Using Stakeholder Processes in
Environmental DecisionmakingAn Evaluation of Lessons Learned, Key Issues, and Future Challenges
II. Introduction
A. Forces Driving Stakeholder Processes
The reasons for the expanded use of stakeholder processes stem from a variety of environmental, political, societal and technological changes. Such factors, presented in Figure 1, include:
Figure 1: Forces Driving Stakeholder Processes - Lack of public confidence and trust
- Increasing transparency
- Greater societal expectations for environmental quality
- Limitations of traditional regulation
- Expanded interest in participation
- Growing diffusion of information
- Policy commitments
- A lack of public confidence and trust in the environmental decisions of major institutions, including many corporations and government agencies. Such mistrust is registered in public opinion polls and the contentiousness of a number of environmental debates. Among many Americans, this decline mirrors a broader mistrust of established institutions.
- The increasing transparency of institutions whose decisions affect environmental quality. Such transparency results from greater reporting requirements on environmental performance, changing information technology, the influence of non-governmental organizations, and voluntary release of environmental information.
- Greater societal expectations for improved environmental quality. Such expectations are increasingly manifest in opinion surveys, political campaigns, in the marketplace, and as a factor shaping corporate reputation.
- Limitations of traditional regulatory decisionmaking, using formal notice and comment procedures, in considering the perspectives and values of various stakeholders.
- Expanded concerns, interests, and capabilities of many individuals and groups to participate in environmental decisionmaking. These include voluntary activities like curbside recycling or neighborhood and local improvement campaigns, the burgeoning "right-to-know" movement, and the interest demonstrated by major foundations to provide financial support to foster the organization and expression of stakeholder interests.
- The growing diffusion of information and, ultimately, authority from large, centralized institutions to more streamlined and focused decisionmaking processes. Such "subsidiarity" and "empowerment" is reflected in the decisions to restructure many of America’s largest corporations as well as ongoing efforts to reinvent governmental decisionmaking at the national level. One by-product of these changes is the increased solicitation of employee, customer, and other stakeholder input as a means to validate organizational decisions.
- Policy commitments made by selected government agencies and corporations to expand stakeholder participation in their decisionmaking processes. These actions, influenced in part by recommendations from non-governmental organizations (including environmental groups and industry), range from the use of community advisory panels to stakeholder-based regulatory reform and reinvention initiatives, and collaborative government-industry-stakeholder partnerships.
Together, these factors reflect many of the aspirations, complexities, and contradictions that characterize institutional behavior on environmental and many other public policy issues. They also represent a search for redefined boundary zones and balances between public and private institutions; centralized and decentralized decisionmaking, efficiency, and equity; and the individual and the community.1
While institutions seek to adapt and meet the challenges of stakeholders’ growing participation, new proposals continue to advocate significant expansion of their involvement. In a 1996 report on The Alternative Path, The Aspen Institute recommended the increased use of stakeholder processes because they "are an important supplement to representative government and to the proper exercise of legal and regulatory authorities."2 That same year the National Research Council’s report on Understanding Risk argued the necessity for connecting scientific evaluation to a broader process of deliberation with interested parties because, in part, "wisdom is not limited to scientific specialists and public officials and that participation by diverse groups and individuals will provide essential information and insights about a risk situation."3
In 1997, the Presidential/Congressional Commission on Risk Assessment and Risk Management recommended that stakeholder engagement be a central element of a framework for managing environmental health risks. It further advocated that a risk assessment become a more participative effort involving not only scientists but also including "subjective, cultural and comparative dimensions" reflecting stakeholder perceptions and interests. In January 1998, the report of the Enterprise for the Environment initiative, a process involving approximately eighty stakeholders that recommended changes to the nation’s environmental protection system, noted that "a fundamental premise…is that the constructive change we seek can only be achieved through collaboration, in which all interests can be heard." These and other reports have stimulated members of Congress, such as Senator Joseph Lieberman (D-Connecticut) to consider legislative proposals for mandating some form of stakeholder process for facility permitting and other decisions.
B. Need for Evaluation of the Growth of Environmental Stakeholder Processes
The increased interest in and utilization of stakeholder processes in recent years create an opportunity and a need to examine the record of their past use, their role in environmental decisionmaking, the results they have achieved, and their future evolution and use. Given the time and other resources increasingly devoted to supporting stakeholder participation, a focus on the management of such processes has become an issue of growing importance for both convenors and participants.
"Given the time and other resources increasingly devoted to
supporting stakeholder participation, a focus on the management of
such processes has become an issue of growing importance for both
convenors and participants."
In addition, a growing number of stakeholders and observers have concluded that a sufficient body of case study evidence and other experience now exist to facilitate the evaluation of such issues as lessons learned from stakeholder processes, the development of principles and best practices for managing stakeholder projects, and achieving a better understanding of environmental issues where stakeholder processes do and do not add value to environmental decisionmaking.
Stakeholder participation represents only one of a complex array of factors involved in making and implementing environmental choices. The relationship of stakeholder processes to these factors is also a timely topic for review. In particular, the role of stakeholders within the context of the traditional risk assessment-risk management decision framework and their relationship to the scientific community as sources of information and legitimizers of policy choices requires greater clarity.
C. Key Issues Addressed in the Report
An evaluation of stakeholder-based environmental decisionmaking can address dozens of important issues. This report focuses on a cluster of seven major questions, presented in Figure 2.
Figure 2: Key Issues of Report - Key issues to manage
- System vs. ad hoc approach
- Principal challenges to stakeholder processes
- Role of scientists
- Public and private sector experiences
- Efficacy of decisions made by stakeholder processes
- Future of stakeholder processesThey include:
- What are the key issues that must be successfully managed in a stakeholder process?
Can stakeholder-based decision processes be managed according to a common system of principles and practices or are they tailored to the individual issues and interests of a particular process? If they are amenable to more systematic management, what are the key elements of such a system?- What are the principal challenges to stakeholder processes, and how can these challenges be addressed?
- What is the role(s) of scientists in stakeholder-based decisionmaking?
- What comparisons exist between government and private sector experiences with environmental stakeholder processes?
- Do stakeholder processes produce improved environmental decisions?
- How will stakeholder processes evolve in the future?
These issues were selected for two reasons: 1) Individual stakeholders and literature references cited them as increasingly important considerations for evaluation; and 2) The authors’ personal participation in and experience with stakeholder processes over the past twenty years led to a belief that they represented significant issues that require greater attention.
Each of these questions has stimulated interest in more specific issues that will be addressed in the body of the report.
D. Report Methodology
The research methodology consisted of a literature review, evaluation of twenty-nine stakeholder-based case studies, and interviews with thirty-seven individuals with extensive experience in stakeholder processes who were facilitators or represented government, industry, or environmental groups.
Much of the literature on stakeholder-based decisionmaking exists at four levels: 1) general, more philosophical discussion of the importance of public involvement in decisionmaking; 2) case studies or reports issued from individual stakeholder projects; 3) how-to or source manuals that offer detailed information on how to design and manage stakeholder processes; and 4) a selected number of articles or reports that evaluate the results of stakeholder activities and offer suggestions for their improvement.
Individuals participating in the interviews were selected because of their ability to integrate their experience with the analysis and evaluation of stakeholder processes. Appendix 1 identifies the persons who participated in the study. Appendix 2 presents the list of questions that guided the interview process, and Appendix 3 ranks these responses to selected issues.
The literature review and the interviews were further shaped by the following methodological choices:
- Both public and private sector experiences with stakeholder processes would be evaluated. This facilitated a comparison of stakeholder process similarities and differences across major institutions and the transfer of information and best practices.
- The majority of interviewees would be located outside of Washington, D.C. This created an opportunity to learn more about many of the innovative and dynamic case histories and practices at the regional, state, and local levels.
- The term "stakeholder," while of recent vintage, is often used interchangeably with other phrases or processes. Thus, the research process also investigated literature on alternative dispute resolution, policy dialogue, public involvement and/or public participation, and risk communication.
- Case studies provide a very useful technique for examining the operation of specific stakeholder processes. Of the twenty-nine separate stakeholder processes examined, the authors prepared an evaluation of five (see Appendices 4 and 5, respectively).
The five case studies include: BASF’s public release of worst-case scenario information at its Freeport, Texas, plant prior to a regulatory compliance deadline for submittal of risk management plans; BP America’s use of stakeholder forums as a planning tool to manage its corporate health, safety and environmental performance and reputation; Columbus, Ohio’s, Priorities ’95 initiative, a comparative risk assessment project; the Health Effects Institute’s convening of stakeholders to examine its scientific assessment of the health effects of the gasoline oxygenate MTBE; and Intel Corporation’s use of a stakeholder process as part of its EPA Project XL facility submission in Chandler, Arizona.
Who is the audience for this report? Potentially, the readership includes the general public or any individual who has participated or is interested in a stakeholder process. More specifically, the report is directed at those organizations in government, industry, and the environmental community whose executives and staffs have participated in, convened, or may convene a stakeholder process and are seeking information or perspectives to evaluate how others have planned and managed such processes in the past. As stakeholder participation continues to grow in the future, it is increasingly important to foster cross-institutional learning and adaptation.
E. Acknowledgments
The authors would like to thank the American Industrial Health Council, American Petroleum Institute, and Chemical Manufacturers Association for providing grant support to this project. In particular we acknowledge the assistance of Gaylen Camera, Nancy Doerrer, Elizabeth Easton, Walter McLeod, Ellen Siegler, James Vail and Jim Solyst of the sponsoring organizations. We benefited especially from the constructive interactions with the AIHC’s Science Policy Committee.
We are extremely grateful for the generous commitment of time and thoughtful comments provided by the persons interviewed for the study. We would also like to thank Bill Toland of BASF for chairing the sponsors’ committee that provided information and support for the study, and to Terry Davies of Resources For the Future for his many helpful comments. And we express particular gratitude to Courtney Peverell for her very able assistance in helping to research, prepare, and critique the report.
1
Jerome Delli Priscoli, "Twelve Challenges for Public Participation Practice," Interact (Fall 1995), p. 78.2
The Aspen Institute, The Alternative Path: A Cleaner, Cheaper Way to Protect and Enhance the Environment (1996), p. 19.3
National Research Council, Understanding Risk: Informing Decisions in a Democratic Society (Washington: National Academy Press, 1996), p. 23.
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