Sustainability Policy E-Book

Steven Cohen

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Wissenschaft und neue Technologien
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 466

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Beschreibung

A complete guide to sustainability policy at the federal, state, and local levels

Sustainability Policy: Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy is a fundamental guide for public sector professionals new to sustainability policy development, implementation, strategy, and practice. Featuring detailed cases highlighting innovative sustainability initiatives, this book explores the elements that constitute effective policy, and the factors that can help or hinder implementation and adoption. Readers gain insight into policies in effect at the federal, state, and local levels, in the areas of water, energy, material use, and waste management, and the reasons why local policies are often the most innovative and successful. Discussion surrounding monitoring and measurement addresses the lack of standardization, as well as the government's critical role in leading the field toward generally accepted sustainability metrics, while outlining the reasons why certain policies are more feasible than others.

This book is an introductory resource, written in non-technical language, and organized in a coherent manner that establishes foundational knowledge before introducing more complex issues. Even readers with little background in sustainability will gain insight into the current state of the field and the issues at hand.

• Understand sustainability in public and private enterprises, including the role of government and public policy
• Learn the current standing federal, state, and local policies surrounding sustainability
• Discover what makes an effective sustainability policy, including measurement and evaluation metrics
• Explore the politics and future of sustainability, and the barriers to change

Sustainability is a hot topic in both the public and private sector, with vocal advocates on both sides of every issue, so developing effective policy is crucial. For public sector professionals entering the sustainability field, Introduction to Sustainability Policy & Management is a valuable resource.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Cover

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Preface: The Role of Government in the Transition to a Sustainable Economy

Acknowledgments

Chapter 1: What is Sustainability Management?

Introduction

The Challenges of Sustainability

Sustainability Management

The Evolution of the Environmental Movement

The Sustainability Perspective

Evolution of Organizational Management

The Growing Momentum behind Sustainability Management

The Expansion of Corporate Sustainability

Sustainable Cities

Measuring Sustainability

Toward a Sustainable, Renewable Economy

Chapter 2: Why We Need Sustainability Public Policy

Introduction

The Need for a Renewable Energy Economy

The Different Functions of the Public, Private, and Nonprofit Sectors

Limitations of the Private Sector in Addressing Long-Term Sustainability

Role of the Government in Building a Sustainable Economy

Working to Ensure the Transition is Well Managed

Chapter 3: Policy Levers for Sustainability: The Federal Level

Introduction

What Is Working?

What Is Not Working?

What Is Possible?

The Promise of Federally Led Sustainability

Chapter 4: Policy Levers for Sustainability: The State Level

Introduction

Energy Policies

Transportation Policies

Climate Adaptation and Infrastructure Policies

Facilitating Innovation

Chapter 5: Policy Levers for Sustainability: The Local Level

Introduction

Why Cities?

Urban Energy Initiatives

Urban Air Quality Programs

Transportation Policies

Water Management

Waste Management

Community Design and Land Use

Resilient, Sustainable Cities

Chapter 6: Sustainability Measurement and Metrics

Introduction

What Are Sustainability Metrics?

Sustainability Frameworks and Indices

The Challenges of Sustainability Measurement and Reporting

The Need for Standard, Generally Accepted Metrics

The Role of the Public Sector

Metrics as Momentum for Change

Chapter 7: The Politics of Sustainability

Introduction

Increasing Partisanship in Washington

The Tea Party and the Deregulation Agenda

The Influence of Money, Lobbyists, and the Media

All Politics are Local

Public Opinion on Sustainability

The Future of Sustainability Politics

Chapter 8: Conclusion

The Role of Consumption and Lifestyle in the Transition to Sustainability

The Political Change Process that Brings Us to Sustainability

References

About the Authors

Index

End User License Agreement

List of Illustrations

Figure 2.1

Figure 4.1

Figure 4.2

Figure 6.1

Figure 7.1

Guide

Cover

Table of Contents

Begin Reading

Chapter 1

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Sustainability Policy

Hastening the Transition to a Cleaner Economy

Steven Cohen

William Eimicke

Alison Miller

Cover image: Wind Turbines © iStock.com/mahroch

Cover design: Wiley

Copyright © 2015 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Published simultaneously in Canada.

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Dedication

To Donna, Gabriella, Ariel, Karen, Annemarie, Balsam, Carol, and Gary

Preface: The Role of Government in the Transition to a Sustainable Economy

The Need for Governmental Sustainability Policy

It's a great paradox that at the moment the United States needs government the most, we don't seem to have one anymore. As students of public administration, we have been motivated by John F. Kennedy's call to public service. Throughout our careers, we have chosen to “ask not what our country could do for us,” asking instead “what we could do for our country.” Steve Cohen joined the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in the late 1970s, but six months into Ronald Reagan's presidential term, after he defined government as a problem rather than a calling, Cohen left the EPA and did not seek another government position. He was not alone; many left and many who were needed never arrived. State and local governments continued to attract the best and brightest of our young people, but fewer and fewer seemed interested in working in our nation's capital. Most headed for private nonprofits and for-profits. In Washington, public service went out of fashion, and was replaced by the ambition-fueled revolving door.

Today, Washington seems a place of palace intrigue, arcane policy debates, campaign cash, and a political spin on everything and everyone. In some respects the final breaking point may well have been the Obama administration's failure to launch a functioning web-based sign-up system for national healthcare. Over a half-century of struggle to establish national healthcare culminated with a sign-up process that didn't work. We now have a federal government so incompetent that it can't manage the contractors it hires to set up a website. President Reagan set in motion a self-fulfilling prophecy; government, at least the federal kind, has become a problem.

With this as the backdrop, we have a planet that is trapped in an economic system based on the one-time use of fossil fuels and other material resources. The population of our planet has grown from three billion when JFK took office to over seven billion today. We need to develop and deploy the technology to create a renewable resource-based economy. We simply cannot continue using up materials and dumping the waste in a hole in the ground.

The private sector cannot make the transition from a waste-based economy to a renewable one by itself. This transition can only happen if we can create a public–private partnership. This is nothing new; we've been through this before. The transformation from an agrarian economy to an industrial economy could not have been done under the laissez-faire economic philosophy of the early industrial age. Teddy Roosevelt and his allies understood that and began to regulate the marketplace. Food, drugs, labor, and monopolies were regulated at the start of the 20th century. Franklin Delano Roosevelt continued the process of increasing the role of government in our mixed economy. Government was needed to establish the rules of the game, a social safety net, transportation, energy, and water infrastructure. Now, as we begin the transition from a fossil-fuel–based economy to one based on renewable energy and other reusable resources, government has a critical role to play again.

While we are focusing here on the role of government, it is important to understand that the private sector has a much larger and even more important role to play in the transition to a sustainable economy. It is the private sector that produces the goods and services that modern life relies on. We like and want these goods and services, and without capitalism's power to motivate people and reduce inefficiency, there would be far fewer of these goods and services to consume. This is not an argument that government knows best. It is the argument that effective competition requires rules, referees, and meaningful penalties for anti-social, criminal behavior. We are saying that in a complex economy on a crowded planet, we need a set of rules that respond to the international stress and complexity that our global economy has created. Just as the regulation of Wall Street builds confidence in the public marketplace for capital, we need rules to ensure that economic life does not destroy the planet that provides us with food, air, and water.

The role of government in building a sustainable economy includes:

Funding basic science needed for renewable energy and renewable resource technology.

Using the tax system, government purchasing power, and other financial tools to steer private capital toward investment in renewable energy and other sustainability technologies and businesses.

Investment in sustainability infrastructure, such as smart grids, electric vehicle charging stations, mass transit, waste management facilities, water filtration systems, and sewage treatment systems.

Regulating land use and other private behaviors to minimize destruction of ecosystems.

Working with private organizations as well as state and local government to ensure that the transition is well managed in the real world.

Measuring our society's progress toward sustainability by developing and maintaining a system of generally accepted sustainability metrics. This in turn should facilitate the integration of sustainability into our overall management of organizations as well as the national economy.

Selling or transferring sustainability technologies to the developing world.

Funding Science and Providing Incentives for Private Investment

One of the fundamental tasks that can be done only by government is to fund the science needed to build the technological base for a sustainable economy. America's research universities remain the best in the world. They are funded by peer-reviewed, competitive, government grant programs. When coupled with the creativity hard-wired into American culture, they create a unique asset that can be used to develop a leadership position in sustainability technologies. The work of our scientists and engineers could not be more important. We need to develop a way to get off of fossil fuels and more efficiently store and use energy. We also need more effective ways of managing and recycling our waste stream. Government must fund the basic research and enough of the applied research to demonstrate possible profitability. The tax code must then provide private firms with incentives to invest capital in these new and speculative technologies.

Funding Infrastructure

Just as government built ports, canals, dams, and highways—the infrastructure of the 19th and 20th centuries—it must build the energy, communications, and waste- and water-management infrastructure needed for the 21st century. Constructing and operating these facilities will probably be the work of private firms, but the vision and financing will need to come from taxpayers and their government. Infrastructure requires an imaginative and aggressive government. It cannot be seen as a residual category. The neglect of investment in infrastructure is obvious to even the most casual observer of America's political economy. Our roads, railways, water systems, electric grid, broadband speed, bridges, airports, and schools show signs of disinvestment and neglect. Our anti-government and anti-tax ideology has made investment difficult and will make the transition to a sustainable economy even more difficult.

Setting and Enforcing Rules to Protect the Environment and Maximize Resource Efficiency

Anti-tax and anti-government sentiment is also reflected in reflexive opposition to so-called job-killing environmental regulations. Even though the economic benefits of environmental rules are far higher than their economic costs, our delegitimized federal government has not enacted any new environmental laws in over two decades. Many sustainability-oriented local officials understand the clear connection between environmental quality and economic growth; however, there is also a prevalent idea that economic growth must come at the expense of environmental quality. True financial gain can be secured through sustainable practices, which are much less costly—from an economic and societal standpoint—than remediation costs to fix polluted air, water, and land.

Our economy is more complex than ever, and more toxics have made their way into production processes than in the past. These facts mean that our country and world require rules that can keep pace with economic, demographic, and technological change. The food, water, and air that sustain human life must be protected, and only government oversight can ensure that such critical resources are maintained. Rules must prevent damage to the environment, and also ensure that energy efficiency, recycling, and environmental stewardship are integrated into our structures, institutions, and daily routines.

Working to Ensure the Transition is Well-Managed

Making policies and setting rules is only the start of the process; these rules must be flexible in order to be adapted to a changing world. Implementing these policies will require the development of new organizational capacities. Very few new activities match the plans they are based on. Edicts from faceless bureaucrats reinforced by arrogant, tough-enforcement attitudes almost always backfire and should be avoided. As Steve Cohen's friend and retired EPA manager Ron Brand used to say, “Focus on the real work. There are no cash registers in headquarters.” Revenues and expenditures are driven by the people on the production line delivering services and manufacturing goods. Once policies and strategies are developed and the money to implement them is allocated, the action shifts to operational management, assessment, and learning. It is a mistake to ignore operations management.

Sustainability Metrics and Management

As management guru Peter Drucker famously stated, “You can't manage something if you can't measure it.” Without metrics, you can't tell if the actions taken by management are making things better or worse. In some respects, sustainability metrics are as primitive as accounting was before the Great Depression. While the imposition of income and corporate taxes at the start of the 20th century resulted in the growth of the accounting profession, early accounting principles were not consistently applied. According to financial writer Andrew Beattie:

In 1917, the Federal Reserve published Uniform Accounting, a document that attempted to set industry standards for how financials should be organized both for reporting tax and for financial statements. There were no laws to back the standards so they had little effect. The stock market crash of 1929 that launched the Great Depression exposed massive accounting frauds by companies listed on the NYSE. This prompted stricter measures in 1933, including the independent audit of a company's financial statements by public accountants before being listed on the exchange (Beattie, 2009).

Sustainability metrics are still under development. Each corporation, locality, and think tank seems to have its own favorite measures and methods. Some focus on physical issues such as water, waste, and energy, while others include issues of equity, fairness, and environmental justice. In the end, government will need to set reporting standards. Perhaps they will be integrated into standard accounting definitions and practices as the U.S. tax code evolves to encourage sustainability, or maybe a separate set of measures will be developed. We have proposed that the U.S. government establish a National Commission on Sustainability Metrics to bring academics, government officials, industry, labor, and environmentalists together to develop a set of generally accepted sustainability metrics.

Transferring Technology to the Developing World

As the developed world makes the transition to a more sustainable, renewable resource-based economy, it is important that newly developing nations are provided with incentives to use the new technologies instead of older ones that might get cheaper as they are discarded by the developed world. Coal and coal-fired power plants could get very inexpensive as they are replaced by cleaner sources of energy, and if the United States lowers its greenhouse gas emissions while developing nations increase theirs, the climate will continue to be degraded. We believe that the mitigation of climate change will require new energy technology, but without effective technology transfer, the problem will remain. Fortunately, a variety of financial tools could be used to lower the cost of new technology for export to the developing world.

Government Needs a Sophisticated, Agile Sustainability Policy

The issues identified here cannot be addressed by the private sector and the free market alone; they require government action. Unfortunately, it requires a degree of management savvy we have not seen in the United States' federal government in decades. The people that rolled out Obamacare, bailed out the financial system at the expense of the middle class, and invaded Iraq to destroy non-existent weapons of mass destruction will not be able to handle the management challenges of this transition. Nevertheless, there is no choice. The U.S. government will need to assume global leadership of the transition to a sustainable economy. The probability of this happening today is low. We see far more evidence of this capacity in local government than we do at the federal level.

The future well-being of this country and of the planet as a whole depends on the U.S. government playing a more strategic and future-oriented role to bring about the transition to a renewable, resource-based economy. This country seems to do its best work when confronted with a crisis. While this crisis has arrived, many people do not believe it is here. We need a national leader willing to communicate the need for change and a strategy for getting from here to there. While no one immediately comes to mind, perhaps someone will emerge.

Acknowledgments

This book represents the work of a number of people, and we would like to acknowledge them here. First, we would like to thank Columbia University, where we all work, and President Lee Bollinger and Provost John Coatsworth. In particular, we'd also like to thank the School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA), under the leadership of Dean Merit E. Janow, as well as the Earth Institute, under the direction of Jeffrey Sachs. We would like to thank the staff of the Research Program on Sustainability Policy and Management, including Satyajit Bose, Dong Guo, Kelsie DeFrancia, and faculty advisory council members Michael Gerrard and Tanya Heikkila. We would also like to thank the research and editing efforts of our team of student and staff assistants that helped tremendously in the making of this book, including Earth Institute staff Hayley Martinez and Yasmin Williams, and research assistants Jacob Kaden, Kyle Marsh, and Rachael Lubitz.

Steve Cohen would also like to acknowledge a number of people that have taught him about public and environmental policy, especially the late Lester Milbrath, and Sheldon Kamieniecki, Marc Tipermas, Tony Khater, Bob O'Connor, and Tom Ingersoll. Steve would like to thank his family; his wife, Donna Fishman; his children, Gabriella Rose and Ariel Mariah; his parents, Marvin and Shirley; his brother, Robby; and his sisters, Judith and Myra.

Bill Eimicke thanks former New York City Mayor Ed Koch and former New York Governor Mario Cuomo; New York Governor Andrew Cuomo; FDNY Commissioner Salvatore Cassano; and Columbia University Provost John Coatsworth. Bill is grateful for the support and advice of his wife, Karen Murphy; his daughter, Annemarie; his dog, Balsam; and his horses, Clef, Just Foxy, and Golden Hare; and donkey, Paco.

Alison Miller would like to thank her co-authors—Steve Cohen, professor, mentor, boss, and colleague, and William Eimicke, colleague and advisor. Alison also acknowledges the other teachers and mentors who have had outsized impacts on her academic and professional careers: Matthew Hoffmann, whose undergraduate course on global environmental governance first led her on the path of environmental policy; Andrea Bollyky, Michael Klein, and Louise Rosen. She thanks her colleagues, past and present: Allison Ladue, Sarah Tweedie, Natalie Unwin-Kuruneri, Alix Schroder, Annie Hunt, Courtney Small, Davida Heller, and all of her professors and classmates in the MPA ESP program, who helped shaped her understanding of the world. She is ever grateful for the constant love and support of her family: Carol, Gary, Richard, Jaclyn, and Jonathan.

1What is Sustainability Management?

Introduction

After decades at the periphery of public and private agendas, sustainability and environmental protection have emerged at the center of our economic and political dialogue. As consumption and population rise, the planet's resources are showing signs of strain, and energy, water, and waste management have added significant costs to the budgets of government and private organizations. Whereas many environmentalists are motivated solely by their love of nature, sustainability managers (who very well might love nature) focus on environmental preservation because they understand the importance of functioning ecosystems to human well-being. Safe water, air, and food are necessities, not luxuries. The ability to achieve sustainability is increasingly seen as an indicator of a well-run organization. As the private sector shifts toward sustainable practices, it brings us close to achieving the type of critical mass that can have a major effect on the global economy. In this chapter, we define sustainability management in public and private enterprises, describe its evolution, and introduce the management case for sustainability.