Using Stakeholder Processes in
Environmental DecisionmakingAn Evaluation of Lessons Learned, Key Issues, and Future Challenges
VIII. The Future of Stakeholder Processes
A number of factors will shape the future use of environmental stakeholder processes. These include: 1) core factors that define the baseline from which the evolution of stakeholder processes will occur; 2) expansive factors that will encourage greater utilization of such processes; and 3) limiting factors that will restrain the use of stakeholder-based decisionmaking in the future.
These core, expansive, and limiting factors, presented in Figure 8, provide the basis for some final observations.
Figure 8: Factors Shaping the Future of Stakeholder Processes
Core Factors
- The preference for interactive decisionmaking.
- The growing complexity of environmental decisionmaking.
- The growing disclosure of environmental information.
- The use of stakeholder processes to increase the transparency of government
and industry decisionmaking.
Expansive Factors
- Increased and more creative uses of information technology.
- Emergence of new types of environmental problems.
- Participation of a broader array of institutions in stakeholder processes.
Limiting Factors
- More targeted selection of processes and issues.
- Funding and capacity limits.
- Recognitiion that some issues are less appropriate for stakeholder processes.Core factors. Certain factors, already present in stakeholder processes and traditional regulatory decisionmaking, will continue into the future. These include:
- The preference for interactive decisionmaking.
The tremendous growth of voluntary actions, grass roots activities, and the evolution of newer institutional methods for expressing popular viewpoints on environmental issues testify to society’s growing preference that decisionmaking be conducted through more direct channels of participation and communication. This contrasts with the decline of traditional mechanisms for obtaining public input such as voting and the increasingly marginal value of formal notice and comment processes. Central to the momentum and effective functioning of interactive processes are the personal relationships that are forged around common interests and that frequently carry over to new issues.- The growing complexity of environmental decisionmaking.
Managing such complexity has become an increasingly difficult challenge given the growing amount of scientific information, legal and institutional factors, and political and values issues that must be reconciled. When well designed and managed, stakeholder processes are better equipped to simultaneously address and integrate these factors. Experience to date with traditional command and control regulation, however, demonstrates that it has often managed complexity ineffectively, in part because of the segmented and sequential nature of its process, its roots in a legal culture that presumes that decisionmaking proceeds through the use of an adversarial process, and its structural difficulty in representing the diverse viewpoints and values among affected parties.- The growing disclosure of environmental information.
Over the past decade, large amounts of information regarding national environmental quality as well as specific data on individual communities and facilities has become widely and instantaneously available to the public. EPA, many environmental and right-to-know organizations, and a growing number of individual companies have developed programs and plans to further expand such information.
"The growing availability of environmental information... will
intensify the demand for more rapid decisionmaking. And it
will encourage industry and its stakeholders to engage in more
direct discussions to address specific environmental problems in
ways that may reduce the role of federal agencies in selected
decisions.
Information management in this setting has at least two potentially significant implications. First, it will intensify the demand for more rapid decisionmaking. And it will encourage industry and its stakeholders to engage in more direct discussions to address specific environmental problems in ways that may reduce the role of federal agencies in selected decisions such as site-specific environmental management.
- The use of stakeholder processes to increase the transparency of government and industry decisionmaking.
By forging personal working relationships, supplementing information provided through compliance reporting, and providing stakeholders with an opportunity to directly advance their agendas and negotiate their interests, such processes have emerged as an institutional innovation to measure the environmental performance and behavior of government and industry at various levels.Expansive factors. These factors, building upon existing trends, will lead to greater use of stakeholder processes in the future. They include:
- Increased and more creative uses of information technology.
Greater availability of environmental information is one application of information technology as is the use of electronic communication to submit public comments to regulatory agencies or to improve the efficiency through which stakeholder deliberations occur. Other uses of information technology will include: the preparation of environmental performance report cards on individual industrial sectors or facilities by government agencies and right-to-know organizations; the reshaping of environmental advocacy strategies to reach targeted audiences; changing decisionmaking processes with government, industry and non-governmental organizations; and the use of information technology to manage relationships and alliances among organizations on issues of common interest. The relatively low cost of exchanging environmental information also is a major factor leading to its expanded use by stakeholder organizations, thus enabling them to participate more directly and rapidly in environmental decisionmaking.- Emergence of new types of environmental problems.
Environmental problems largely associated with point source pollution are more readily managed through a traditional regulatory process that focuses on developing and enforcing risk-based or technology-based controls upon those sources. For issues such as endocrine disruption or greenhouse gas releases, however, a different strategy is needed. Such a strategy should recognize that: 1) significant scientific uncertainties exist (far greater than those associated with traditional air and water quality issues, for example) and are unlikely to be resolved for a number of years; 2) developing negotiated goals and best professional judgment and management practices that integrate a range of societal interests and concerns can represent a more practical and viable interim approach for ensuring continued environmental progress; and 3) stakeholder processes, if well designed and managed, represent a better alternative for collecting information, identifying options, and negotiating reasonable outcomes than traditional decisionmaking processes.- Participation of a broader array of institutions in stakeholder processes.
Not only have government agencies and private companies expanded their solicitation of stakeholder input, but multi-lateral institutions also have initiated or participated in a growing number of alternative decision processes. Over the past several years, the World Bank has, for example, engaged the participation of stakeholders to resolve issues associated with resource development and dam construction. In selected instances, diplomatic initiatives have incorporated environmental stakeholders in attempts to resolve such issues as water rights disputes in the Middle East or conflicts over salmon fishing between Canada and the United States in the Pacific Northwest. Pressure also is growing to build stakeholder input mechanisms into multi-lateral bodies charged with resolving international trade and investment disputes.Limiting factors. These refer to issues that constrain or better limit the use of stakeholder processes. They include:
- More targeted selection of processes and issues.
As greater experience accrues with stakeholder processes and as guidelines and best management practices are further developed and applied, convenors, facilitators, and participants in stakeholder-based decisionmaking will seek ways to manage them more efficiently and be more selective in matching specific processes to problems. In addition, greater differentiation may emerge among the issues and processes that address primarily local problems compared with those of a national character.- Funding and capacity limits.
Unless significant new funding is provided by government, industry, or foundations, certain capacity issues (e.g., number of trained facilitators, financial support to enable stakeholder participation) can limit the future growth of stakeholder processes. In addition, the repeated involvement of some stakeholder groups has led to selective "burnout" that discourages or limits their ongoing participation. The burnout phenomenon also constitutes a challenge for convenor organizations to further broaden and diversify the range of stakeholders they seek to engage.- Recognition that some issues are less appropriate for stakeholder processes.
As demonstrated by the Enterprise for the Environment experience, sometimes stakeholder processes are less suitable for designing legislative solutions, especially when discussions involve the negotiation of values as well as interests. In addition, the characteristics of other sets of issues may make them less suitable for resolution by stakeholders. These include environmental enforcement investigations and issues related to the use of confidential information.On balance, the influence of factors that expand the use of environmental stakeholder processes outweigh those that may limit or restrain their future application. However, those individual stakeholder processes that have not yielded sufficient results or have been overly resource intensive can fall into disuse. EPA utilized regulatory negotiation, for example, for a number of environmental policy issues in the 1980’s and early 1990’s. Since the mid-1990’s, however, there has been a significant reduction in the use of this stakeholder mechanism. In addition, the automotive and petroleum refining sectors discontinued their participation in EPA’s Common Sense Initiative because of concerns over the design and effectiveness of the process. Like economic enterprises, specific stakeholder processes may be subject to market type forces that influence the demand for their supply.
"Those individual stakeholder processes that
have not yielded sufficient results or have
been overly resource intensive can fall into
disuse.
Unresolved issues. There currently are a number of unresolved issues concerning the future use of environmental stakeholder processes. While some anecdotal information exists, it is insufficient to assess how these issues will ultimately be answered. These issues include:
- Will stakeholder processes become integrated with traditional environmental decisionmaking or will they continue to exist in parallel to command and control regulation?
- Will legislative bodies mandate the use of stakeholder processes for a variety of environmental decisions by government and industry? Could such a mandate recognize the large number of judgments that must be made to ensure that specific stakeholder processes are effectively designed for specific problems?
- Do stakeholder processes actually expand the public’s participation in environmental decisionmaking, or are they so resource intensive that they displace other activities that solicit public input? Do such processes under-represent the broader interests of society because of an overly narrow definition of stakeholders and the disproportionate ability of organized and influential stakeholder groups to express their interests?
- Will society’s future use of information technology promote societal agreement on environmental and other issues or will it create "information suburbs" that further segment and balkanize interests and values? How will an equitable access to information technology be ensured?
- What is the future role of government if stakeholder processes become a more influential forum for resolving environmental conflicts? As differing stakeholder groups develop more interactive and productive relationships, will government agencies be as engaged and as important in solving environmental problems?
"The expanded use of stakeholder
processes represents a search to
revitalize the nation's environmental
institutions and decisionmaking processes."
The importance of addressing these questions reflects the continuing salience of environmental issues in American and, increasingly, global society. They also represent the ongoing experiment with expanding public participation that is so characteristic of the American political system. And, following several decades of highly contentious environmental debates among government, industry, environmental groups and others, the expanded use of stakeholder processes represents a search to revitalize the nation’s environmental institutions and decisionmaking processes. A key to such revitalization lies in the ability to move beyond symbolic debates over right and wrong toward more accessible and practical solutions that improve environmental quality by integrating the best information currently available with society’s interests and values.
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