Introduction to

Environmental


Management


Subtopics
▪ The evolution of environmental management
▪ The definition and scope of environmental
management
▪ Problems and opportunities
▪ Criticism of environmental management
▪ The establishment of environmental management
 The evolution of environmental management

I. Prehistoric People
• accumulated know-how and developed strategies for exploiting nature
• to help regulate resource use people evolved taboos, superstitions and common rights,
formulated laws to improve stewardship, and even undertook national resource inventories

II. Pre-modern People

• some managed to sustain reasonable lifestyles for long periods
• with populations a fraction of today’s, prehistoric people, using fire and weapons of flint,
bone, wood and leather, managed to alter the vegetation of most continents and probably to
wipe out many species of large mammals

III. Late 20th century

• global pollution; loss of biodiversity; soil degradation; and urban growth.
• The challenges are great, but there have been advances in understanding the structure and
function of the environment, in monitoring impacts, data handling and analysis, modelling,
assessment, and planning.
• It is the role of environmental management to co-ordinate and focus such developments, to
improve human well-being, and mitigate or prevent further damage to the Earth and its
organisms.
• 1830s onward - Technological optimism apparent in the west and expressed in
natural resources management
• As early as the 1930s - integrated or comprehensive regional planning and
management had been undertaken with the establishment of river basin
bodies
• After 1945 - faltered a little as awareness of environmental problems grew
• Before the 1970s - Limited efforts were made to ensure natural resources
exploitation was integrated with social and economic development; Urban and
regional planning also have some roots in holistic, ecosystem approaches
(things which have more recently attracted those interested in environmental
management)
• General acceptance that economic development and environmental issues
should not be approached separately came somewhere between 1972 (the
UN Conference on the Human Environment, Stockholm) and 1992 (the UN
Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro—the ‘Earth
Summit’).
• By the early 1990s - natural resources management had given way, as Wisner
(1990) observed, perhaps unfairly, to ‘a murky philosophical plunge’ towards
environmental management.
Natural resources management

• in contrast with environmental management, is more concerned with

specific components of the Earth—resources—which have utility and
can be exploited, mainly for short-term gain and the benefit of special-
interest groups, companies or governments.
• responses to problems tend to be reactive, and often rely on quick-fix
technological means and a project-by-project approach.
• Natural resources managers have often been drawn from a limited
range of disciplines, typically with little sociological and limited
environmental expertise.
• Their management can be authoritarian and may fail to involve the
public; they also tend to miss off-site and delayed impacts.
• Because of these failings natural resources management has lost
ground to environmental management in the last 40 years or so.
Environmental management
• has, or is developing, a more flexible and sensitive style
than natural resources management: assessment of a
situation leading to an appropriate approach, emphasising
stewardship rather than exploitation.
• Stewardship implies the management of something with
the goal of long-term careful use and sustainable benefit.
• The focus of such an approach to environmental
management is multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, or
holistic, and the style precautionary and participatory.
• the aim is to promote sustainable development
Multidisciplinary versus Interdisciplinary
Approach

Multidisciplinary approach - draws upon various disciplines

for information, analytical skills and insight, but does not
seek an integrated understanding

Interdisciplinary approach - draws upon common themes

and goes beyond close collaboration between different
specialists to attempt integration, and is very difficult
because it involves blending differently derived concepts.
Environmental managerialism versus Environmental
management

‘Environmental managerialism’ - Present-day environmental

management which pays insufficient attention to human-
environment interaction, has become institutionalized, and is
essentially a state- centred process concerned with formulating and
implementing laws, policies and regulations which relate to the
environment.

Environmental management
• as a subject, it is used for real-world problems and consequently
managerialism and other shortcomings may creep in.
• is currently evolving and is far from being fixed in form.
Environmental management
• whatever its approach, is related to, overlaps, and
has to work with environmental planning.
• The focus is on implementation, monitoring and
auditing; on practice and coping with real-world
issues (like modifying human habits that damage
nature), rather than theoretical planning
• a close integration with environmental planning is
desirable
• is a field of study dedicated to understanding
human-environment interactions and the application
of science and common sense to solving problems.
 The definition and scope of environmental management
Why is there no concise universal definition of environmental management?

Environmental management displays the following characteristics:

• it is often used as a generic term;
• it supports sustainable development;
• it deals with a world affected by humans (there are few, if any, wholly natural
environments today);
• it demands a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach;
• it has to integrate different development viewpoints;
• it seeks to integrate science, social science, policy making and planning;
• it recognizes the desirability of meeting, and if possible exceeding basic human
needs;
• the timescale involved extends beyond the short term, and concern ranges from
local to global;
• it should show opportunities as well as address threats and problems;
• it stresses stewardship, rather than exploitation.
Environmental management
• there is a wide diversity of beliefs ranging from anthropocentric to ecocentric
• towards greater emphasis on social aspects, perhaps to move the field closer to
human geography to ensure that it is not divorced from key issues of human-
environment interaction
• must do three things:
(1) identify goals - Environmental managers may have to identify goals, and then
win over the public and special-interest groups; is seldom easy: a society may
have no clear idea of what it needs.
(2) establish whether these can be met;
(3) develop and implement the means to do what it deems possible.

(2) and (3) require the environmental manager to interface with ecology,
economics, law, politics, people, etc., to co-ordinate development.
Some definitions of environmental management
1. An approach which goes beyond natural resources management to encompass
the political and social as well as the natural environment...it is concerned with
questions of value and distribution, with the nature of regulatory mechanisms
and with interpersonal, geographic and intergenerational equity
2. Formulation of environmentally sound development strategies.
3. An interface between scientific endeavour and policy development and
implementation
4. The process of allocating natural and artificial resources so as to make optimum
use of the environment in satisfying basic human needs at the minimum, and
more if possible, on a sustainable basis
5. Seeking the best possible environmental option to promote sustainable
development
6. Seeking the best practicable environmental option (BPEO), generally using the
best available techniques not entailing excessive cost (BATNEEC) (based on
two widely used environmental management acronyms).
7. The control of all human activities which have a significant impact on the
environment.
8. Management of the environmental performance of organizations, bodies and
companies
 A decision-making process which regulates the impact of human activities on
the environment in such a manner that the capacity of the environment to sustain
human development will not be impaired
 Environmental management cannot hope to master all of the issues and
environmental components it has to deal with. Rather, the environmental
manager’s job is to study and try to control processes to try and reach particular
objectives
 Environmental management—a generic description of a process undertaken
by systems-oriented professionals with a natural science, social science, or less
commonly, an engineering, law, or design background, tackling problems of the
human-altered environment on an interdisciplinary basis from a quantitative
and/or futuristic viewpoint.
Note:
• At stage 1 the public or a developer
may not have a clear idea of needs
or goals, so the environmental
manager may need to establish
these.
• Increasingly, stages 1, 2 and 3 are
influenced by broad strategic
policies, and are accountable to
public scrutiny (as is stage 5).
• Ideally, lessons learnt at every stage
should be passed on to improve
future environmental management
• the evaluation of stages 4 and 5 is
especially valuable for future
management.
Problems and opportunities

• Often considerable effort and much money is expended treating

symptoms of a problem but not the causes, which may be difficult
to identify and lie well away (in space or time), along a chain of
causation.
• The risk of making this sort of mistake should be reduced by the
adoption of a careful approach.
• Even if such an approach can be used, there is a risk that
management will be based on ‘snapshot’ views, so it is important to
use broad-view, long-term and, if possible, gap-free monitoring and
auditing to try to reduce this risk.
Environmental management will need to modify the ethics of individuals, groups and
societies to achieve its goals. There are three main approaches:
1. Advisory
 through education;
 through demonstration (e.g. model farms or factories);
 through the media (overt or covert approaches—the latter includes ‘messages’
incorporated in entertainment);
 through advice (leaflets, drop-in shops, helplines, etc.).
2. Economic or fiscal
 through taxation (‘green’ taxes);
 through grants, loans, aid;
 through subsidies;
 through quotas or trade agreements.
3 . Regulatory
 through standards;
 through restrictions and monitoring;
 through licensing;
 through zoning (restricting activities to a given area).
MAIN PROBLEM: The goal of sustainable development is not fully
formed and its fundamental concepts are still debated.

Sustainable development, like environmental management, is not easily defined.

• called for the maintenance of essential ecological processes; the preservation
of biodiversity; and sustainable use of species and ecosystems.
• The Brundtland Report, Our Common Future (World Commission on
Environment and Development, 1987), placed it on the world’s political
agenda and helped rekindle public interest in the environment.
• spread the messages that global environmental management was needed; and
that without a reduction of poverty ecosystem damage would be difficult to
counter.
• Environmental management is thus clearly interrelated with socioeconomic
development.
• 20 years after the World Conservation Strategy the same three bodies
published Caring for the Earth (IUCN, UNEP and WWF, 1991), which
proposed principles intended to help move from theory to practice.
Some definitions of sustainable development
1. Environmental care ‘married’ to development.
2. Improving the quality of human life while living within the carrying
capacity of supporting ecosystems.
3. Development based on the principle of inter-generational (i.e.
bequeathing the same or improved resource endowment to the future
that has been inherited), inter-species and inter-group equity.
4. Development that meets the needs of the present without compromising
the ability of future generations to meet their own needs.
5. An environmental ‘handrail’ to guide development.
6. A change in consumption patterns towards more benign products, and a
shift in investment patterns towards augmenting environmental capital.
7. A process that seeks to make manifest a higher standard of living
(however interpreted) for human beings...that recognizes this cannot be
achieved at the expense of environmental integrity.
Other Problems:
1. misuse of sustainable development language by the media, politicians, activists
and commerce that poses a problem: some academics and environmental
managers are careless. Care is needed to ensure that sustainable development is
a realistic objective based on workable strategy.
2. Environmental problems often do not have a single simple solution. Their
solution presents alternatives and challenges; environmental management
therefore faces dilemmas:
a. Ethical dilemmas—e.g. what to conserve—Inuit hunters or whales?
b. Efficiency dilemmas—e.g. how much environmental damage is acceptable?
c. Equity dilemmas—e.g. who benefits from environmental management
decisions, and who pays?
d. Liberty dilemmas—e.g. to what degree must people be restricted to protect the
environment?
e. Uncertainty dilemmas—e.g. how to choose a course of action without adequate
knowledge or data?
f. Evaluation dilemmas— e.g. how to compare different effects of various options
or actions?
3. Human beings often respond to perceived crisis, rather than
carefully assessing the situation and acting to prevent problems.
4. With sustainable development as a central goal, crisis management
is a dangerous practice, for, once manifest, problems may not be
easily solved and could jeopardize sustainability. What is then the
solution?
5. Decision making is often affected by ‘polarized perceptions’ (ideas
based more on stakeholders’ prejudice, misconception or greed than
objectivity). Even if the environmental manager is objective,
powerful special-interest groups (e.g. the rich; government ministers;
lobby groups; non-governmental organizations (NGOs), industry, the
military) may not be. Problems are often caused by sovereignty or
strategic arguments which threaten common-sense decisions and
make transboundary issues difficult to resolve. What should
environmental managers do?
Environmental managers are increasingly likely to face:
• an unproven threat;
• transboundary or global challenges;
• problems demanding rapid decisions;
• an increasing exchange of information with NGOs via the
internet and various other networks. This means that environmental
managers must keep abreast of the activities of many bodies (it also
offers possibilities for alliances, and data gathering from different
sources).
Who are environmental managers?
• government agencies (e.g. the European Environmental
Agency), international bodies and aid organizations (like
the UNEP, FAO, World Bank, USAID, etc.)
• research institutes (e.g. the Worldwatch Institute, IIED,
etc.)
• NGOs (e.g. WWF, IUCN, Friends of the Earth, etc.)
• the public
What motivates environmental management?
  Pragmatic reasons—fear or common sense makes people or administrators
seek to avoid a problem.
2  Desire to save costs—it may be cheaper to avoid problems or counter
them than suffer the consequences (pollution, litigation, etc.). There may also
be advantages in waste recovery, energy conservation, and maintaining
environmental quality.
3  Compliance—individuals, local government, companies, states, etc., may
be required by laws, national or international agreement to care for the
environment.
4  Shift in ethics—research, the media, individuals or groups of activists may
trigger new attitudes, agreements or laws.
5  Macro-economics—promotion of environmental management may lead to
economic expansion: a market for pollution control equipment, use of
recovered waste, more secure and efficient energy and raw materials supply;
or there may be advantages in ‘internalizing externalities’
Criticism of environmental management
1. The problem of its definition
2. It is prescriptive and insufficiently analytical.
3. It involves subjective judgement as well as scientific enquiry, and
is as much an art as a science.
4. It is the approach to environmental management that causes
offence—some over-zealous efforts have been tantamount to ‘eco-
fascism’ .
5. Too often environmental management is pursued as a reactive,
piecemeal approach, working on projects that have environmental
objectives or components designed to mitigate, rather than avoid,
environmental impacts.
6. Environmental management must go beyond monitoring and
reacting and adopt a longer term view than has been the case with
most planners and politicians.
The establishment of environmental management
1. The public in an increasing number of countries have become environmentally aware
and unwilling to trust government and corporations to protect the environment. This has
largely grown out of their witnessing accidents, misuse of resources, and from concern
about ecological threats.
2. NGOs, international agencies, business and governments have started to pursue
environmental management.
3. The media monitor and report on environmental issues.
4. International conferences, agreements and declarations have publicized issues
and supported environmental management.
5. The establishment in 1973 of the UN Environment Programme (UNEP).
6. The 1969 US National Environmental Protection Act (passed 1970) and the creation of
the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970.
7. Publications in North America and Europe which raised environmental concern after
the mid-1960s.
8. The development of green politics since the 1970s.
9. Aid and funding agencies in the late 1970s began to require environmental assessments
and environmental management before supporting development.
10. The Brundtland Report (World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987)
increased awareness of the need for environmental care.
Main principles of environmental management are prudence
and stewardship. These are pursued via:
• forward-looking, broad-view policy making and
planning (mainly left to various planners to undertake);
• establishing standards and rules, monitoring and
auditing;
• co-ordination (the environmental manager adopting a
multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary or holistic approach);
• operationalization/implementation.
New branches of environmental management:
•  environmental law;
•  green business;
•  impact, risk and hazard assessment;
•  total quality management (TQM), which has led to
total environmental quality management;
•  environmental standards;
•  eco-auditing;
•  environmental management systems.