- Email: [email protected]
How do we know when we have done enough to protect the environment?
Marine Pollution Bulletin, Vol. 29, Nos 6-12, pp. 593-598, 1994
~
Pergamon
Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0025-326X/94 $7.00+ 0.00
0025-326X(95)00155-3
How Do We Know When We Have Done Enough to Protect the Environment? LARS LANDNER Swedish Environmental Research Group ( MFG ), Gdtgatan 35, S-116 21 Stockholm, Sweden
The changing concepts and challenges that the process industry has to face in relation to environmental protection are discussed. The original requirements on industry to reduce emissions of contaminants through the installation of filters and waste water treatment facilities or through process modifications and introduction of 'clean production' strategies were mainly based on economic and technical considerations rather than on an effort to avoid environmental impacts. The introduction of concepts such as 'assimilative capacity of the environment' and 'critical load' provided useful instruments for setting effect-related emission standards, resulting in acceptable environmental protection. However, the actual requirement for 'sustainability' has forced industry to focus not only on controlling emissions of contaminants and pollutants, but to take a global environmental approach, including the choice of raw materials and energy sources, recycling and re-utlizafion of wastes and to take responsibility for the fate of their products, during their whole lifecycle.
How do we know when we have done enough to protect the environment? Before trying to answer this question, it might be necessary to put it into perspective, and to investigate the relationship between human activities-more precisely activities of the process industry--and the biophysical world or the environment. It might even be pertinent to put this relationship into a historical perspective, as our concepts and perceptions of the relationship between humans and nature, and of the integration of environmental management with economic development are now in a period of large-scale change. Evolution o f P a r a d i g m s o f Environmental M a n a g e m e n t in D e v e l o p m e n t Over the last 5 years, the concept of 'sustainable development' has been increasingly discussed by industry, but there is still a great deal of confusion over what it really means and how to achieve it. The concept of what is economically and technologically practical, ecologically necessary and politically feasible are rapidly changing,
and so are the philosophies of human-nature relationships. In an elegant analysis of these conceptual changes, Colby (1991) has pointed out that five fundamental paradigms of environmental management in development can be identified (Fig. 1). Out of the traditional conflict between 'classical production economics' and 'deep ecology', new paradigms of 'environmental protection', 'resource management' and 'eco-development' are successively evolving, although there are several areas of overlap between them. Thus the progression from one paradigm to another is not a discrete event, and each encompasses several schools of thought, not always in complete agreement.
/l
T
.....
Fig. 1 Evolution of environment-development paradigms. Modified after Colby (1991).
Environmental Protection The first major change in philosophy occurred in the 1960s, when the traditional development optimism and the idea that humans can dominate nature was strongly challenged by several observations of severe environmental degradation. The latter included adverse effects on wildlife by pesticide accumulation, contamination of fish with methyl mercury, fish kills as a result of biological oxygen demand discharges and eutrophication of lakes. Pollution became widely recognized, particularly after the publication of Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), and only a few years later the first environmental legislation appeared. The environmental politics and management that developed during that period formed the beginning of 593
Marine PollutionBulletin the era of'environmental protection' (Table 1). It institutionalized an approach that focused on damage control, on setting limits to harmful activity. Rather than focusing on integrating development and ecology, this approach was inherently defensive or remedial in practice (Colby, 1991). The optimal pollution levels were defined mainly by technological feasibility and short-term economic acceptability, rather than by what was necessary for the maintenance of ecosystem resilience. The installation of tall chimneys and other contaminant dispersal devices was part of the strategy during the early years of the 'environmental protection' approach. The basic attitude was based on the strange idea of a deep separation between the technosphere and the environment; the general philosophy could be expressed as 'business as usual plus a treatment plant'. The 'environmental protection' paradigm is still today dominating the policies of companies and environmental authorities in most countries, although it has evolved a great deal since the early years, and elements from newer paradigms (see below) have started to influence thinking. One of the most important developments within the prevailing paradigm is the increasing weight that has been given to environmental effects, when setting discharge limits. The concept of 'the assimilative capacity of the environment' was introduced by the 1972 Stockholm Conference, and has later been developed in the context of marine pollution by GESAMP (1986). The use of this concept is based on the idea that the environment (in this instance, the marine environment) has a finite capacity to assimilate or accommodate contaminants, and that this capacity can be determined by scientific methods. A great deal of research has also been devoted to the determination of the assimilative capacity of various ecosystems being exposed to degradable organics or to increased concentrations of contaminants which also occur as natural substances. The limit of this capacity is defined by the 'critical load' of the contaminant in question. Among the first successful scientific advances in determining critical loads of substances which are both natural and contaminants were the establishment of the TABLE 1 Evolutionof paradigmsof environmentalmanagementin development (after Colby, 1991).
Classical productioneconomics:up to the 1960s Exploitation of 'infinite'natural resources Unregulatedwastedisposal Humans strive to dominatenature Environmental protection: 1965 to mid-1980s Ecologylegalizedas economic externality End of the pipe clean-upor cleanerproduction Remedial/defensiveapproach Humans and nature separated Resource management: mid-1980s to date
Ecologyeconomized--sustainability Global efficiency(energy,raw materials)recovery,saving Impact assessment,risk management,polluter pays Interdependenceof humans and nature Eco-development: coming up in the 1990s? Economy ecologized--indnstrialecology Ecological engineering, resource cycling Pollution prevention pays, uncertainty management Humans and nature co-developing, sophisticated symbiosis
594
Vollenweider models defining the highest permissible load of phosphorus and nitrogen on lakes, as a function of lake depth and flushing rate (Vollenweider, 1975). These models have played a fundamental role in lake management programmes for almost two decades (e.g. Unesco, 1986; Landner & Wahlgren, 1988). The critical load concept has also been found valuable for the development and implementation of control strategies for transboundary air pollutants (Forsius et al., 1992). It has been widely used in defining the highest permissible load of sulphur and nitrogen on soil ecosystems and on lakes (Nilsson & Grennfelt, 1988) and has had important implications for international agreements on reductions of atmospheric emissions of sulphur and nitrogen. For example, the critical loads of these two elements are exceeded in large parts of Scandinavia, which shows that emission control strategies based on the 'environmental protection' approach have not yet been successful in achieving ecosystem resilience. The development of methodologies for environmental hazard and risk assessment of both individual chemicals and complex industrial discharges has been extremely rapid during the last decade (see below). This new tendency of giving increasing emphasis to environmental effects and their avoidance is now developing further, and regulators are more and more focusing on communityand ecosystem-level endpoints (of. Cairns & McCormick, 1991). The development of effect-related discharge criteria has partly been driven by the institutionalization of environmental impact statements (EISs), although this new instrument in environmental management was not capable of breaking down the dichotomy of the technosphere vs the environment. Resource
Management
Concern about the limited availability of natural resources became an issue of debate in the early 1970s. An early landmark in the evolution of a new paradigm was the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et ai., 1972) and later important contributions were the World Conservation Strateoy (IUCN, 1980) and the World Charter for Nature (UN, 1982). However, it was not until the publication of the Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future in 1987 (WCED, 1987) that 'resource management' and 'sustainable development' were put on the political agenda. Although the philosophy behind 'sustainable development' was introduced in the report of the Stockholm Conference in 1972, it was the Brundtland Commission which initiated and launched a vigorous debate about resource management in development. Over the last 5 years, several new scientific journals have emerged, special issues of existing journals and many scientific meetings have dealt exclusively with 'sustainable development', and many articles have been published to clarify what is meant by sustainability, and even more importantly, how to recognize and achieve it in practice (Pezzey, 1992; Stedman and Hill, 1992; Redclift, 1993). Although the meaning of sustainability is still under debate, it can be said that the basic idea of the new "resource management' paradigm is to incorporate all
Volume 29/Numbers 6--12
types of capital and resources--biophysical, human, management, which may merge into a consistent system infrastructural and monetary--into calculations of of thoughts and structures (of. Riddell, 1981; Glaeser, national accounts, productivity and policies for develop- 1984) that might become the paradigm of the late 1990s. ment and investment planning (Colby, 1991). This 'Eco-development' would expand the boundaries of the approach to environmental management has also been system considered under 'resource management', and a called the 'global efficiency' paradigm (Sachs, 1988) and it 'biophysical economics' model of a thermodynamically strives to increase energy efficiency in particular and open economy embedded within the ecosystem would be resource conservation in general (Table 1). Central to this the result (Colby, 1991). Biophysical resources (energy, is the 'polluter pays' principle as a means of internalizing materials and ecological processing cycles) flow from the the social costs of pollution, rather than mandating ecosystem into the economy, and degraded (non-useful) particular clean-up technologies. Another example is the energy and other by-products (pollution) flow through to introduction of tradable emission permits. In essence, the ecosystem (Fig. 2). There is a change from 'polluter ecology is being given an economic dimension (Colby, pays' to 'pollution prevention pays', explicitly restructur1991). ing the economy according to ecological principles to 'Global commons' resources, such as the atmosphere reduce the throughput to sustainable levels (Colby, 1991). and its ozone layer in particular, climate, biodiversity and 'Eco-development' thus moves from 'economizing ecooceanic resources have emerged as issues for which the logy' to 'ecologizing the economy'. Key words in this existing legal, economic, political and institutional struc- context are 'ecological engineering', 'industrial ecology' tures and concepts are totally inadequate. This is why and resource cycling. Humans and nature are coseveral new initiatives in 'global commons' law have been developing, human activities must be reorganized to taken, such as the Montreal Protocol on ozone, the achieve synergism with ecosystem processes and services. agreement on the International Trade of Hazardous It should be pointed out that this is opposed to the back to Wastes and the Biodiversity Conservation Agreement. nature simple symbiosis advocated by 'deep ecologists'. Under this new paradigm, EISs have evolved as a useful instrument to encourage full consideration of energy, raw The Present Situation in Scandinavia materials and other resource issues at an early stage in the planning of new investments or expansion projects. It is valuable to put the current thinking and policy of the Scandinavian process industry' in the context of the above-described successive progression from one paraEco-development digm to another. The situation is not unambiguous, but it The paradigm regarding 'eco-development' has not yet is obvious that the 'environmental protection' attitude found its definite form or content, and its implications can from the 1960s still dominates. The principle aim of only be hypothesized. However, there are several promis- environmental policy is still to limit the effects of harmful ing concepts in current thinking about environmental activities, it still has a defensive character. Very few, if any,
UNIVERSE i
.lu
.hi
ill
ECOSYSTEM
ECONOMIC SYSTEM
DIRECT FOSSIL& ATOMI C FUELS~mm~ ~MATrER~jib' EGO-
SYSTEM SERVES '~ ~
HEAT I ~
.~1~
umm
I HOUSEHOLOS I HummProducfk~&Seev/ces
RADED .~ MmEelsES ~RW,
Fig. 2 Economic production seen from an eco-development perspective where the economic system resides 'inside' the ecosystem. Modified from Colby (1991).
595
Marine PollutionBulletin detailed attempts have been made in Scandinavia to integrate the economy and ecology, although important steps towards an improved 'resource management' have been taken. Taking the pulp and paper industry in Sweden as an example, the 'environmental protection' philosophy has been largely accepted in which the main policy is that the discharges should be reduced to a level where the environment is not damaged, and that this level can be determined by scientific methods. However, the industry has not accepted that an optimum environmental protection is necessarily achieved through the application of the best available technology or by an uncritical use of the principle of precautionary action. Many legal and regulatory innovations, such as the requirement to prepare EISs as a part of expansion projects, various economic incentives and the strong governmental support of international environmental conventions, have pushed the Swedish industry to take decisive steps towards the 'resource management' paradigm. This is also shown by an improved energy efficiency, the reduction in water consumption and the increased recovery and recycling of resources that the industry has undertaken. Lately, the reluctance of the Swedish process industry to accept costs for environmental protection mainly concerns two issues. Firstly, the time-scale for allocating costs for rehabilitation of large-scale damage or regional environmental risks, caused by the earlier 'classical production economics'. Secondly, the industry wants to distribute, in a more equitable and cost-effective way, the responsibility to pay for the remediation of such environmental threats that are caused by many factors, e.g. NO,, emissions. A pressure on industry that has grown significantly during the last 5 years is the environmental steering exercised by the market. The dynamics of this force thus depends on the growing environmental consciousness of the consumers. However, there is a risk in allowing the market or the consumers to fully steer the environmental management in a process industry, simply because even the enlighted consumers may not have access to the complete, and often complex, technical and scientific information needed. A couple of examples may illustrate this point. Consumers of paper products demand production without the use of chlorine-containing chemicals, and furthermore that a high proportion of secondary, recycled fibres should be used. The first issue has provoked passionate discussions between industry and consumer associations, but later resulted in an almost complete elimination of the use of chlorine gas as a bleaching chemical for sulphitc and kraft pulp. The pulp industry introduced major process modifications, such as extended cooking, oxygen delignification, new bleaching sequences using chlorine dioxide, hydrogen peroxide and ozone and improved process steering and control. These measures, together with secondary effluent treatment, reduced discharges of adsorbable organic halogen (AOX) from the previous level of 6-7 kg t - 1 of the pulp to around or below 1 kg t - 1. Thorough investigations of the environmental impacts of discharges from kraft pulp mills have demonstrated two important points: 596
1. Mills still using chlorine dioxide in their bleaching sequence are capable of producing effluents which, after realistic dilution in the receiving water, cause only very slight or no detrimental effects in the aquatic ecosystem (Landner et al., 1994; Tana et al., 1994). The main reason for this low impact probably is the efficient process control in modern mills, avoiding excessive dosage of chemicals, unstable production conditions and accidental spills. 2. Effluents from kraft mills without bleaching or where bleaching is carried out using non-chlorine-containing chemicals can provoke at least some of the biological effects that were previously regarded as 'typical' for effluents containing chlorinated organics (LindstrrmSeppa et al., 1992; Martel et al., 1992; Pesonen and Andersson, 1992; O'Connor et al., 1993; Lehtinen et al., 1993). Based on these results, it is not fully justifiable, from an environmental protection point of view, to follow the consumer's request to give highest priority to investments aiming at a complete elimination of chlorine dioxide in pulp bleaching. This is especially so as the alternative bleaching processes, now rapidly being introduced, have not yet been fully evaluated with respect to their environmental and resource management impacts. The second example relates to the requirement of using a high proportion of recycled fibres in paper products. The degree of recovery of cardboard, newsprint and journal paper in Sweden is higher than in, for example, Germany and the UK, but the share of recycled fibres in paper products is very low compared with other countries due to the dominant use of virgin fibres (Fig. 3). To increase this share in Sweden, it would be necessary to transport waste paper from the European continent, which might not be optimal from a resource management and environmental protection point of view.
Towards the Realization of E c o - d e v e l o p m e n t The general view remaining within the process industry today is to regard the production system, the economy, the plant or mill as clearly separated from the surrounding environment, the ecosystem and the waste-receiving media. The environment is somethinl~ external to the plant, for which industry has no direct responsibility, but with which the plant should not come into conflict. However, it might be appropriate to radically change perspectives, and to adopt a view which better corresponds with the currently evolving paradigms. In particular, in its mature form, 'coo-development' means an integration of economy, natural resources and ecology. This sort of new thinking may not be unfamiliar to the process industry because of its direct dependence on natural resources and their sustainable use. In fact, industry may even take a lead role in this process of change. That industry is prepared to do so is dearly indicated in a recent declaration by the ICC International Environmental Bureau, which says: 'Industry is a key mover of the agenda for change, and will have to play an increasingly important role in making sustainable development a reality. Technological cooperation, trade and environment, education and aware-
Volume 29/Numbers 6--12
Mton
B
Sweden
Germany
U.K.
[ ] Recycledfibers [ ] Virginfibers
%
I!
10090-
80: 7060-' 50-
m
40-'
Iil;i:ii!ill:ii
30:
Iiii iii
2010-"
m
m
M
0-"
? Germany
[ ] Cardboard
U.K.
[] Newspapers& journals
Fig. 3 (A) Raw materials in the production of paper and cardboard in Sweden, Germany and the UK (Mt). (B) Degree of recovery of waste cardboard, newspapers and journals in Sweden, Germany and the UK in 1991 (%). Sources: CEPI and OECD.
ness raising in the industrial sector are all major tasks the business community must focus on after Rio' (Willums, 1992). The exact types of economic, political and regulatory structures and mechanisms that will have to be developed to implement an 'eco-development' are still largely unknown, but Will be open to innovative and creative thinking. An example is from the Gulf of Bothnia, including the combined catchments of all rivers discharging into the gulf. The process industries in this region (pulp and paper, mining and smelting industry) and the natural resources (productive forest land, mineral deposits, rivers) are mutually dependent on each other. However, the economic activities in the region not only influence the land-based resources, including inland waters, but also the sea and the aquatic ecosystem, with which the dependence is thus unidirectional. If the economic responsibilities of the process industries could
be expanded to include all the ecosystems impacted, not only the ecosystems on which they depend, mechanisms might be created to achieve integrated planning and management of the common resources. The long-term objective would be, in accordance with the philosophy of 'eco-development', to create a model for joint utilization of the common resource (including the receiving media) on a sustainable basis with conservation of species diversity and the natural cycles. This radically contrasts with the present situation, where the only goal with regard to the receiving media is to minimize detrimental impacts on them. Such an expansion of the responsibility--and of the economic incentives--would have various implications: for example, the aim of receiving water monitoring would switch from the current periodic check of the quality of water and benthic communities in a restricted area close to the discharge point to synoptic investigations of the ecosystem structure and function to find out the best possible utilization of the resource.
When Have We Done Enough? With regard to the question: 'How do we know when we have done enough to protect the environment?', it will now be possible to formulate two, quite different answers. The first focuses on the last part of the question, 'to protect the environment', and could be formulated as follows: sufficient has been done if the aim is just to protect the environment. Industry has long followed the old environmental protection paradigm, which is no longer valid, implying that the responsibility is restricted to paying the cost for avoidance of detrimental effects outside the plant. Instead, the process industry should now integrate the production system, a sustainable resource management and the ecosystems on which it depends, thus creating a model of ecological economics, a co-development between humans and nature. Seen from the perspective of this paradigm of 'eco-development', the answer to the question is: never will enough have been done to promote this integration and co-development. New challenges will appear and reappear, the more is learnt about the behaviour of ecosystems and about the limits of their linear or predictable functions (cf. Wiman, 1991). The immediate tools available to guide ourselves along this new path are environmental auditing of production facilities, assessment of impacts on the environment and the resource base of new or expansion projects, predictive testing of effluents from new processes (before their full implementation), preferably in model ecosystems, lifecycle analyses of products and support for fundamental and applied ecological research to find new ways for sustainable utilization of receiving media and associated resources.
Cairns, Jr, J. & McCormick, P. V. (1991). The use of community- and ecosystem-level end points in environmental hazard assessment: a scientific end regulatory evaluation. Environ. Auditor 2, 239-248. Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Colby, M. E. (1991). Environmental management in development: the evolution of paradigms. Ecol. Econ. 3, 193-213.
597
Marine Pollution Bulletin Forsius, M., K&mari, J. & Poseh, M. (1992). Critical loads for Finnish lakes: comparisons of three steady-state models. Environ. PoUut. 77, 185-193. GESAMP (1986). Environmental capacity. An approach to marine pollution prevention. Rep. Stud. GESAMP, No. 30. Glaeser, B. (ed.) (1984). Ecodevelopment: Concepts, Policies, Strategies. Pergamon, New York. IUCN (1980). World ConservationStrategy. International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Gland. Landner, L. & Wahlgren, U. (1988). Eutrophication of Lakes and Reservoirs in Warm Climates. Environ. Health Set. 30, WHO, Copenhagen. Landner, L., Grahn, O., Hirdig, J., Lehtinen, K-J., Monfelt, C. & Tana, J. (1994). A field study of environmental impacts at a bleached kraft pulp mill site on the Baltic Sea coast. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety 27, 128-157. Lehtinen, K-J., Tana, J., Mattsson, K., H~rdig, J. & Hemming, J. (1993). Physiological responses and effects on survival, growth and parasite frequency in fish exposed in mesocosms to treated total mill effluents from production of bleached kraft pulp (BKME), thermomechanical pulp and phytosterols. Finnish Bd. Wat. Environ. Ser. A 133, pp. 3--64. Lindstr6m-Sepp,~, P., Huuskonen, S., Pesonen, M., Muona, P. & Hanninen, O. (1992). Unbleached pulp mill effluents affect cytochrome P-450 mono-oxygenase enzyme activities. Mar. Environ. Res. 34, 157-161. Martel, P. H., Kovacs, T. G., O'Connor, B. I. & Voss, R. H. (1992). A survey of pulp mill effluents for their potential to induce mixed function oxidase enzyme activity in fish. In Proc. 79th Annual Meetino, Tech. Sec., CPPA, Canada, pp. A165-A177. CPPA. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. & Behrens, W. W., III (1972). The Limits to Growth. Potomac Associates/Universe Books, New York. Nilsson, J. & Grennfelt, P. (ed.) (1988). Critical Loadsfor Sulphur and Nitrooen. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Miljorapport, 1988:15.
598
O'Connor, B. I., Kovaes, T. G., Voss, R. H. & Martel, P. H. (1993). A study of the relationship between laboratory bioassay response and AOX content for pulp mill effluents. J. Pulp Paper Sci. 19, J33-J39. Pesonen, M. & Andersson, T. (1992). Toxic effects of bleached and unbleached paper mill effluents in primary cultures of rainbow trout hepatocytes. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety 24, 63-71. Pezzey, J. (1992). Sustainable Development Concepts, An Economic Analysis. WorldBank Environ. Pap. No. 2, World Bank, Washington. Redelift, M. (1993). Sustainable development: needs, values, rights. Environ. Values 2, 3-20. Riddell, R. (1981). Ecodevelopment: Economics, Ecology, and Development: An Alternative to Growth Imperative Models. Gower, London. Sachs, W. (1988). The gospel of global efficiency: on worldwatch and other reports on the state of the world. 1FDA Dossier 68, 33-39. Stedman, B. J. & Hill, T. (1992). Introduction to the special issue: perspectives on sustainable development. Environ. Impact Assess. Roy. 12, 1-9. Tana, J., Rosemarin, A., Lehtinen, K-J., H~irdig, J., Grahn, O. & Landner, L. (1994). Assessing impacts on Baltic coastal ecosystems with mesocosms and fish biomarker tests: a comparison of new and old wood pulp bleaching technologies. Sci. Total Environ 145, 213-234. UN (1982). A World Charterfor Nature. United Nations. Unesco (1986). The Control of Eutrophication of Lakes and Reservoirs. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris. Vollenweider, R. A. (1975). Input-output models with special reference to the phosphorus-loading concept in limnoiogy. Schw. Z. Hydrol. 37, 53-84. WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York. Willums, J-O. (1992). Where to after Rio? IEB Newsl. 2(4), 1. Wiman, B. L. B. (1991). Implications of environmental complexity for science and policy. Contributions from systems theory. Global Environ. Change 235-247.
~
Pergamon
Copyright © 1995 Elsevier Science Ltd Printed in Great Britain. All rights reserved 0025-326X/94 $7.00+ 0.00
0025-326X(95)00155-3
How Do We Know When We Have Done Enough to Protect the Environment? LARS LANDNER Swedish Environmental Research Group ( MFG ), Gdtgatan 35, S-116 21 Stockholm, Sweden
The changing concepts and challenges that the process industry has to face in relation to environmental protection are discussed. The original requirements on industry to reduce emissions of contaminants through the installation of filters and waste water treatment facilities or through process modifications and introduction of 'clean production' strategies were mainly based on economic and technical considerations rather than on an effort to avoid environmental impacts. The introduction of concepts such as 'assimilative capacity of the environment' and 'critical load' provided useful instruments for setting effect-related emission standards, resulting in acceptable environmental protection. However, the actual requirement for 'sustainability' has forced industry to focus not only on controlling emissions of contaminants and pollutants, but to take a global environmental approach, including the choice of raw materials and energy sources, recycling and re-utlizafion of wastes and to take responsibility for the fate of their products, during their whole lifecycle.
How do we know when we have done enough to protect the environment? Before trying to answer this question, it might be necessary to put it into perspective, and to investigate the relationship between human activities-more precisely activities of the process industry--and the biophysical world or the environment. It might even be pertinent to put this relationship into a historical perspective, as our concepts and perceptions of the relationship between humans and nature, and of the integration of environmental management with economic development are now in a period of large-scale change. Evolution o f P a r a d i g m s o f Environmental M a n a g e m e n t in D e v e l o p m e n t Over the last 5 years, the concept of 'sustainable development' has been increasingly discussed by industry, but there is still a great deal of confusion over what it really means and how to achieve it. The concept of what is economically and technologically practical, ecologically necessary and politically feasible are rapidly changing,
and so are the philosophies of human-nature relationships. In an elegant analysis of these conceptual changes, Colby (1991) has pointed out that five fundamental paradigms of environmental management in development can be identified (Fig. 1). Out of the traditional conflict between 'classical production economics' and 'deep ecology', new paradigms of 'environmental protection', 'resource management' and 'eco-development' are successively evolving, although there are several areas of overlap between them. Thus the progression from one paradigm to another is not a discrete event, and each encompasses several schools of thought, not always in complete agreement.
/l
T
.....
Fig. 1 Evolution of environment-development paradigms. Modified after Colby (1991).
Environmental Protection The first major change in philosophy occurred in the 1960s, when the traditional development optimism and the idea that humans can dominate nature was strongly challenged by several observations of severe environmental degradation. The latter included adverse effects on wildlife by pesticide accumulation, contamination of fish with methyl mercury, fish kills as a result of biological oxygen demand discharges and eutrophication of lakes. Pollution became widely recognized, particularly after the publication of Silent Spring (Carson, 1962), and only a few years later the first environmental legislation appeared. The environmental politics and management that developed during that period formed the beginning of 593
Marine PollutionBulletin the era of'environmental protection' (Table 1). It institutionalized an approach that focused on damage control, on setting limits to harmful activity. Rather than focusing on integrating development and ecology, this approach was inherently defensive or remedial in practice (Colby, 1991). The optimal pollution levels were defined mainly by technological feasibility and short-term economic acceptability, rather than by what was necessary for the maintenance of ecosystem resilience. The installation of tall chimneys and other contaminant dispersal devices was part of the strategy during the early years of the 'environmental protection' approach. The basic attitude was based on the strange idea of a deep separation between the technosphere and the environment; the general philosophy could be expressed as 'business as usual plus a treatment plant'. The 'environmental protection' paradigm is still today dominating the policies of companies and environmental authorities in most countries, although it has evolved a great deal since the early years, and elements from newer paradigms (see below) have started to influence thinking. One of the most important developments within the prevailing paradigm is the increasing weight that has been given to environmental effects, when setting discharge limits. The concept of 'the assimilative capacity of the environment' was introduced by the 1972 Stockholm Conference, and has later been developed in the context of marine pollution by GESAMP (1986). The use of this concept is based on the idea that the environment (in this instance, the marine environment) has a finite capacity to assimilate or accommodate contaminants, and that this capacity can be determined by scientific methods. A great deal of research has also been devoted to the determination of the assimilative capacity of various ecosystems being exposed to degradable organics or to increased concentrations of contaminants which also occur as natural substances. The limit of this capacity is defined by the 'critical load' of the contaminant in question. Among the first successful scientific advances in determining critical loads of substances which are both natural and contaminants were the establishment of the TABLE 1 Evolutionof paradigmsof environmentalmanagementin development (after Colby, 1991).
Classical productioneconomics:up to the 1960s Exploitation of 'infinite'natural resources Unregulatedwastedisposal Humans strive to dominatenature Environmental protection: 1965 to mid-1980s Ecologylegalizedas economic externality End of the pipe clean-upor cleanerproduction Remedial/defensiveapproach Humans and nature separated Resource management: mid-1980s to date
Ecologyeconomized--sustainability Global efficiency(energy,raw materials)recovery,saving Impact assessment,risk management,polluter pays Interdependenceof humans and nature Eco-development: coming up in the 1990s? Economy ecologized--indnstrialecology Ecological engineering, resource cycling Pollution prevention pays, uncertainty management Humans and nature co-developing, sophisticated symbiosis
594
Vollenweider models defining the highest permissible load of phosphorus and nitrogen on lakes, as a function of lake depth and flushing rate (Vollenweider, 1975). These models have played a fundamental role in lake management programmes for almost two decades (e.g. Unesco, 1986; Landner & Wahlgren, 1988). The critical load concept has also been found valuable for the development and implementation of control strategies for transboundary air pollutants (Forsius et al., 1992). It has been widely used in defining the highest permissible load of sulphur and nitrogen on soil ecosystems and on lakes (Nilsson & Grennfelt, 1988) and has had important implications for international agreements on reductions of atmospheric emissions of sulphur and nitrogen. For example, the critical loads of these two elements are exceeded in large parts of Scandinavia, which shows that emission control strategies based on the 'environmental protection' approach have not yet been successful in achieving ecosystem resilience. The development of methodologies for environmental hazard and risk assessment of both individual chemicals and complex industrial discharges has been extremely rapid during the last decade (see below). This new tendency of giving increasing emphasis to environmental effects and their avoidance is now developing further, and regulators are more and more focusing on communityand ecosystem-level endpoints (of. Cairns & McCormick, 1991). The development of effect-related discharge criteria has partly been driven by the institutionalization of environmental impact statements (EISs), although this new instrument in environmental management was not capable of breaking down the dichotomy of the technosphere vs the environment. Resource
Management
Concern about the limited availability of natural resources became an issue of debate in the early 1970s. An early landmark in the evolution of a new paradigm was the publication of The Limits to Growth (Meadows et ai., 1972) and later important contributions were the World Conservation Strateoy (IUCN, 1980) and the World Charter for Nature (UN, 1982). However, it was not until the publication of the Brundtland Commission's Our Common Future in 1987 (WCED, 1987) that 'resource management' and 'sustainable development' were put on the political agenda. Although the philosophy behind 'sustainable development' was introduced in the report of the Stockholm Conference in 1972, it was the Brundtland Commission which initiated and launched a vigorous debate about resource management in development. Over the last 5 years, several new scientific journals have emerged, special issues of existing journals and many scientific meetings have dealt exclusively with 'sustainable development', and many articles have been published to clarify what is meant by sustainability, and even more importantly, how to recognize and achieve it in practice (Pezzey, 1992; Stedman and Hill, 1992; Redclift, 1993). Although the meaning of sustainability is still under debate, it can be said that the basic idea of the new "resource management' paradigm is to incorporate all
Volume 29/Numbers 6--12
types of capital and resources--biophysical, human, management, which may merge into a consistent system infrastructural and monetary--into calculations of of thoughts and structures (of. Riddell, 1981; Glaeser, national accounts, productivity and policies for develop- 1984) that might become the paradigm of the late 1990s. ment and investment planning (Colby, 1991). This 'Eco-development' would expand the boundaries of the approach to environmental management has also been system considered under 'resource management', and a called the 'global efficiency' paradigm (Sachs, 1988) and it 'biophysical economics' model of a thermodynamically strives to increase energy efficiency in particular and open economy embedded within the ecosystem would be resource conservation in general (Table 1). Central to this the result (Colby, 1991). Biophysical resources (energy, is the 'polluter pays' principle as a means of internalizing materials and ecological processing cycles) flow from the the social costs of pollution, rather than mandating ecosystem into the economy, and degraded (non-useful) particular clean-up technologies. Another example is the energy and other by-products (pollution) flow through to introduction of tradable emission permits. In essence, the ecosystem (Fig. 2). There is a change from 'polluter ecology is being given an economic dimension (Colby, pays' to 'pollution prevention pays', explicitly restructur1991). ing the economy according to ecological principles to 'Global commons' resources, such as the atmosphere reduce the throughput to sustainable levels (Colby, 1991). and its ozone layer in particular, climate, biodiversity and 'Eco-development' thus moves from 'economizing ecooceanic resources have emerged as issues for which the logy' to 'ecologizing the economy'. Key words in this existing legal, economic, political and institutional struc- context are 'ecological engineering', 'industrial ecology' tures and concepts are totally inadequate. This is why and resource cycling. Humans and nature are coseveral new initiatives in 'global commons' law have been developing, human activities must be reorganized to taken, such as the Montreal Protocol on ozone, the achieve synergism with ecosystem processes and services. agreement on the International Trade of Hazardous It should be pointed out that this is opposed to the back to Wastes and the Biodiversity Conservation Agreement. nature simple symbiosis advocated by 'deep ecologists'. Under this new paradigm, EISs have evolved as a useful instrument to encourage full consideration of energy, raw The Present Situation in Scandinavia materials and other resource issues at an early stage in the planning of new investments or expansion projects. It is valuable to put the current thinking and policy of the Scandinavian process industry' in the context of the above-described successive progression from one paraEco-development digm to another. The situation is not unambiguous, but it The paradigm regarding 'eco-development' has not yet is obvious that the 'environmental protection' attitude found its definite form or content, and its implications can from the 1960s still dominates. The principle aim of only be hypothesized. However, there are several promis- environmental policy is still to limit the effects of harmful ing concepts in current thinking about environmental activities, it still has a defensive character. Very few, if any,
UNIVERSE i
.lu
.hi
ill
ECOSYSTEM
ECONOMIC SYSTEM
DIRECT FOSSIL& ATOMI C FUELS~mm~ ~MATrER~jib' EGO-
SYSTEM SERVES '~ ~
HEAT I ~
.~1~
umm
I HOUSEHOLOS I HummProducfk~&Seev/ces
RADED .~ MmEelsES ~RW,
Fig. 2 Economic production seen from an eco-development perspective where the economic system resides 'inside' the ecosystem. Modified from Colby (1991).
595
Marine PollutionBulletin detailed attempts have been made in Scandinavia to integrate the economy and ecology, although important steps towards an improved 'resource management' have been taken. Taking the pulp and paper industry in Sweden as an example, the 'environmental protection' philosophy has been largely accepted in which the main policy is that the discharges should be reduced to a level where the environment is not damaged, and that this level can be determined by scientific methods. However, the industry has not accepted that an optimum environmental protection is necessarily achieved through the application of the best available technology or by an uncritical use of the principle of precautionary action. Many legal and regulatory innovations, such as the requirement to prepare EISs as a part of expansion projects, various economic incentives and the strong governmental support of international environmental conventions, have pushed the Swedish industry to take decisive steps towards the 'resource management' paradigm. This is also shown by an improved energy efficiency, the reduction in water consumption and the increased recovery and recycling of resources that the industry has undertaken. Lately, the reluctance of the Swedish process industry to accept costs for environmental protection mainly concerns two issues. Firstly, the time-scale for allocating costs for rehabilitation of large-scale damage or regional environmental risks, caused by the earlier 'classical production economics'. Secondly, the industry wants to distribute, in a more equitable and cost-effective way, the responsibility to pay for the remediation of such environmental threats that are caused by many factors, e.g. NO,, emissions. A pressure on industry that has grown significantly during the last 5 years is the environmental steering exercised by the market. The dynamics of this force thus depends on the growing environmental consciousness of the consumers. However, there is a risk in allowing the market or the consumers to fully steer the environmental management in a process industry, simply because even the enlighted consumers may not have access to the complete, and often complex, technical and scientific information needed. A couple of examples may illustrate this point. Consumers of paper products demand production without the use of chlorine-containing chemicals, and furthermore that a high proportion of secondary, recycled fibres should be used. The first issue has provoked passionate discussions between industry and consumer associations, but later resulted in an almost complete elimination of the use of chlorine gas as a bleaching chemical for sulphitc and kraft pulp. The pulp industry introduced major process modifications, such as extended cooking, oxygen delignification, new bleaching sequences using chlorine dioxide, hydrogen peroxide and ozone and improved process steering and control. These measures, together with secondary effluent treatment, reduced discharges of adsorbable organic halogen (AOX) from the previous level of 6-7 kg t - 1 of the pulp to around or below 1 kg t - 1. Thorough investigations of the environmental impacts of discharges from kraft pulp mills have demonstrated two important points: 596
1. Mills still using chlorine dioxide in their bleaching sequence are capable of producing effluents which, after realistic dilution in the receiving water, cause only very slight or no detrimental effects in the aquatic ecosystem (Landner et al., 1994; Tana et al., 1994). The main reason for this low impact probably is the efficient process control in modern mills, avoiding excessive dosage of chemicals, unstable production conditions and accidental spills. 2. Effluents from kraft mills without bleaching or where bleaching is carried out using non-chlorine-containing chemicals can provoke at least some of the biological effects that were previously regarded as 'typical' for effluents containing chlorinated organics (LindstrrmSeppa et al., 1992; Martel et al., 1992; Pesonen and Andersson, 1992; O'Connor et al., 1993; Lehtinen et al., 1993). Based on these results, it is not fully justifiable, from an environmental protection point of view, to follow the consumer's request to give highest priority to investments aiming at a complete elimination of chlorine dioxide in pulp bleaching. This is especially so as the alternative bleaching processes, now rapidly being introduced, have not yet been fully evaluated with respect to their environmental and resource management impacts. The second example relates to the requirement of using a high proportion of recycled fibres in paper products. The degree of recovery of cardboard, newsprint and journal paper in Sweden is higher than in, for example, Germany and the UK, but the share of recycled fibres in paper products is very low compared with other countries due to the dominant use of virgin fibres (Fig. 3). To increase this share in Sweden, it would be necessary to transport waste paper from the European continent, which might not be optimal from a resource management and environmental protection point of view.
Towards the Realization of E c o - d e v e l o p m e n t The general view remaining within the process industry today is to regard the production system, the economy, the plant or mill as clearly separated from the surrounding environment, the ecosystem and the waste-receiving media. The environment is somethinl~ external to the plant, for which industry has no direct responsibility, but with which the plant should not come into conflict. However, it might be appropriate to radically change perspectives, and to adopt a view which better corresponds with the currently evolving paradigms. In particular, in its mature form, 'coo-development' means an integration of economy, natural resources and ecology. This sort of new thinking may not be unfamiliar to the process industry because of its direct dependence on natural resources and their sustainable use. In fact, industry may even take a lead role in this process of change. That industry is prepared to do so is dearly indicated in a recent declaration by the ICC International Environmental Bureau, which says: 'Industry is a key mover of the agenda for change, and will have to play an increasingly important role in making sustainable development a reality. Technological cooperation, trade and environment, education and aware-
Volume 29/Numbers 6--12
Mton
B
Sweden
Germany
U.K.
[ ] Recycledfibers [ ] Virginfibers
%
I!
10090-
80: 7060-' 50-
m
40-'
Iil;i:ii!ill:ii
30:
Iiii iii
2010-"
m
m
M
0-"
? Germany
[ ] Cardboard
U.K.
[] Newspapers& journals
Fig. 3 (A) Raw materials in the production of paper and cardboard in Sweden, Germany and the UK (Mt). (B) Degree of recovery of waste cardboard, newspapers and journals in Sweden, Germany and the UK in 1991 (%). Sources: CEPI and OECD.
ness raising in the industrial sector are all major tasks the business community must focus on after Rio' (Willums, 1992). The exact types of economic, political and regulatory structures and mechanisms that will have to be developed to implement an 'eco-development' are still largely unknown, but Will be open to innovative and creative thinking. An example is from the Gulf of Bothnia, including the combined catchments of all rivers discharging into the gulf. The process industries in this region (pulp and paper, mining and smelting industry) and the natural resources (productive forest land, mineral deposits, rivers) are mutually dependent on each other. However, the economic activities in the region not only influence the land-based resources, including inland waters, but also the sea and the aquatic ecosystem, with which the dependence is thus unidirectional. If the economic responsibilities of the process industries could
be expanded to include all the ecosystems impacted, not only the ecosystems on which they depend, mechanisms might be created to achieve integrated planning and management of the common resources. The long-term objective would be, in accordance with the philosophy of 'eco-development', to create a model for joint utilization of the common resource (including the receiving media) on a sustainable basis with conservation of species diversity and the natural cycles. This radically contrasts with the present situation, where the only goal with regard to the receiving media is to minimize detrimental impacts on them. Such an expansion of the responsibility--and of the economic incentives--would have various implications: for example, the aim of receiving water monitoring would switch from the current periodic check of the quality of water and benthic communities in a restricted area close to the discharge point to synoptic investigations of the ecosystem structure and function to find out the best possible utilization of the resource.
When Have We Done Enough? With regard to the question: 'How do we know when we have done enough to protect the environment?', it will now be possible to formulate two, quite different answers. The first focuses on the last part of the question, 'to protect the environment', and could be formulated as follows: sufficient has been done if the aim is just to protect the environment. Industry has long followed the old environmental protection paradigm, which is no longer valid, implying that the responsibility is restricted to paying the cost for avoidance of detrimental effects outside the plant. Instead, the process industry should now integrate the production system, a sustainable resource management and the ecosystems on which it depends, thus creating a model of ecological economics, a co-development between humans and nature. Seen from the perspective of this paradigm of 'eco-development', the answer to the question is: never will enough have been done to promote this integration and co-development. New challenges will appear and reappear, the more is learnt about the behaviour of ecosystems and about the limits of their linear or predictable functions (cf. Wiman, 1991). The immediate tools available to guide ourselves along this new path are environmental auditing of production facilities, assessment of impacts on the environment and the resource base of new or expansion projects, predictive testing of effluents from new processes (before their full implementation), preferably in model ecosystems, lifecycle analyses of products and support for fundamental and applied ecological research to find new ways for sustainable utilization of receiving media and associated resources.
Cairns, Jr, J. & McCormick, P. V. (1991). The use of community- and ecosystem-level end points in environmental hazard assessment: a scientific end regulatory evaluation. Environ. Auditor 2, 239-248. Carson, R. (1962). Silent Spring. Houghton Mifflin, Boston. Colby, M. E. (1991). Environmental management in development: the evolution of paradigms. Ecol. Econ. 3, 193-213.
597
Marine Pollution Bulletin Forsius, M., K&mari, J. & Poseh, M. (1992). Critical loads for Finnish lakes: comparisons of three steady-state models. Environ. PoUut. 77, 185-193. GESAMP (1986). Environmental capacity. An approach to marine pollution prevention. Rep. Stud. GESAMP, No. 30. Glaeser, B. (ed.) (1984). Ecodevelopment: Concepts, Policies, Strategies. Pergamon, New York. IUCN (1980). World ConservationStrategy. International Union for the Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources, Gland. Landner, L. & Wahlgren, U. (1988). Eutrophication of Lakes and Reservoirs in Warm Climates. Environ. Health Set. 30, WHO, Copenhagen. Landner, L., Grahn, O., Hirdig, J., Lehtinen, K-J., Monfelt, C. & Tana, J. (1994). A field study of environmental impacts at a bleached kraft pulp mill site on the Baltic Sea coast. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety 27, 128-157. Lehtinen, K-J., Tana, J., Mattsson, K., H~rdig, J. & Hemming, J. (1993). Physiological responses and effects on survival, growth and parasite frequency in fish exposed in mesocosms to treated total mill effluents from production of bleached kraft pulp (BKME), thermomechanical pulp and phytosterols. Finnish Bd. Wat. Environ. Ser. A 133, pp. 3--64. Lindstr6m-Sepp,~, P., Huuskonen, S., Pesonen, M., Muona, P. & Hanninen, O. (1992). Unbleached pulp mill effluents affect cytochrome P-450 mono-oxygenase enzyme activities. Mar. Environ. Res. 34, 157-161. Martel, P. H., Kovacs, T. G., O'Connor, B. I. & Voss, R. H. (1992). A survey of pulp mill effluents for their potential to induce mixed function oxidase enzyme activity in fish. In Proc. 79th Annual Meetino, Tech. Sec., CPPA, Canada, pp. A165-A177. CPPA. Meadows, D. H., Meadows, D. L., Randers, J. & Behrens, W. W., III (1972). The Limits to Growth. Potomac Associates/Universe Books, New York. Nilsson, J. & Grennfelt, P. (ed.) (1988). Critical Loadsfor Sulphur and Nitrooen. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Miljorapport, 1988:15.
598
O'Connor, B. I., Kovaes, T. G., Voss, R. H. & Martel, P. H. (1993). A study of the relationship between laboratory bioassay response and AOX content for pulp mill effluents. J. Pulp Paper Sci. 19, J33-J39. Pesonen, M. & Andersson, T. (1992). Toxic effects of bleached and unbleached paper mill effluents in primary cultures of rainbow trout hepatocytes. Ecotoxicol. Environ. Safety 24, 63-71. Pezzey, J. (1992). Sustainable Development Concepts, An Economic Analysis. WorldBank Environ. Pap. No. 2, World Bank, Washington. Redelift, M. (1993). Sustainable development: needs, values, rights. Environ. Values 2, 3-20. Riddell, R. (1981). Ecodevelopment: Economics, Ecology, and Development: An Alternative to Growth Imperative Models. Gower, London. Sachs, W. (1988). The gospel of global efficiency: on worldwatch and other reports on the state of the world. 1FDA Dossier 68, 33-39. Stedman, B. J. & Hill, T. (1992). Introduction to the special issue: perspectives on sustainable development. Environ. Impact Assess. Roy. 12, 1-9. Tana, J., Rosemarin, A., Lehtinen, K-J., H~irdig, J., Grahn, O. & Landner, L. (1994). Assessing impacts on Baltic coastal ecosystems with mesocosms and fish biomarker tests: a comparison of new and old wood pulp bleaching technologies. Sci. Total Environ 145, 213-234. UN (1982). A World Charterfor Nature. United Nations. Unesco (1986). The Control of Eutrophication of Lakes and Reservoirs. United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, Paris. Vollenweider, R. A. (1975). Input-output models with special reference to the phosphorus-loading concept in limnoiogy. Schw. Z. Hydrol. 37, 53-84. WCED (World Commission on Environment and Development) (1987). Our Common Future. Oxford University Press, Oxford/New York. Willums, J-O. (1992). Where to after Rio? IEB Newsl. 2(4), 1. Wiman, B. L. B. (1991). Implications of environmental complexity for science and policy. Contributions from systems theory. Global Environ. Change 235-247.