can be given to both national objectives (NED and EQ) and local needs and problems. Two methods of incorporating national objectives and local problem solving into water resources planning are examined. They are plan formulation primarily in pursuit of national objectives, and plan formulation to solve local problems, but constrained by national objectives. The first of these methods is the approach which is becoming increasingly explicit in the development and elaboration of the Water Resources Council's Principles and Standards. The analysis indicates that the Water Resources Council's approach is neither the most practical nor the most desirable of the two methods examined. It creates unnecessary difficulties and fails to achieve its purpose. Plan formulation to solve local problems, but constrained by national objectives not only describes what field planners actually do, but is also more practial and more desirable.     

The influence of institutional design on local environmental interest representation in the national polity

This article investigates structural and informal institutional design variables to account for civil society actors’ views on the political representation of local environmental interests in the national polity. It does so by linking literature on institutional design and place-based environmental advocacy to a case of large scale infrastructure development in the national interest. The case study concerns the proposal for a national high speed rail network (“HS2”) in the United Kingdom, which is heavily opposed locally based on its expected adverse impacts. Through fieldwork research on protest against HS2 in an area of high landscape value, it has been found that local actors perceived specific institutions to structurally under-represent interests associated with environmental conservation, compounded further by an informal style of doing politics. The paper recommends that the environmental management and planning literature turns to institutional explanations to make insightful the dynamics of defending the local interest in the national sphere.     

The Establishment of Marine Protected Areas in Senegal: Untangling the Interactions Between International Institutions and National Actors

International institutions, understood as sets of rules contained in international agreements, are aimed at orienting national governments towards specific policy options. Nevertheless, they can determine a change in national policies and practices only if states are willing and capable of incorporating international obligations into their national legislations and ensuring their application and enforcement in areas that follow completely under national jurisdiction. The establishment of marine protected areas promoted by international agreements as a tool for the protection of marine resources represents an interesting case for revealing the complex interactions between international institutions and national actors. Particularly, the establishment of these areas in Senegal shows the salience of domestic constellations of actors who may support or undercut national commitments to international regimes: political elites, bureaucracies, the general public and target groups. By anchoring the empirical analysis to an actor-centred institutionalist perspective, the article explains how dynamic constellations of actors can distort the penetration of international objectives in the national policy framework. Different constellations of national actors can indeed bend international institutions at different moments: during the formulation of a new law in line with international obligations; in the definition of its implementation framework; and in the enforcement of national policies.     

Confusing messages of sustainability indicators

This study examines sustainability indicators using the sustainability report of the Finnish Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry as the case study. The report is a compilation of indicators designed to assess the sustainability of natural resource management. The interviews with the users revealed, however, that the indicators have not been particularly effective in informing the actors or in affecting their behaviour. Clearly, the informative value of the indicators has been overrated and the complexity of the information transfer has been underestimated. At least partly, the difficulties were due to the obscurity of the indicator-concept itself and consequently to their improper use. First, the statistics with the objective state-of-affairs information should be distinguished from the indicators that are always related to policy discussion. In addition, the technical and communicative use of the indicators should be distinguished from each other as they have different relationship between the information, policy values and the associated activities.     

Analysing institutional change in environmental governance: exploring the concept of ‘institutional work’

Institutional work focuses on the role of actors in creating, maintaining, or disrupting institutional structures. The concept has its origin in organisational studies. In this paper, we rethink and redefine institutional work to make it fit for use in the multi-actor and multi-level context of environmental governance. We survey key approaches to institutional change in the literature, and argue that institutional work should have a central place within this theorising. Drawing on the insights from this literature, we argue that studying institutional work should involve a look at both the actions taken by actors, as well as the resulting effects. We identify a critical need for attention to the fundamentally political character of institutional work, the cumulative effects of action taken by multiple actors, and communicative and discursive dimensions. Overall, the concept of institutional work opens up new possibilities for unpacking the longstanding challenge of understanding institutional change in environmental governance.     

“十四五”时期中国应对气候变化的区域行动：规划、问题与对策

“十四五”时期是我国应对气候变化的重要机遇期,生态环境部要求将应对气候变化目标任务全面融入生态环境保护规划,而国家和地方相关政策设计尚处于起步阶段。在理论方法方面,已有研究多关注国家层面应对气候变化整体进展及在不同领域的布局情况。各地区针对具体领域的规划目标、行动部署等各有侧重,但区域视角下研究仍比较缺乏。地方生态环境规划是地方生态环境部门履责的重要依据,本文构建了地方应对气候变化规划内容的分析框架,对28个省级行政区（未包含山西、贵州、西藏以及香港、澳门和台湾）“十四五”生态环境规划中应对气候变化政策进行分析,系统梳理各地区减缓和适应气候变化的重点举措,总结完善制度体系、开展试点示范等方面的主要做法;在分析各地区面临问题和挑战的基础上,提出了“十四五”时期加强应对气候变化工作的对策建议。本研究有助于弥补应对气候变化区域研究的不足,可为构建央地协调整合的应对气候变化政策体系、完善地方应对气候变化制度措施提供科学参考。     

RESERVOIR OPERATION THROUGH OBJECTIVE TRADE-OFFS1

ABSTRACT: Water resource development has progressed to the stage where various human factors are now being considered in reservoir design and operation. The introduction of human factor objectives complicates the problem since they are noncommensurate with other objectives and they are difficult to identify quantitatively. Some of the problems that now arise concern the proper methods for consideration of several different, sometimes subjectively identified, objectives in reservoir planning. The classical systems analysis approach to decision making for multiple objective problems is outlined and the inherent difficulties associated with multiple objectives and subjective estimates are identified. Techniques being used in reservoir design and operation are reviewed and discussed. An alternate technique for considering noncommensurate, subjectively identified, objectives, which relates the objectives in terms of real trade-off costs and eliminates the need for a priori estimates of objective worth is then presented. The method is illustrated with three examples, including a reservoir operation problem and a cooling tower design problem.     

The use of the ecological footprint in local politics and administration: results and implications from Norway

Our experiences calculating a local ecological footprint of Oslo form the basis for a discussion of key methodological aspects supporting the use of local sustainability indicators. The footprint's strength is its ability to communicate simply the complexity of global environmental challenges. Initially developed for measuring per capita consumption at the national level, the footprint has been adopted at local and regional levels. We argue for adjustments in the footprint methodology when shifting from a national to a local policy context, to ensure the indicator's applicability in local politics and administration. First, the analysis should be limited to consumption aspects relevant to the local environmental policy agenda. Second, the analysis should integrate as much genuine local data as possible. We argue also that a standardised methodology based on the national footprint approach, with the main purpose of international benchmarking of cities, cannot but reduce the indicator's usefulness for administrative/political guidance, due to the methodology's lack of transparency and inability to identify local variations.     

Environmental accounting and statistics

The views expressed here are the author's and do not necessarily reflect an expression of opinion on the part of the United Nations. The objective of sustainable development is to integrate environmental concerns with mainstream socio-economic policies. Integrated policies need to be supported by integrated data. Environmental accounting achieves this integration by incorporating environmental costs and benefits into conventional national accounts. Modified accounting aggregates can thus be used in defining and measuring environmentally sound and sustainable economic growth. Further development objectives need to be assessed by more comprehensive, though necessarily less integrative, systems of environment statistics and indicators. Integrative frameworks for the different statistical systems in the fields of economy, environment and population would facilitate the provision of comparable data for the analysis of integrated development.     

Environmental indicators for communication of life cycle impact assessment results and their applications

Life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) is performed to quantitatively evaluate all environmental impacts from products, systems, processes and services. However, LCIA does not always provide valuable information for choosing among alternatives with different specifications, functionalities and lifetimes. The objectives of this study are (1) to propose environmental indicators to evaluate environmental efficiency and value qualitatively and quantitatively on the basis of analogies to financial and economic indicators, and (2) to present the application of the indicators. Incremental evaluation using a reference is employed to obtain the environmental indicators. The environmental efficiency indicators are conceptually based on the ratios of reduced environmental burdens returned to environmental burdens required: environmental return on investment, environmental payback period and environmental internal rate of return. The environmental value indicator is the sum of all reduced and required environmental burdens: i.e., environmental net present value. All the environmental indicators can be used to compare and rank the environmental efficiencies or values of alternatives. The environmental efficiency indicators can be applied to a new environmental labeling. The concept of eco-efficiency labeling is developed by combining the environmental efficiency indicators with financial indicators. A case study is performed to illustrate the necessity and importance of the environmental indicators. These environmental indicators can help easily communicate LCIA results in the field of environmental management.     

Sustainable regeneration: a guiding vision towards low-carbon transition?

While the concept of sustainable development brings together concepts of economic, environmental and social sustainability, much has been said regarding inherent tensions between them. Conflicts between economic and environmental objectives, in particular, have been noted as restraining efforts to instigate transitions to environmental sustainability, with growth ambitions limiting environmental policy to “win–win” cases. This paper argues that they can also play complementary roles in managing transitions by creating inclusive visions for rallying actors and resources. This is explored by looking at a case of sustainable regeneration in Wales, UK. Using as a case study the Arbed scheme, an area-based project established in 2009 to retrofit housing stock for energy efficiency, this paper shows how the scheme explicitly addresses economic, environmental and social aspects of sustainability; and, in particular, how sustainable development aims constituted a guiding vision that supported the formation of actor and resource networks necessary for large-scale retrofitting.     

Ecological footprint analysis applied to a sub-national area: the case of the Province of Siena (Italy)

This work is part of a larger project, which aims at investigating the environmental sustainability of the Province of Siena and of its communes, by means of different indicators and methods of analysis. The research presented in this article uses ecological footprint and biocapacity as indicators to monitor the environmental conditions of the area of Siena, thus complementing previous studies carried out using Emergy, greenhouse gases balance and other methods. The calculations have been performed in such a way as to enable a disaggregation of the final results according to the classical categories of ecologically productive land and of consumption, but also according to citizen's and public administration's areas of influence. This information allows us to investigate in detail the socio-economic aspects of environmental resource use. Among the notable results, the Siena territory is characterized by a nearly breakeven total ecological balance, a result contrasting with the national average and most of the other Italian provinces. Furthermore, the analysis has been carried out at different spatial scales (province, districts and communes), highlighting an inhomogeneous territorial structure consisting of subareas in ecological deficit compensated by zones in ecological surplus.     

Environmental policy for sustainable development of natural resources

This paper describes new environmental policies and expanded administrative agencies which in recent years have been adopted by many governments faced with a continuing decline in the quality of their environments. In a number of developed and developing countries, devising a far reaching environmental policy for sustainable development of the natural resources sector is a national priority. Specific environmental policies may be classified according to objectives, timeframe, mechanisms for implementation, whether or not they are binding, and the nature of sanction. This paper provides some generalizations about certain features common to most environmental policies. In the first section an examination is made of some of the most pressing problems which environmental policies relating to natural resources seek to address. The second section discusses environmental policies themselves. The third section, which makes up the main body of the paper, assesses the strengths and weaknesses of a variety of mechanisms available for implementing environmental policies to promote sustainable development in the natural resources sector.