External control and LCAs (13-11)

Life Cycle Analysis is a technique that integrates resource use, energy input and waste production from all processes related to the production of goods and services, ‘from the cradle to the grave’ ( (Boersema & Reijnders, 2009). The result of this analysis is a method to assess the environmental impact of products and services.

External control is a system outside society, regulating that society. The most common example of an externally controlling system is the government setting rules. Those rules are setting boundary conditions for the self-organisation of the specific goal the government had in mind when creating and implementing that rule.

The goal of this blog is to come up with four ways for a government to increase use of LCAs by setting boundary conditions and external control, according to the framework of Sabatier (1980), presented below.

Figure 1: Sabatiers Framework (Sabatier, P., & Mazmanian, D.  1980)

Sabatier’s framework presents the stages of the implementation process of a policy and 3 main variables influencing that process: the tractability of the problem, the ability of statute to structure implementation and the non-statuary variables affecting implementation.

I feel that external control is enforcing a ‘top down’ increase of use, while I feel that providing boundary conditions is creating a ‘bottom up’ development. Therefore I have come up with two examples for external control and two examples of setting boundary conditions, because my hypothesis is that this difference in development might give different results. My explanation for this possible outcome is that enforcing rules might rule out potential innovators (sidenote: I am aware that this hypothesis is influenced by my own liberal view, therefore I feel it is even more interesting to investigate it).

Shortly, the four ways the government can increase the use of LCAs through external control and setting boundary conditions are:

-          making LCA theory part of the course materials in high schools (external control)

-          the requirement of using an LCA when implementing a governmental policy (external control)

-          providing subsidy to companies that make use of LCAs in their operations (setting boundary conditions)

-          investing in research that is aiming to improve the LCA method (setting boundary conditions)

Based to the Sabatier framework, for both measures that make use of external control analysed by the traceability variable, some problems might occur regarding the extend of behaviour change and the percentage of the target group regarding the population. Policy makers in implementing agencies have to extend their procedures if they have not been using LCAs and teachers have to learn about the theory, if they have not done so far, to be able to teach it to students. Assuming that around 1 million people work for the Dutch government (Rijksoverheid, 2013), the target group is around 6% of the entire population. Depending whether one considers this a large part or not, it might give difficulties in implementing or not. The theory and technology about LCAs is available so that might facilitate the use of those measures.

Compared to the two measures that set boundary conditions, it might be more difficult to access the available theory and technology. The target group and the behavioural change required for those measures are larger compared to the external controlling regulations, because not only policy makers are involved and changing behaviour, but the private sector too. But the behavioural change is voluntarily and therefore the behavioural change might be less.

                Therefore the effectiveness of external control, regarding the traceability variable, is larger compared to the other option of setting boundary conditions.

When analysing the two kinds of measures, external control and setting boundary conditions, based on the statutory variable, the unambiguousness of policy directives might be less effective in the case of boundary conditions due to the sensitivity of lobbying. Also the financial resources required might be larger for the boundary conditions, because of new subsidies and investments. The decision rules for implementing agencies have less money at stake in the external control measures, I believe.

But the formal access by outsiders is easier for the boundaries measure, because of the communication that is facilitated in this case. The incorporation of adequate causal theory might be more efficient for the boundary measures, due to the incentive of financial support.

Therefore the effectiveness of external control, regarding the statutory variable might be larger compared to the setting boundaries measures.

The effectiveness of the non-statutory variable is in favour of the setting boundaries measures, during the stages of implementation.

The media attention might be larger for the external control because more people will learn about LCAs.

The attitudes and resources of the groups might be better in the setting boundaries measures, because of the free choice. The same holds for the socio-economic conditions and technology, because of the incentive to receive support. Because of the free choice, the public support might also be larger.

                Overall, the potential effectiveness of external control is larger than I had expected in the first place. This is based on the analysis of the measures using the framework of Sabatier.

References

Boersema, J. & Reijnders, L., 2009. Principles of Environmental Science. Amsterdam: Springer Science; Business Media B.V.

Rijksoverheid, 2013. www.rijksoverheid.nl. [Online]
Available at: http://www.rijksoverheid.nl/nieuws/2013/06/05/cijfers-overheid-steeds-kleiner.html
[Geopend 12 11 2014].