The search for sustainability
by
Emma Masters
Growing
concerns about the impact of development and industry on the environment
have seen sustainability become a buzz word of the new millennium and
under environmental protection laws, it is now an explicit objective. So
how do governments, industry, community and environmental groups balance
often competing economic, social and environmental goals?
In the first lecture of the Division of Business’ Working Links seminar series, national authority in environmental law, Professor Rob Fowler, addressed this critical question.
Drawing on a recent consultancy report undertaken for the South Australian Environment Protection Authority (EPA), Prof Fowler, UniSA’s Chair in Environment Law at the School of Commerce, discussed what sustainability means, how the EPA is promoting it and how industry is meeting objectives.
Speaking to a packed audience at the Rockford Hotel, he said how the lack of consensus about the meaning of sustainability raises some real difficulties. And in searching to find common ground Prof Fowler suggested practical ways of tackling the issue, looking at three main areas – “law and order”, “jobs and the environment”, and “people power”.
He talked about the need to strengthen regulation and how it’s administered, to develop smart regulation that uses economic instruments and market mechanisms, and to adopt voluntary methods in industry, as well as alternatives to conventional regulation.
In looking at jobs and the environment he told of how the legal and policy framework is inadequate in helping the EPA to do its job and how there is a need to develop criteria for weighing up economic and environmental values.
Then advocating for a greater level of public involvement in all levels of the decision making process, he talked of how revamping the Environment Protection Act and the way the EPA operates will help facilitate “people power”.
While Prof Fowler said there were no simple answers, he said assisting the EPA to develop an approach to sustainability for the future was worthwhile and crucial.
The EPA has already taken some of the recommendations on board, and is currently developing a sustainability charter.