5

DIMENSIONS OF ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

“The development, strengthening and multiplication of socially minded business is the central problem of business

—Dean Wallace B. Donham”

The causes of environmental degradation and hence the solutions to it have many dimensions. Environmental management cannot be pursued in isolation in a society. Every society is in a process of development—the process of increasing the productivity and standard of living that creates dramatic changes in social organizations. The ultimate purpose of development management is to provide increasing opportunities to all people for a better life. Thus, development in its entirety includes economic, social, cultural and political development, with human beings at the center of the development (human development) that is embedded in nature (ecological development). Human beings in a web of socio-economic relationships, as a unit of society, embedded in the natural environment should be seen in the context of environmental management, and this perspective amplifies the different dimensions of environmental management.

 

5.1 ECONOMIC DIMENSIONS

 

“No matter how intently one studies the hundred little dramas of the woods and meadows, one can never learn all the salient facts about any one of them

—Aldo Leopold”

Economic dimension of environmental management looks at the costs and effects of economic development on the environment, how environmental goods and services are valued or priced, and how the natural resources can be used to create value with minimum of undesirable pollution and environmental costs.

Economic growth of a country is a “long-term rise in capacity to supply increasingly diverse economic goods to its population, this growing capacity based on technological advancements and adjustments that it demands.” The components of economic growth are capital accumulation, technological progress, increase in consumption and increase in production. Industrialization, commoditization, trade and export are the means adopted by the developed countries to improve the standards of living of their people. Economic growth is measured in GDP, balance of trade, per capita income, Human Development Index and Quality of Life Index. As per the “fourth point” of Harry Truman’s speech, the developing countries are aided in economic growth by multilateral aid, bilateral aid and foreign direct investment (FDI) for meeting their investment needs aimed at improving the quality of their physical and human resources.

Since economic growth entails increased production of goods and services, use of desirable resources to create value for consumption as per the windows of opportunities is the imperative. For further investments, profit becomes a necessity for any economic enterprise, and this profit motive leads to overexploitation of resources. Resources include the energy resources, water resources, mineral resources, forest resources, land resources, human resources and common property resources like atmosphere, public land, public forests, Antarctica, oceans, rivers and biodiversity. The use of common property resources is a peculiar resource use, as a firm can get direct profit by harvesting the resources as much as a firm can and the resulting loss is shared by all members of the society, but the shares of profit go to the exploiting firm. When the costs of renewal of the common property resources are not shared by the business firms, who make a profit out of it, vital environmental assets are threatened. Thus, Antarctica, Mount Everest, ocean beds, air, water, biodiversity and forests are threatened as economic growth progresses. The wastes and pollutants from industries that produce goods and services flow into these common properties, and the polluter does not pay for renewal and regeneration of the degraded environment. This is called the tragedy of the commons.

5.1.1 Internalizing the externalities

The internal costs are the expenses borne by a user of a resource to gain access to that resource, convert the resource to a useful product and reach it to the consumer. For example, purchasing an ore, making a factory and warehouse, operating them, paying wages, etc., are the internal costs of a business firm. The external costs are the expenses borne by someone other than the individuals/firm who use a resource. The environment and health effects of using air and water to dispose wastes by a firm are diffuse and difficult to quantify. Similarly, the costs of emitting large quantities of smoke and CO₂ into the atmosphere by a factory are not accounted in the cost–revenue ledgers of the firm.

Internalizing the external costs is the concept of bearing all the external costs by those who reap the benefits of common resources. The indirect costs or external environmental costs are to be included in the cost of production and passed on to users of the products of a firm, according to this perspective.

5.1.2 North–South divide and ecological creditor

The countries that have a higher GDP, per capita income, ecological footprint and its people having higher quality of life are collectively called as the North, and the poorer developing countries are called as the South. Although it is a socio-economic division of nations, the nations comprising the North are in fact located mostly in the Northern Hemisphere except Australia and New Zealand, and the divide is not primarily defined by geography.

The North–South divide measured in terms of wealth and incomes has accelerated with globalization and the collapse of the Soviet Empire. There were originally G7, G8, and now G20 consisting of the North and the G77 consisting of the South. The present trends on this grouping are as follows:

• Emergence of China, Southeast Asian countries and India as the major centers of world economic activity.
• Northern perceptions of insecurity in the context of state collapse, terrorism, fundamentalism and humanitarian disasters in different spaces of global South, which make underdevelopment a dangerous economic reality.
• An acceleration of democratizing and modernizing forces in the global South as seen in the uprisings in Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc., even as the North tends to become more oligarchic.

A global collegiality perspective asserts that global South, given the exploitation of its people, place and resources throughout the history of a global economy, is an ecological creditor as opposed to being in financial debt to global North. Economic development, industrialization, higher standard of living, less density of population and hence high ecological footprint remain the characteristics of the North, while the previously colonized countries that experience multiple deprivations and are in need of aid represent the South. Therefore, the North–South divide is a development continuum gap as well when the North is perceived as developed. How far the development indicators of the North are sustainable, environment friendly, just and ethical is debatable though.

5.1.3 Economic globalization and environmental issues

 

“The more we exploit nature, the more our options are reduced, until we have only one; to fight for survival

—Morris K. Udall”

The emergence of a global market place or a single world market with strange homogenization of buildings, products, lifestyles, etc., through a process of increasing economic integration and exchange of social values between two or more countries is globalization. Even though economic globalization had been occurring through transnational trade and military conquests in the distant past, it got accelerated with the advent of industrialization and the need for colonization for expanding the markets, and the pace has increased over the last 30 years. The developed means of transport, FDI, the reduction of trade barriers, modern means of communication and the modernization of these developing cultures are the proximate causes of this recent acceleration of globalization.

With economic globalization, environmental concerns also become global. Thus, the environment is considered a “common heritage of mankind,” and environmental problems are increasingly the subjects of international efforts because of their cross-border effects and the impossibility that just one or a few nations can solve these problems on their own. There is also a growing concern on the causes of the environmental problems related to economic globalization. The relationship between environment and international trade has been a subject of debate with different stakeholders holding different views. Unbridled economic growth, fueled by free trade, has the potential to cause more pollution and exhaustion of natural resources. However, economic growth need not be fuelled by free trade alone or trade between the countries of the North and the South, where the potential for harm to the environment in the poorer country is disproportionately high. Some civil society members argue that the environmental protection laws are weakened or poorly enforced under the guise of promoting free trade or to fast-forward industrialization in some countries.

One perspective is that there was not much direct linkage between trade and environment before 1947, when the first General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) became a multilateral framework, and that the GATT was not only in favor of free trade but also was favoring trade at the cost of environment. Before the Stockholm Convention of 1972, the GATT Secretariat studied the impact of measures proposed to deal with pollution on international trade. A group on Environmental Measures and International Trade was set up by GATT to provide advice on trade policy and the pollution issues.

The Tuna-Dolphin case of Mexico and Venezuela in 1990, challenging the application of “Marine Mammal Protection Act” (MMPA) of the USA intended to prevent dolphins being killed in the tuna fishing process, is the first dispute involving environmental protection and free trade principles. The dispute resolution in this case by the GATT panel prioritized free trade over the environment. Environmentalists saw this decision as a clear evidence of globalization and free trade impacting the environment. The right of a country to protect its environmental resources extraterritorially, the idea that one country can impose its view of the need for environmental protection in global commons or on another country’s resources was a major issue in this case. The concept of environmental resources of a country extending beyond its national boundaries (extra-territoriality) was also brought to the fore.

The Tuna-Dolphin case threw up one more dispute in the trade arena. MMPA in the USA also bans tuna and tuna products from the Third World countries that import tuna from other countries that do not comply with the MMPA. The capability of a wealthy country such as the USA or any developed country in the North for designing and adopting sophisticated fishing techniques or other environmental resource protection measures and using such technological and organizational superiority as trade barriers on the developing countries that have limited resources was a point debated in the trade circles. Affordability of the environmental protection tools was unequal between the developed countries and less-developed countries.

The Shrimp-Turtle case of 1998 when the USA implemented a ban on the import of shrimp from countries whose fishing fleets did not have special “turtle excluder devices,” to prevent endangered sea turtles from being killed, was the first environmental dispute before World Trade Organization (WTO). This case galvanized opposition to economic globalization again. The Doha Round of WTO negotiation in 2001 opened the issue of environmental protection in the context of 20 multilateral environmental agreements, raising the level of concern for the environment.

It is widely suggested that economic globalization has a direct impact on six specific global environmental changes that are as follows:

• Threats to wildlife including spread of alien species
• Loss of biodiversity
• Ecosystem degradation including oceans
• Global warming including desertification
• Ozone depletion
• Pollution

Economic globalization makes all the countries in the world as active stakeholders or the affected parties on the global environmental changes. If any country has to economically progress on a sustainable basis, it has to contribute to environmental protection on a global basis also; otherwise, either its source of raw materials or major markets may not have sustained attractiveness. It is also blamed that economic globalization leads to developed countries relocating their polluting industries to developing countries in the name of FDI. Another impact is that toxic waste traders in environmentally stricter industrialized countries have been avoiding the increasingly high cost of disposing of hazardous waste domestically by shipping the waste to developing countries. Somalia became one such favorite dumping ground, which paved the way for the proliferation of Somalian pirates. Each issue of transboundary nature is addressed through multilateral agreements or conventions, which is a positive impact of economic globalization due to creation of more interdependence.

5.2 SOCIOCULTURAL DIMENSIONS

A society is a collection of communities bound together by a common culture, with a social structure and social processes, in a defined geographic area and has reciprocal interaction with nature. A community is also understood as a group of people living together or coming together in real or virtual space for self-interest. There are physical communities living on the ground and virtual communities in the social media. People in the community know the resources and their needs better than the outsiders.

Communities impact business firms in the form of supply of labor, organizing protests, consuming the firm’s products or services and providing the common property resources. Business firms impact communities by way of polluting their environment, taking over of land, appropriating CPRs (Common Property Resources), fragmenting habitats, depleting the water resources and degrading soil and forests.

5.2.1 Common property resources and environment

In nature, there are resource systems producing a flow of the resource units that can be used by appropriators who may or may not be the same as providers who create or maintain a resource system. Thus, in every society, there are providers who maintain the resource system and appropriators who use the resource units. Resource units are subtractable from the total resource pool with the result that one appropriator’s use affects that of others. The behavior of providers and all appropriators in a community is affected by the community values of right or wrong, opportunism, trust and the sense of community. Users may not have any incentive to leave the resource units for other users (present-day fellow users or future users) in the absence of rules, norms, trust, reciprocity or greater costs of use. Decisions to cooperate depend on the expected benefits, costs, internal norms and discount rates. Local appropriators expect their grandchildren to use a resource system without depletion or degradation, whereas a multinational company (MNC) setting up a business in a host country will not have any such concerns or qualms in appropriating the resource units. Therefore, the community has a stake in ensuring that an appropriator’s current use of common property resources (air, water, forests, public land) is not at the expense of future use.

5.2.2 Managing common property resources or common good

Common goods are viewed as goods by virtue of the properties inherent in the goods as such, namely, accessibility and the relative non-rivalry of consumption. Accessibility means that the good is available to everyone; non-rivalry means that the opportunity for the consumption of the good is available to all individuals. There are three types of common goods, depending on which of these properties they have:

1. Goods characterized by accessibility and non-rivalry are called public goods.
2. Goods characterized by accessibility and rival consumption, where the consumption by one individual implies that others will have less at their disposal are called common pool resources.
3. Goods to which access can be limited and the consumption is rival are called club goods or toll goods.

Common good is a generic term applied to all the above three types of goods. The goods that are common to many, and are thus shared by a number of people, or the good of a collectivity which cannot be disaggregated are common goods.

The common goods consist primarily of the social systems, knowledge systems, institutions and environments on which we all depend and work in a manner that benefits all people. In 1968, Garret Hardin wrote an essay, The tragedy of the commons, describing a phenomenon in which several persons acting independently, solely and rationally will ultimately destroy a shared limited resource. Each person will take decisions and on his/her own self-interest and such cumulative actions will harm the long-term interest of everyone, which is to have the common resource perpetually. Hardin gave the example of a pastureland as a common good shared by several local herders. The herders increase their herd size to maximize their yield as the pasture is there to be used. The utility of each additional animal has a positive effect or benefit to the herder and a negative effect or cost on the pastureland.

• Positive effect—The herder receives all of the proceeds from the additional animals
• Negative effect—The pasture is slightly degraded by each additional animal

The unequal division of these costs and benefits of using a common property motivates everyone to proceed with the exploitation till visible symptoms of deterioration of the pasture are noticed. While the individual herder gets the benefits, the disadvantage is shared among all the herders using the pasture. The benefit to an individual herder using the pasture is greater than the individual share of the distributed cost. The cost of overexploitation or overgrazing is called externality.

Atmosphere, oceans, rivers, fish stocks, waterbodies, national parks, forests, Antarctica, biodiversity and genetic diversity are similar common property resources or common goods. Free access and unrestricted demand for a finite resource will ultimately reduce the resource both in quantity and quality through overexploitation, temporarily or permanently. As long as the benefits of exploitation of a free-access resource accrue to a fewer individuals or groups, each of whom will have motivation to maximize the use of the resource, the costs of exploitation are borne by all to whom the resource is available. Resource depletion or degradation will happen gradually with increase in the demand for the resource, as the benefit of drawing the resource is more than the cost of maintaining it and there is no individual accountability or responsibility thrust upon the exploiter to preserve the quantity. The rate at which the exhaustion of the resource happens depends on the following three factors:

• The number of users wanting to consume the common good
• The consumptiveness of their uses
• The relative robustness of the common good

The common good of water in open waterbodies, wells or groundwater in local areas or clean neighborhoods having good sanitation or sanitation infrastructure follows the same course of tragedy of commons, if not managed with long-term sustainability in focus. Traditionally, in Indian social systems, common goods were used by the locals with self-restraint and a sense of community feeling. Community ownership is the best management practice for common goods such as water, air, forests and sanitation in local areas, as selfish interests of individuals will be restrained by community norms on the use of common goods. However, the challenge in this type of management of the commons is the complexity of community interaction, group size, trans-community impacts and causes, etc. For example, if water is overexploited in the upper reaches of a river, there will be less water for the inhabitants in the lower reaches, and having cooperation of the entire community along the river length is difficult. Altering the river biodiversity in the upper reaches by chemical farming in the watershed area will impact the biodiversity and resource robustness in the lower reaches of the river, which is the resource system for a different set of people. Developing a community feeling among all the people living in the banks and its watershed areas is difficult, as self-interests of the appropriators at different segments of the river vary. The maximum group size for cooperative action with a community feeling and prosocial behavior is reported to be 150, as per research.

Another method of managing water, air, forests and sanitation in local areas as common goods is converting them as toll goods by restricting access through regulation and effectively enclosing the common goods. Through regulation, user fees can be established and “polluter pays principle” can be employed, and the money so collected can be used for augmenting or preserving the quality and quantity of the common good. The challenge here is to make this regulation acceptable to all the local people who were considering the resource as free good historically. In case of sanitation, the need for a cleaner environment is to be felt by everyone in the location and for this, correct environmental education is necessary. In local areas where many people are not functionally literate, environmental education is a major challenge. Permit system, which may be a useful method for extractive economic activities like mining, fishing or hunting, may not be possible to be enforced for water and sanitation in local areas. Resource users themselves have to cooperate to conserve the resource for the sake of mutual benefit.

Another means of maintaining the quality and quantity of certain resources is to convert common good into private property, giving the new owner an incentive to enforce its sustainability. In case of water, air, forests and sanitation in local areas, such benevolent trustees or caretakers are difficult to find individually, but a federation of users can be formed in a participatory manner. When people identify with their group, they are more likely to exercise personal restraint. In a society where group identities are polarized or multiple, promoting long-term perspective on water conservation or sanitation is a challenge. Appointing a leader to regulate access to the commons is fought with acceptability challenges in local areas where there are multiple group identities.

Water meters can be installed in houses and farms to avoid overuse of water. However, in local areas, monitoring such devices is not practical. Resources with definable boundaries (e.g., land) can be preserved much more easily. Water, air, forests and sanitation, being not amenable to be kept in boundaries, are difficult to be managed with the conservation perspective, unless the community takes charge. Additionally, there are multiple uses of water in local areas compared to urban areas, and all may not be using the resource for all purposes and temporal discontinuation also is a reality. In such a situation, the common norms or not having appropriate, situation-specific norms may not be effective in managing the resource sustainably.

5.2.3 People’s movements and the environment

People’s organizations serve as an interface between the environmental movement and various segments of the society. They define themselves by the specific audiences they serve and sometimes by specific issues. Often, they move from issue to issue, serving these audiences by aggregating issue-specific information and engagement opportunities supplied by solution organizations. People’s organizations are evolving and leading at local and regional environmental movements in most places, which are essential for reaching new and broader audiences, including the business firms.

People’s organizations and solution organizations have the potential to form powerful networks where solutions are aggregated for specific audiences. These networks might start with new aggregation, with a people’s organization consolidating and interpreting the most salient environmental happenings in an understanding of what matters most to its audiences, while gathering most of its issue-specific knowledge from the solution organizations in its network. This cooperative mechanism could eventually lead to the development of civic engagement opportunities, shifting from one campaign to another based on opportunity and audience interest.

The Chipko movement is a good illustration of how the people’s movements can contribute to the betterment of the environment. It is a socio-ecological movement that employed Gandhian methods of Satyagraha and nonviolent resistance through the simple action of hugging trees to protect them from being felled by the axe-wielding loggers or timber merchants. The landmark event in this movement started on March 26, 1974, when a group of female peasants in Reri village of Chamoli district of Uttarakhand acted to prevent the cutting of trees and reclaim their traditional forest rights. The contractor system of the State Forest Department was challenged by the mass movement, and these grassroots-level actions escalated throughout the region, as the hitherto disempowered villagers tasted an effective method to protect their collective interest of protecting the common good. The movement across a larger region led to formulation of people-sensitive forest policies and stopping open felling of trees even in Vindhyas and the Western Ghats. The first recorded event of Chipko, however, took place in the Khejarli village of Jhodpur district in 1730 AD when 363 Bishnois, led by a lady called Amrita Devi, scarified their lives while protecting green khejri trees by hugging them and braved the axes of loggers sent by the local ruler.

The Chipko movement, with its unique, simple method of protest and protection, went on to become an inspiration and model for many future environmentalists, environmental protests and movements the world over. Apart from demonstrating the strength of people power, the tree-hugging movement increased ecological awareness, reduced the pace of rapid deforestation, exposed vested interests, and brought significant changes in the regulations.

Another major people’s movement that contributed significantly to the betterment of environment is the Narmada Andholan. It is a protest movement against the construction of a dam across the Narmada River in Gujarat, which would have submerged vast tracts of land and displaced local people. Similarly, in the Western Ghats of Kerala during the 1970s, a protest movement held against a developmental activity in the silent valley is another success story, in which all sections of the society participated in a vigorous campaign. This ensured protection of the biodiversity in the silent valley bioreserve.

5.2.4 Environmental calamities and society

Calamities or disasters caused by degradation of the environment through human activity have profound impact on the society. Some of the observed environmental calamities are listed below:

• High air pollution levels with toxic compounds
• Acid rain precipitation
• Pollution and eutrophication of waterbodies
• Aquifer contamination
• Salinization of soil
• Desertification and droughts
• Pollution of soils with heavy metals and pesticides
• Radioactive pollution of vast territories
• Forest fires (Fig. 5.1)
• Heat waves
• Forest degradation and habitat fragmentation
• Global warming, glacier melting, sea level rise, extreme weather events
• Landslides, silting and flooding

Environmental calamities in many cases are effected by human usage of natural resources without consideration of ecosystem balances. Vulnerability to natural and environmental calamities increases as poverty increases. There is an average of 3,000 deaths per event of calamities in low-income countries, compared with less than 400 per event in middle- and high-income societies.

Loss of coastal habitat features such as mangroves and coral reefs that formerly provided natural protection against coastal flooding results in increase in impact of flooding on the people living in coastal areas. The flooding of low-lying areas destroys houses, damages crops and results in loss of work for the poor people. Deforestation, cultivation and construction of roads and buildings destabilize the already fragile slopes, resulting in landslides. As a result of increased human activity, as high as 12,000 landslides occur every year in Nepal. Each landslide results in permanent loss of top soil and destruction of property downside, which are irreparable.

It is postulated that global warming has started altering the pollination and flowering of field crops in states like Haryana. The yield of crops will be affected. The untimely rains or floods will damage the crops, resulting in loss of income for small farmers. Desertification and salinization will increase poverty and large-scale migration of local people to cities, who end up living in slums. Forest fires cause loss of rich biodiversity (Fig. 5.2) and are likely to permanently cripple scientific research resources for rare genes for potential pharmaceutical, biotechnology or plant-breeding objectives.

Agricultural and meteorological droughts are the environmental calamities affecting the whole communities. People have to travel long distances even for getting drinking water and the poverty situation is aggravated. Overuse of water or wastage can cause hydrological drought that leads to access to drinking water becoming a major issue.

The impacts of environmental calamities can be classified into three categories as given below:

• Direct damage—damage to fixed assets, raw materials; destruction of physical infrastructure, buildings, transport and storage facilities; damage to farmland soils; destruction of crops that are ready to harvest, etc.
• Indirect damage—damages to the flow of goods that could not be produced and of services that could not be provided after the calamity strikes. It may last several months.
• Secondary effects—impact of the calamity on the overall economic performance of a region or country, measured by the most significant macroeconomic variables. For example, the drought or flood in a country affects the GDP.

The impact of environmental calamities on the society can be mitigated by addressing the root causes like deforestation, environmental pollution, loss of biodiversity, faulty agricultural practices, reducing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, disturbing fragile ecosystem, etc., thereby securing the quality of life and property of people.

5.3 TECHNOLOGICAL DIMENSIONS

 

“If you only do what worked in the past, you will wake up one day and find that you have been passed by

—Clayton Christensen”

Technology is both the main cause of environmental degradation and the main solution to environmental problems. A new technology can recycle and reuse a waste, reduce pollution from a machine, increase energy use efficiency, etc. There are three types of technologies that contribute to economic development. They are as follows:

1. Technology that contributes to deterioration of the environment
2. Technology that has little effect on the environment
3. Technology that restores or improves the environment

Industry as society’s producer has choices available about what technology to select and each industry has the capacity to innovate. Agenda 21 of Rio Earth Summit states, “Science and technology can overcome environmental problems, allowing continuing resource extraction and use, producing products, thus raising the standard of living.”

There is a perspective that scarcity of resources will act as a catalyst for innovation and change. As materials become scarce, research gets stimulated, prompting exploration, substitution, recycling, reuse and increases in efficiency. The increased efficiency and technology would increase the carrying capacity. Growing population not only creates markets, but also brings more creativity, energy and innovation to solve the environmental problems.

5.3.1 Appropriate technology and environment

Different levels of scientific development have diverse technology absorption capabilities. What is appropriate in the context of a developing world is the technology favoring optimum use of local resources and reducing dependence on outside technologies that might have been developed for a different set of resources and situations. Appropriate choice of technology out of a wide range must be available for different industries, considering the effects on employment, environment and social equity. Social science research is also needed for new behaviors to preserve the environment.

5.3.2 Types of technology for sustainable development

There are technologies in the economic development sphere to increase the production of goods, conserve raw materials and produce green products. There is technology in the environmental sphere helping to conserve energy, water, forests, etc., and to reduce wastes. In the social sphere, new technologies to create awareness and improve the health, sanitation and literacy of all, so that the fruits of economic development can be enjoyed are also available (Fig. 5.3).

5.4 ETHICAL AND MORAL DIMENSIONS

Ethics defines what is right or wrong on a universal basis. For example, killing, cheating, lying and stealing are considered wrong by every society, whereas concern for others, honesty, preserving life and respect are considered right. Moral values are the dominant belief of a particular culture about what is right or wrong. For example, even though killing is ethically wrong, killing during wartime is morally right. The same action is ethically wrong but morally right when the context changes. Social mores (dominant belief system of a particular society) define the moral rights and wrongs.

In most societies, maximizing consumption is a moral act due to the following rational beliefs:

• Economic growth is a source of jobs for the needy.
• Economic growth is a source of funds for the poor, for infrastructure development and for providing social security measures.
• Economic growth is a source of funds for research, education, health care and improvement in sanitation.
• Economic growth is a source of funds for protecting the environment.

Thus, resource use for economic growth is both ethical and moral, even if in the process there is an impact on the environment.

5.4.1 Views about nature and environmental ethics

The western view about nature is that it is alien and to be conquered. The eastern view is that human being is a part of nature. As per Chinese traditions and Indian traditions, nature is mother and goddess. The differing views give rise to the concept of intrinsic value and instrumental value. The eastern view sees intrinsic value in nature: value of things as ends in themselves regardless of whether they are also useful as means to other ends. The western instrumental value views nature as a means to further some other ends. The new environmental ethics expand the moral concerns viewing the animals, trees and even rocks as being part of nature and having rights.

5.4.2 Religious belief on environment

Studies have shown that there are connections between values, as expressed in religious scriptures, religious practices and secular policies. How far religious faith influences environmental attitudes and practices is still a matter of debate. Both primitive and modern religions are important bearers of moral attitudes of distinct cultures, and such attitudes are likely to have a specific impact on the management of natural resources. Religions are thus increasingly being seen as creators of moral foundations in environmental campaigns. The economic, social and educational roles of religious groups as investors, consumers and educators are also significant.

Religion refers to both the personal practices related to faith as well as to the larger shared system of belief. Ancient Hindus, Greeks, Chinese, Native Americans and other religions around the world have venerated nature. Buddhist teachings require every person to consider right livelihood and the impact that would have on society and the environment. King Asoka’s Fifth Pillar Edict stating that he placed various wild animals under protection is one of the earliest recorded instances of a policy of conservation.

The Bible is permeated with a careful concern for preserving the land and the earth as an allotted heritage. Christians must treat living beings as valuable and must be careful to exercise dominion without being destructive. Recently, Pope, the head of Christian church, added polluting the environment in the modified list of sins.

In the Muslim religion, planting a tree or sowing a field, and then human beings, beasts and birds eating from it is counted as charity. The whole earth is created by Allah as a place of worship and there is no altering the creation of Allah as per Surah 30:30. Since God created the mountains, rivers and forests, and altering them is not permissible, a Muslim is expected to preserve the environment.

Hinduism worships different elements of nature in the form of Gods—certain plants, rivers and mountains are considered sacred, certain animals are sacred, and they believe that mankind is a part of nature and is subservient to nature. Rig Veda 6:48:17 says: “Do not cut trees because they remove pollution.” Yajur Veda 5:43 says: “Do not disturb the sky and do not pollute the atmosphere.” Jainism prohibits even polluting of leaves, flowers and fruits, let alone killing any life form. Thus, all religions espouse the virtue of a good physical environment and protecting it in the same form in which it was inherited, being God’s creation.

5.4.3 Attitudes towards nature

Different attitudes and philosophical orientation towards nature lead to different policies and actions. The dominant attitudes are briefly described below.

5.4.3.1 Biocentrism

Biocentrism is a scientific perspective which posits that life creates the universe, rather than the other way round. In biocentrism, life (bio) is the central concept. The main concern is for individuals, animals and plants. Each organism is a theological center of life with a good of its own, and the survival and well-being of organisms depends on their relations to other organisms. Biocentrism has been proposed as an antonym of anthropocentrism which is a conscious or subconscious belief that human beings are the central focus of existence. Biocentric attitude towards nature proposes that all life is netted together and there is a kinship between mankind and nature. This reacts against the ethic of dominion over nature.

5.4.3.2 Ecocentrism

Ecocentric attitude towards nature denotes a nature-centered, as opposed to life-centered or human-centered system of values. Ecocentric attitude seeks to protect and improve the quality of natural environment through changes to environmentally harmful human activities and a reassessment of humanity’s relationship with nature. Ecocentrism recognizes earth’s interactive living and nonliving systems, rather than earth’s organisms, (biocentrism) as central in importance. The core principles of ecocentric attitude towards nature are as follows:

• The ecosphere is the center of value for humanity.
• The productivity of earth’s ecosystems depends on their integrity.
• Earth-centered world view is supported by natural history.
• Ecocentric ethics are grounded in awareness of our place in nature.
• Diversity of ecosystems and cultures is valued.
• It supports social justice.

Persons or groups having ecocentric attitudes towards nature would reduce the consumption of earth’s parts and preserve earth’s creative and regenerative potential, thereby promoting ecocentric governance.

5.4.3.3 Anthropocentrism

This view gives greater value to human beings, flowing from the teachings of Aristotle: “Nature has made all things for man.” Environmental ethics question the moral superiority of human beings. I have the right to use a rock for my building purposes, as the rock exists for my welfare and use.

5.4.3.4 Enlightened anthropocentrism

All moral duties to the environment are derived from duties to fellow human inhabitants. I should not destroy a rock, because other fellow human beings may have found aesthetic beauty or religious sentiments in that rock.

5.4.3.5 Stewardship

Mankind is the custodian of resources as a caretaker. Human beings are viewed as partners in a natural process and not as a master. I should preserve the rock as I am only a custodian of it, and hence, I have no right to break it and use it for my construction.

5.4.3.6 Ecofeminism

This view says patriarchal systems underlie domination over nature, as males dominate females. Nature is seen as Mother Nature.

5.4.3.7 Environmentalism

Environmentalism postulates that nature is almost sacred and that mankind is an intruder. It opposes timber cutting on most public lands and denounces dams, even though they are for water supplies, electricity or flood control. It agrees limited tourism such as hiking, but opposes automobiles in national parks. John Muir, John Ruskin, William Morris, Aldo Leopold, Rudolf Hess, David Bower, Wallace Slegner and James Lovelock were eminent environmentalists. It is a social movement advocating preservation, restoration and improvement of the natural environment and to control pollution. Environmentalism is an attempt to balance relations between human beings and various natural systems on which a degree of respect is bestowed, and the nature of this balance is expressed in different ways.

5.5 POLITICAL AND LEGAL DIMENSIONS

A society’s perception of the role of the environment, its current status and expectations for the future are among the major determinants of the evolution of norms, standards and principles governing the environment. Translation of these values occurs through the domestic polity and its interactions with international institutions. The Stockholm Declaration of 1972 detailed the relationship between the enjoyment of human rights and the quality of the environment, but did not declare a “right to the environment.” “World charter for nature,” the 1982 UN document, proposed that “all persons, in accordance with their national legislation, shall have the opportunity to participate in the formulation of decisions of direct concern to their environment and shall have access to means of redress when their environment has suffered damage or degradation.” The United Nations (UN) Convention on the Rights of the Child in 1989 declared that states must make proper measures to combat disease and malnutrition, taking into consideration the dangers and risks of environmental pollution (source: www.un.org).

The Rio Declaration as part of the Earth Summit in 1992 states that human beings are entitled to a healthy and productive life in harmony with nature. In addition to the above milestones, there are several other international environmental agreements catering to specific ecosystems or issues, such as the Antarctica Treaty of 1961, Convention on Wetlands of International Importance at Ramsar in 1971, Convention on Biological Diversity in 1972, Convention to Combat Desertification held in Paris in 1984, etc., which call upon countries to contribute to ecosystem preservation.

5.5.1 International consensus on environment (Section 11.3 may also be read along with this)

The salient features of the international agreements are summarized below.

• Each country has the right to use its own resources pursuant to its own economic and environmental and other domestic policies, and the responsibility to ensure that activities within its national boundaries or control do not cause damage to the environment of other states or of areas beyond the limits of national jurisdiction (1972 Stockholm Declaration, principle 21)—principle of state responsibility.
• It is the duty of a state to notify and consult with the other states when undertaking an operation that is likely to harm the neighboring countries’ environment, such as the construction of a power plant which may impair air or water quality in downwind or downstream states—good neighborliness principle.
• States are expected to monitor and assess specific environmental conditions domestically and disclose these in a report to an international agency created by an agreement—cooperation of all states.
• The domestic constitution, laws and executive pronouncements providing guarantees that all its citizens have a right to a decent and healthful environment.
• All the costs of pollution, responsibility for controlling pollution at its source, and payment for its effects, including remedial or cleanup costs, rest entirely on the person or institution causing pollution. The suggestion is to internalize the externalities rather than forcing other states or future generations to bear such costs—polluter pays principle.
• The duty to foresee and assess environmental risks rests with the states and institutions. Instead of waiting for conclusive scientific evidence to come for each cause and effect relationship in nature, the states should take steps to warn potential victims of the environmental risks and behave in ways that prevent or mitigate such risks—precautionary principle.
• An environment impact assessment is to be done for major projects to balance economic benefits with environmental costs.
• Invite the inputs of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), especially those representing community-based grassroots organizations, in monitoring and implementing the international environmental agreements.
• Principle of sustainable development is using living resources in a manner that does not exceed their natural capacity for regeneration and using natural resources in a manner that ensures the preservation of the species and ecosystems for the benefit of future generations (World Charter for Nature, 1982).
• Certain resources such as deep seabed are part of the commons (UN Conference on the Law of the Sea, 1982).
• The global environmental concerns such as climate change or stratospheric ozone layer depletion face the same dilemma of common goods, as to who will bear the costs to preserve them or restore parts of the planet that are already degraded. The guiding principle is that all nations have a shared responsibility, but compared to developing nations, developed nations are better able to take the financial, organizational and technological measures necessary to shoulder responsibility—common but differential responsibilities (Earth Summit Declaration, 1992) and “respective capabilities” was added later on. The debate about implementation of the Kyoto Protocol with respect to voluntary or agreed GHG emission limits and discussions at Doha in December 2012 boils down to the acceptance and application of this principle.

5.5.2 Effectiveness of international agreements by nations

When the agreements are ratified by a country, it commits itself to adhere to the principles and implement it in the country. However, the effectiveness of implementation is dependent on the international pressure and interdependencies. The effectiveness dimension means changes in behavior that help to protect and preserve the environment. Many of the agreements are not effective in bringing about the expected changes due to several reasons listed as follows:

• A wide variety of social actors, including individuals, firms and agencies, have a role to play in implementing the agreements, whose behavior does not change simply because governments have made international commitments. Even when all the actors decide positively, change management is not easy and propensity to relapse to old ways of doing things is high.
• There is no effective mechanism at an international level to handle non-compliance.
• For economies in transition and developing countries, the focus at a national level is rapid economic development for the well-being to its people and the tragedy of commons is often the result in this pursuit of economic development.
• Trade in hazardous chemicals and pesticides and setting up polluting industries are led by MNCs, over which the international agreements have less hold and countries are often less able to regulate the MNCs.
• Good governance and regime effectiveness at a national level is a prerequisite to implementation of international agreement obligations.
• Addressing poverty and nutritional security are the complex issues that lay at the fundamental level for addressing environmental issues, and there is not much reduction in poverty in many countries due to various reasons. Fifty-five per cent of the world’s poor live in India when USD 2 is taken as the poverty line, that is, 820 million people who are poor and whose primary concern is not environment.
• Institutional fragmentation, specialization and the lack of a holistic approach to environmental issues and sustainable development at UN systems result in duplication of work and lack of a single strategic planning framework.
• Lack of effective coordination mechanisms at national, local and global levels to create synergies and coordinated action.

Thus, even though there are very good intentions and instruments for protecting the environment through international agreements, at an implementation level, the effectiveness is much less than desired.

5.5.3 Legal dimension

Environmental law is a key instrument of social regulation, establishing norms of behavior and machinery to enforce. Idea/input for a new law or regulation stems from the international conventions and agreements or from local necessities and contingencies. The goals of environmental law are as follows:

• Protection of cultural and aesthetic environment
• Conservation of natural resources
• Rehabilitation of deteriorated environments
• Management of the resources
• Improvement of environmental components
• Promotion of sustainable development

Legislation and norms are thus evolved for water, forests, rivers, wastelands, air, marine life, ocean, land, climate, wildlife, migratory species, wetlands, deserts, biodiversity, endangered species, mining and outer space.

5.6 MANAGING THE URBAN ENVIRONMENT

Urban environment is a predominantly manmade, built environment, away from the wilderness and pristine nature. There are various models of a city; concentric zones model, the Hoyt model, Harris & Ullman’s multiple node model are a few such models. A city has typically a business area, factory or industrial area, residential area for workers, middle class and upper class, and residential and/or industrial suburbs. Some cities have slums, underworld, ghettos, and immigrant settlements, ethnic settlements and commuters’ zone as in concentric zones.

High density of population is a defining characteristic of the urban environment. In 1950, there were only two cities with a population of more than 10 million residents: New York and London. By 1975, six more cities became 10 million plus: Tokyo, Shanghai, Los Angeles, Mexico city, Sao Paulo and Brasilia. By 2010, more than 50 cities became 10 million plus. Urbanization progressed along with economic development. Urban environment consists of resources, processes and effects. The processes are transportation, manufacturing, construction, civic services (sanitation, waste disposal, water supply, power supply), health and education. The effects are both positive and negative. The negative effects are pollution, congestion, crowding, waste, crimes, etc. Positive effects are better education facilities, sports, arts, health, more job opportunities and urban lifestyle.

Urban centers have three components: built environment, natural environment and socio-economic environment. Interaction of these three constitutes the urban environment. Another way of describing is that a city has a unique hardware (buildings, roads, rail, port, gardens and tanks) and software (habits, ethics, rules, mores and behaviors), and all of these are a city’s resources. The physical, political, social, economic and ecological aspects of an urban environment are different from those of the local environment.

Urban environment is an open ecological system. City gets its raw materials, water, fuel, minerals, etc., from outside—local areas or other cities or towns. City sends out ideas, innovations, arts and products to local areas. City may also send out waste, polluted air and water to outside areas. City and countryside are connected systems of energy and material flows, and a city cannot flourish without the countryside to support it.

5.6.1 Urban environmental problems

The scale and nature of urban environmental problems vary at four levels: household level, community level, city as a whole and national/global level. Urban environmental problems common to most cities in the developing world are listed as follows:

• Air pollution—more heat, noise, particulates and smog
• Heat island formation due to built-up area, roads and less trees
• Buildings create local wind tunnels, obstruct air flow and cause shading
• Since the soil is covered, organisms die due to the weight of buildings
• Pavements and roads prevent infiltration, which causes flooding
• Hard built-up surfaces prevent evaporation from the soil, and hence result in less cooling
• Crowded settlements due to rising cost of land
• Breakdown of communities and anonymity breed crime and deviancy
• Slums develop through illegal occupation of public land
• Inadequate water and sanitation facilities
• Lowered resistance to many diseases
• Many people live in unsafe locations near to industries, open drains and waste dumps
• High energy consumption
• High traffic intensity
• Nightlife/24-hour society with many recreation avenues
• Impersonal, superficial, transient human relations
• Monetization of services, trading and retail
• Fashion for identity
• Nontraditional employment in industries, ports, transport, etc., often unionized, developing sub-cultures
• Cities are responsible for 75 per cent GHG emissions.

5.6.2 Solving urban environmental problems

Clean water supply, waste management, noise pollution, GHG emission, high levels of road traffic, less quality green spaces, crowded housing, etc., are some of the environmental issues that are commonly observed in a city. The measures to improve the situation are to be multi-sectoral, multi-actor, multi-system and multi-level oriented. Different cities employ different measures, incorporating a few or many aspects of this multi-pronged approach. For example, the city of Amsterdam uses a local land use plan as a tool that has the following elements:

• Regulation of noise and hazards
• Enforcement of location policy
• Environmental zoning around industries and institutions
• Environmental performance system quantified in an environmental performance level

Building permits are granted only after obtaining the required performance level, selecting from a list of 17 measures. For several forms of environmental nuisance (e.g., soil pollution, sound nuisance and industrial hazard), statutory protection standards have been laid down. To get building permit, a developer has to achieve a minimum performance level by choosing from among the mitigation measures classified into themes like mobility, noise nuisance, sustainable building, energy, waste, water/green space, with a total score of 47. Thus, spatial planning and rigorous enforcement on the activities in a city (e.g., building houses, infrastructure and industry) improve the environmental impacts such as pollution, land removal, loss of nature, changing groundwater table, industries hazards, etc.

Adjusting the resource and energy price policy, adjusting the charge policy of waste discharge, adjusting the environmental protection investment and credit policy, developing clean energy sources for a city, setting up city green ecological systems and treating the sources of old pollution are a few other measures being tried in many other cities. Removing and/or transforming the existing pollutant discharging units in a city, focusing on reducing the discharge of atmospheric or soil pollutant and energy use within a limited time are the important measures that will enhance the environmental quality in the existing polluted cities. City green ecological system as a measure focuses on improving the greenery of road, park, residential area, squares, etc., with yearly targets of green area in square meters achieved by planting trees and constructing parks. Success models and effective measures are available; it is only for the significant actors in the city governance and development need to act fast for improving the city environment.

5.7 MANAGING THE LOCAL ENVIRONMENT

Local areas are characterized by traditional employment where workers engaged in agriculture are more than 75 per cent of the total male workforce and the density of population is low. Environmental problems in local areas are different from those of urban areas. Soil health depletion, soil erosion, desertification, salinization, low agricultural productivity, chemical farming, insufficient clean drinking water, encroachment to forests, biodiversity depletion due to monoculture and burning of fuel wood and agriculture residues are some of the environmental problems. Increasing local to urban migration even in a predominantly agricultural country like India is evident from the growth of towns as given in Table 5.1.

All non-urban ecosystems such as local farms, forests, wastelands, pasturelands and waterbodies share the local characteristics. Urbanization of local areas is a great threat to local ecosystems due to growth in population, globalization of lifestyles and expansion of market economy. Modernization paradigm with application of science and technology, capital investments to increase the productivity and command of outsiders (state, NGOs, big organizations) in the development process impacted the social, economic and ecological environments. The political process led to the decline of local institutions and trust in the community. New law has replaced customary law and local rights. CPRs were nationalized or taken over by the government and local development agencies. This was followed by cooperative movement in the 1960s, self-help group movement in the 1980s and social inclusion movement in the 1990s. This phase was succeeded by corporate social responsibility (CSR) movement by the corporate firms reaching out to the local areas to augment the resource systems. Now, corporate environmental responsibility (CER) is taking roots for safeguarding the resource flows.

Since the environmental realities are local, complex, dynamic, unpredictable, interdependent and diverse, context-specific indigenous knowledge is valuable in addressing the local environmental issues. Instead of the top-down approach of the management, a bottom-up approach will result in appropriate solutions, as each habitat and ecosystem has a specific reality different from another.

5.7.1 Reversal of top-down to bottom-up learning

Reversals in learning are a perspective consisting of a range of actions for outsiders to change the ways they learn about the people of a location and their conditions. The elements of this approach are as follows:

• Put first the realities, knowledge, resources, technologies and places of local and indigenous people.
• Recognizes, starts from and works with the local people’s knowledge, farming practices, crafts, abilities and experiments.
• Starts with local people’s experiences, expectations, weaknesses, isolation, vulnerability and powerlessness.

The approach includes spending more time with the community and reducing the importance of an outsider over the local person. Participatory rural appraisal (PRA) is a family of approaches, methods and behaviors that enable people in local areas to express and analyze the realities of their lives and conditions, to plan themselves what action to take, and to monitor and evaluate the results, which essentially embody reversals in learning. The approach is originally applied to rural settings, but later applied to slums, colonies, towns, etc. Learning takes place from the local people at the spot. This is different from the survey approach where learning commences after assemblage.

Conventional methods of learning through survey methods by outsiders (local developers, slum developers) proposing their preconceived ideas to the local people are risky, in the sense that all the conditions of the lives of local people, the inter-linkages, traditional knowledge and technologies might be sidelined. However, reversals in learning put the local people first. Being the primary stakeholders, they are facilitated to plan for actions to improve their conditions combining traditional and scientific knowledge. Hence, the different development actions like natural resource management, agriculture, livelihood security, health and nutrition, sanitation, housing, education, participatory monitoring and evaluation that are required for the sustainable development of an area need the primary stakeholders’ ownership of the plan and implementation process for its sustainability. Reversal in learning leads to empowerment of the people at the bottom layers of the pyramid, thereby they acquire the capability to understand, analyze and effectively respond to the situations affecting their lives and livelihoods. When the population numbers are plotted in several development indices, larger numbers in any society are at the bottom as depicted in Figure 5.4. This approach can help the local people to employ new ways of identifying solutions to their problems than by a top-down methodology of problem solving which may not be appropriate to the context in all areas, and hence is non-sustainable. If local people begin to realize that there are ways in which their effort can make a difference, they feel more powerful and are better able to contribute to the development process.

Sustainable rural development requires shifts in approaches including reversals from top-down to bottom-up, from centralized standardization to local diversity and from blueprint to learning process. A process of learning from local physical, technical and social knowledge and further learning through the experience of action is essential, since sustainable development not only entails economic development but also integrates with social and cultural development with sustainable use of resources.

5.7.2 Participatory local appraisal

Participatory local appraisal (PRA) is an approach emphasizing local knowledge that enables local people to make their own analysis, appraisal and plans for participatory development initiatives. PRA uses group animation and exercises to facilitate information sharing, analysis, praxis and action among the stakeholders. The purpose of PRA is to enable development practitioners, government officials, local people and others to work together to plan context-appropriate programs.

Hundreds of PRA tools have been developed over the years in many settings by different practitioners for various projects or studies. PRA is an exercise in communication, transfer of knowledge and learning by doing. The tools can be divided into a few categories as follows:

• Sampling: transect walks, wealth ranking, social mapping
• Group dynamics: learning contracts, role reversals, feedback sessions
• Interviewing: focus group discussions, triangulation, semi-structured interviews
• Visualization: Venn diagrams, matrix scoring, timelines
• Planning: mapping and modeling, preference ranking, seasonal and historical diagramming (trend analysis), secondary data reviews
• Monitoring: sociogram

The tools given above are the commonly used PRA tools and there are many variants practiced with different names. A series of open meetings generally frame the sequence of PRA activities. A typical PRA activity involves a team of people working together for a few weeks in workshop discussions, analyses and field work, often combining different tools depending on the topic, in order to stimulate discussion and enthusiasm. Different tools such as maps and models are used in the beginning, followed by transect walks and wealth ranking, all with the objective of mobilizing the local people and the primary stakeholders to understand their reality. The reality has time and space; the current situation can be shown to the participants by maps and models, but subsequent seasonal and historical diagramming exercises can reveal changes and trends for a single year or for several years. From group exercises, the participatory process proceeds to individual-level interactions and then back to group-level ones, depending on the context. Preference ranking is a good icebreaker in the beginning of a group interview and helps focus the discussion that can develop into a focus group discussion. Later, individual interviews can follow on the different preferences among the group members and the reasons for their differences, in order to identify and agree on the priorities for action.

PRA tools help to achieve the objectives of the participatory development projects on account of their key tenets given below.

• Participation: Local people’s input into PRA activities from planning onwards is essential for local ownership of development projects.
• Team work: Local people have local perspective and knowledge of the area’s conditions, traditions and social structure, whereas the development practitioners have technical expertise, sociological or managerial background and experience, and this complementarity of perspectives, knowledge and skills as a team represents the diversity of socio-economic, cultural, gender, generational and technological perspectives. In his book “Small is Beautiful,” E. F. Schumacher describes the importance of local knowledge and perspectives in development.
• Flexibility: The combination of tools appropriate in a particular development context depending on time and the resources available can lead to flexible project designs.
• Triangulation: PRA works with qualitative data using at least three sources or techniques to investigate a topic, which gives a holistic approach to development projects.
• Optimal ignorance: To be efficient in terms of both time and money, PRA works gather just enough information to make the necessary decisions, and hence, the time taken from project formulation to project implementation can be shorter.

PRA tools enable and empower communities to design management plans and projects with the help of multidisciplinary teams of technicians in a multi-tier process. This participatory development approach starts with awareness creation about local realities, triggering self-reflection and praxis, and trust building, and proceeds to collaborative diagnosis, community organization, plan design, implementation of plans, participatory monitoring and adaptive management. These steps encourage local solutions to local problems or integrate local knowledge with scientific knowledge in development projects, and work for empowering people to manage the natural resources and projects in not only a sustainable way but also in an acceptable way.

PRA minimizes conflicts from the primary stakeholders at all stages of project implementation as the PRA tools first raise the awareness and build trust. The project will eventually be owned by the community as they were involved in its planning, design and monitoring, which ensures sustainability. Projects complete on time with least leakages or inefficiencies, as local monitoring ensures effective use of the resources.

PRA aims at self-organization of the people of a community. It is a process of becoming aware of the realities and resources, collective self-reflection, building up capacity, progressive knowledge, sense of ownership and praxis. It allows the potential and enthusiasm inherent in the human beings to grow, thereby they learn to change and enjoy the change to more advanced social stages.

5.7.3 Participatory management

Participatory management is the practice of empowering all the stakeholders of a project or an organization, including those who do not usually speak up, ensuring that each one participates in decisions. In participatory management, the team leader still has the final responsibility for ensuring that the decisions made are as per the real needs of the members of the organization or stakeholders of the project who are affected by those decisions, after actively seeking and facilitating observations, analysis, suggestions and recommendations of everyone in the decision-making process. Participation in the management of natural resources helps in the following ways:

• Empowerment of stakeholders to take action, leading to improved self-reliance
• Improved public accountability
• Improved information provision for strategic planning at different levels
• Better understanding of the realities, and therefore, more realistic, appropriate and location-specific plans are formed; opportunity of pooling local resources for collective action
• Timely identification of bottlenecks in carrying out the activities as planned; so, timely adjustments to plans, schedules and/or budgets can be made
• Information to convince others of the merits of one’s efforts
• Encourages institutional reform towards more participatory structures
• Better working environment as learning by doing and learning from mistakes eases performance fears
• Better programs and therefore more locally appropriate development, using natural resources
• Less wastage of money and time

Since natural resources’ availability is a need for the local people who have local knowledge, their participation ensures the most appropriate and sustainable use of the natural resources, which is an objective of development—planned directed social change.

5.8 CORPORATE ENVIRONMENT RESPONSIBILITY

Does a business firm have responsibility towards the natural environment apart from the business environment? Why should businesses be held responsible for the natural environment? How is CER different from the more widely known CSR?

Business firms impact the environment by polluting it, degrading it, depleting the natural resources and defacing it by throwing wastes into it either directly or indirectly. The ill-effects of the above actions by the business firms are borne by the entire community. Why should the entire community bear the effects of the actions of a few business firms, when the benefits in the form of profits are not shared with all? The external costs of ameliorating the ill-effects on the environment from the actions of a business are not generally internalized. CER is the process of assuming responsibility of the pollution and degradation of the environment done by businesses, and is a step towards full internalization of the externalities.

It is different from CSR where the initiatives are usually in the fields of educating the local people, providing health care, supporting women’s development, contributing to local or agricultural development and taking all the initiatives to improve the standards of living of people, which is in the nature of social development. CSR stems from the understanding that society nurtures a business by buying the products it produces, and hence, business owes a responsibility to the society, apart from delighting the stakeholders of the business.

The CER initiatives are in the form of reducing the waste, reducing energy use, conducting energy audit, contributing towards greening a public place, nurturing forests, conducting tree planting programs, cleaning the waterbodies, promoting the use of recycled materials, reducing pollution, public display of monitoring results of air samples in the area, adopting environmental management system (EMS), International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 14001 system, etc., all of which are aimed at preserving the environment or enhancing the quality of the natural environment.

5.9 CONCEPTS OF GOOD ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Good environmental management by the business firms or by the governmental or non-governmental agencies should focus on certain principles for effectiveness. They are discussed below.

5.9.1 Integration

It is a code of practice for ensuring that environmental considerations are fully integrated into all development and business initiatives, into all stages of the development/business process to achieve a balance between conservation and development. There will be a unity of purpose by unifying all management or development plans integrating into one goal. This approach brings together all sections of people, sectors, perspectives and resources into one plan and one goal throughout the life cycle of a program.

5.9.2 Cooperation

All the parties or agencies or individuals involved share ideas, resources, time and concerns, so that the objectives or the shared goal is achieved without conflicts of interest. There will not be cross purposes in action.

5.9.3 Coordination

A harmonious system is created, so that the action of different actors moves in unison and the action of one agent or individual complements and supports the other. Common norms and standards are developed that lead to performance.

5.9.4 Participation

Inclusion of all stakeholders’ voices/actions/ideas at all stages of a development process is participation. This results in ownership of plans, actions and processes by the key stakeholders. The interactive/democratic process of participation leads to acceptance of the processes, goals and actions by all, and thus, implementation hurdles would be less. There are different levels of participation, depending upon how much role everyone has in decision making.

5.9.5 Adaptive management

Redesigning a program/project in the next generation/cycle of policy process based on the constructive use of lessons learnt from experience is the principle of adaptive management. Both success and failure lessons are considered. It is a sequential/evolutionary cycle approach to any project management.

Significant learning for management

Environment itself offers many windows of business opportunities with rising environmental consciousness among consumers and the general public. Availability of technological options to conserve energy, and water, increase the efficiency in raw material use, reduce waste, etc., are strategic opportunities for businesses to cut costs and to gain sustainable competitive advantages. While planning to tap any window of business opportunity in the environmental sector, it is prudent to understand the different dimensions of environmental management for robustness of the strategy. Addressing the urban and local environmental problems also offers many green business opportunities.

Apart from the business opportunities the rising environmental awareness offers to firms, it is in the long-term interest of firms to take proactive steps to be on the right side of the environment, subscribing strongly to an environmental ethics. CER has become an imperative for firms to make their products and services acceptable to discerning consumers, whose attitudes to environment will be varied such as biocentric, ecocentric or enlightened anthropocentric. The principles of good environmental management such as participation, integration, coordination, cooperation and adaptive management are significant in shaping an excellent environmental strategy by the organizations.

Questions for discussion and reflection

1. Why should a business firm be concerned about the local environmental problems?
2. What factors would motivate business firms to adopt technological solutions to reduce their environmental impact?
3. What is environmental ethics? How is it applicable to business firms?
4. What are the characteristic features of participatory management? How is it different from the other types of management?
5. How are PRA tools different from the other planning and implementation tools used in management, such as SWOT (Strength, Weakness Opportunities, Threats) analysis, scenario planning, gap analysis, PESTEL (Political, Economic, Social, Technological, Ecological, Legal) framework, Delfi technique, etc.?

Exercises for better understanding

1. Identify and make a list of the common goods present in your city or town, such as a park, lake, avenue, etc.
2. Make a diagrammatic representation of the appropriators and providers of a resource system (air, wood lot, park, lake, groundwater) in an urban area (the city or town in which you live or nearest to your home).
3. Identify the mechanism through which restraint is put on overexploitation of a common resource system in an urban area.
4. Identify the most important environmental issue of your town or neighborhood. Make a web search and find out technical solutions to this environmental issue. Then assess why these technical solutions are not implemented from the political, economic and social perspectives.
5. Prepare a state of the environment report (SER) for the town or city you live by taking into consideration all aspects of the environment like economic, political, social, historical, cultural and physical components.

Project (an activity to help conserve our common resources)

1. Select one significant or important general environmental law of the country (e.g., Forest Conservation Act or Air Act or Water Act or Biodiversity Act) and learn the different aspects and clauses of this legislation individually.
2. Understand and map the events and the background leading to this legislation in the country.
3. Identify the machinery and mechanism for the implementation of this law.
4. Assess the current status of its implementation, and also the effectiveness of the law.
5. Divide the class or staff in the organization into eight groups. Each group should learn about the aspects of the law and its implementation challenges from the perspective or dimension of economic, political, social, ethical, technological, local and urban aspects and good environmental management.
6. Each group may make a presentation about their selected dimension of the implementation of the law and debate about addressing the challenges for effective implementation.
7. The general recommendations of the debate in the class be codified by a small group, and this can be sent as a suggestion to the Department of Environment or Department of Forests and Pollution Control Board of the state.