Using Stakeholder Processes in
Environmental DecisionmakingAn Evaluation of Lessons Learned, Key Issues, and Future Challenges
I. Executive Summary
Stakeholder involvement in environmental decisionmaking by government and industry is inevitable and will continue to expand. This study examines the major reasons for the increased use of stakeholder processes, identifies some key issues and challenges associated with managing them, and analyzes factors shaping their future use.
The study’s results are based upon an extensive literature review, an examination of twenty-nine stakeholder case studies, and in-depth interviews with thirty-seven of the nation’s leading experts and participants (representing government, industry, environmental groups, and other perspectives) in environmental stakeholder processes. Key observations and findings include:
- The increased use of stakeholder processes over the past decade represents a societal interest in more interactive forms of decisionmaking. Rather than a transitory phenomenon, this development reflects a culmination of a series of environmental, political, societal, and technological developments that have begun to yield significant changes in the methods of making environmental decisions.
Forces driving the evolution of environmental stakeholder processes include: a lack of public confidence and trust in the environmental decisionmaking of many government agencies and corporations; the increasing transparency of institutions whose decisions affect environmental quality; greater societal expectations for improved environmental quality; the enhanced ability of citizens to participate in stakeholder processes; the growing diffusion of information technology and an associated decentralization of decisionmaking in large institutions; and policy commitments made by government agencies and industries to expand stakeholder participation in their decisionmaking processes.
- Environmental stakeholder processes are frequently not well managed because a number of convenors, facilitators, and participants are not aware of, or have not made effective use of, knowledge and practices developed over time.
Environmental stakeholder processes are not new, but they represent an evolution from previous methods of soliciting public input. They are frequently managed
in an ad hoc manner, thus failing to capture and apply historical insights and transfer best practices. The difference between success and failure in many stakeholder processes is often unclear. The inability to effectively use existing knowledge and identify best practices has generated unrealistic expectations about what environmental stakeholder processes can achieve and has resulted in an ineffective use of resources, including stakeholders’ time.
- There is a significant need to achieve a better match between the choice of a stakeholder process and the problem it is attempting to solve.
Participants in stakeholder processes have a variety of problem solving options, each of which has strengths and limitations. A process designed primarily to share information, for example, is not well suited for resolving legislative issues and debates. Greater evaluation is needed to determine the suitability of individual process options (e.g., advisory committees, alternative dispute resolution, consensus-based decisionmaking, regulatory negotiation) for specific environmental problems.
- There are no specific agreed upon definitions of a stakeholder. The identification of stakeholders is influenced by such factors as the issues under consideration, the methods used to evaluate whose views need to be solicited, and the skill at which individual stakeholders or their organizations articulate their interests.
Both individuals interviewed for the study as well as existing literature distinguished among various categories of stakeholders. These included people who are: 1) directly affected by a decision to take action on an issue or project; 2) interested in a project or activity, want to become involved in the process, and seek an opportunity to provide input; 3) more generally interested in the process and may seek information; and 4) affected by the outcome of a decision but are unaware of or do not participate in stakeholder processes.
In addition, various kinds of stakeholder processes exist ranging from those in which stakeholders participate directly in making and implementing decisions to deliberations organized to obtain data, perspectives, or values on selected topics.
- The decision whether to utilize a stakeholder process should be guided by an evaluation of key issues.
These issues include: 1) assessing the attitude of convenor organizations (to measure their willingness to listen to stakeholders’ views in a decisionmaking process); 2) evaluating potential alternatives to a stakeholder process; 3) determining whether the decision has already been made; 4) identifying potential stakeholders for the specific issue under review; 5) clarifying the roles and capabilities of scientist and other stakeholders; 6) selecting the kind of stakeholder process that should be used; 7) agreeing upon ground rules for the process; 8) establishing goals; 9) choosing the types of issues and decisions that stakeholders will address; 10) using evaluative criteria to better assess the value and progress of discussions and decisions at various stages of the process; 11) assessing the availability of resources to support the stakeholder process; 12) determining whether a process hammer exists or should be established; and 13) providing for transparency and communication to ensure ongoing access to information and accountability of the parties to each other.
Addressing each of these issues creates an important set of management tools during various stages of stakeholder deliberations.
- Stakeholder processes challenge the ability of the scientific community to effectively participate in a growing number of environmental decisions. New approaches to delivering and communicating scientific information are needed to better inform stakeholder deliberations.
At present, science-based and stakeholder-based decisionmaking frequently represent competing approaches to resolving environmental issues. Many environmental debates represent conflicts over competing social values as well as disagreements over scientific and economic data. Stakeholders are frequently perceived by decisionmakers as more legitimate and representative interpreters of societal values than scientists. In addition, most debates in stakeholder-based decisionmaking surround the quality of the process rather than the quality of the scientific analysis.
Scientists’ traditional methods of providing input to environmental decisionmaking (e.g., use of peer review processes, reliance on published studies) often do not match the needs of stakeholder processes. While such methods are appropriate for peer-to-peer exchanges within the scientific community and technically trained managers, they do not facilitate direct interactions with stakeholders or provide information in a form most useful to stakeholder deliberations. As a result, many stakeholder processes do not obtain sufficient knowledge and insight from scientists and, consequently, are less informed.
- While increasingly participating in stakeholder processes, environmental and business groups have growing concerns about their use.
Both environmental and business organizations are major stakeholders and have more opportunities to communicate their goals and perspectives. However, the increased use of stakeholder-based decisionmaking challenges both environmental and business organizations to devise new strategies of participation and expand or reallocate resources. In addition, they face capacity limits in the number of people they can send to effectively represent their organizations in stakeholder processes. Many environmentalists are concerned about government agencies using these processes to avoid making difficult and politically contentious decisions. Many business groups view government’s increased use of these deliberations, coupled with expanded use of the Internet, as a retreat from more scientifically rigorous risk-based decisionmaking.
- The future use of stakeholder processes will be significantly influenced by the ability to successfully manage five major challenges.
On the basis of interviews conducted for the study, assessment of case studies, and the literature review, these challenges include:
Challenge 1: Achieving quality management of stakeholder processes. The application of improved quality management procedures should lead to a commitment to: use best practices; improve facilitator training, professional, and ethical standards; enhance the capacity and infrastructure for managing stakeholder projects; and better leverage knowledge and management tools across the public and private sectors and non-government organizations.
Challenge 2: Measuring stakeholder processes and results. Greater use should be made of planning indicators and metrics to measure goals, process milestones, results, and costs. Such steps can improve the efficiency of stakeholder processes and contribute to obtaining more tangible benefits and outcomes.
Challenge 3: Engaging the scientific community in stakeholder processes. Most stakeholder-based processes generally make ineffective use of existing scientific knowledge although there is no inherent reason why the two processes cannot be mutually supportive. By more systematically involving scientists in stakeholder processes, and ensuring that the scientist-stakeholder relationship is iterative and interactive, the value of science to stakeholder-based decisionmaking can be realized with no sacrifice of scientific quality and credibility.
Challenge 4: Integrating stakeholder deliberations with existing decisionmaking processes. At present, stakeholder processes frequently exist in parallel to traditional environmental decisionmaking. More transparent and explicit ground rules and boundaries need to be established to better manage the issues and relationships between stakeholder processes and traditional decisionmaking. In addition, it is important to more explicitly define the role and authority of stakeholders to resolve issues traditionally decided by government.
Challenge 5: Determining whether stakeholder processes yield improved decisions. There is much anecdotal information to support both sides of the argument over whether stakeholder processes generate improved environmental decisions. A well designed and managed process can lead to decisions that encompass a broader range of perspectives and options that are more likely to be implemented. However, many stakeholder deliberations fall short of being well designed and managed. As a result, stakeholder-based environmental decisionmaking has generated a mixed record of success and remains a work in progress.
In summary, the influence of factors that expand the use of environmental stakeholder processes outweigh those that may limit or constrain their future use. Stakeholder-based decisionmaking represents an increasingly established and important set of processes for managing environmental issues.
The specific methods for directing stakeholder processes, however, are subject to considerable future change as experience among convenors, facilitators, and participants continues to build and as technology and the capacity, infrastructure, and resources to support such processes evolve over time. In deciding whether to convene a stakeholder process to address a specific environmental issue, it is especially important to match the specific process to the characteristics of the problem under review. Like traditional command and control regulation, pollution prevention, or other decisionmaking techniques, the use of stakeholder processes represents a means to improve environmental quality—a means whose expectations and opportunities must be carefully weighed along with its complexities and limitations.
Go to:
Copyright © 1998 by Tec-Com Inc.