World Student Community for Sustainable Development

by Ricardo Jimenez

Cooperative environmental management (CEM) supports a policy approach in which government, businesses, and civic groups discuss environmental, economic, and social concerns, cooperating to resolve their differences [1] while merging central competencies in reciprocally underpinning ways. Moreover, this approach sets a strategy by which society as a whole is integrated to share responsibilities to manage the environment. By recognizing policy as a process, it allows for all parties to be accountable while working for long-term goals through a policy debate. In brief, CEM illustrates an ongoing interaction of the three spheres (public, private, and third sector) rather than having the government attempt to influence others to take action.

In a cooperative environmental management model, such as the one sketched below (Figure 1), policy is shaped on various spheres and by various actors. The various stages in the formulation of projects and programs involve not just regulators and policy-makers, but also the private and third sector. This model presupposes that policy is subject to contingency and therefore requires a more adaptive strategy for public managers carrying out programs. The aforementioned approach opens space for experimentation and social learning, as it recognizes that policy-making processes are generated from the interaction of organizations and social networks, and at the same time acknowledges that this learning encourages innovation. Moreover, it sees the policy process as a continuum, a loop where the learning from the evaluation and implementation systems feed into the problem definition stage, not only for the next policy or project, but also interactively with the policy in question, so that it is reframed as necessary (e.g., adaptive management — policy is created, experiment is developed, results change X principle of the policy, policy can be changed). In these ways, cooperative environmental management nurtures policy choices through a bottom-up approach.

Cooperation among the diverse actors may involve: (1) formal arrangements that, for instance, create a legal framework in which the parties operate, and (2) informal arrangements through which the parties establish common goals and share knowledge while promoting social learning and achieving accountability. Informal patterns of interaction among diverse organizations — such as structures, power, and communications in environmental ventures — are fundamental for managers. The norms and values that emerge from these processes act as social control systems; they are forces for innovation and change. Informal patterns of communication, such as defining who talks to whom, can be mapped to help identify the key actors within an environmental venture. These nodes within communication networks will likely have more impact on efforts aimed at innovation and change. According to the Constructive Technology Assessment theory, membership in an informal social network can be the most potent means of influencing technology [2], as such networks help to identify sources of power.

Cooperation is essential for the development and adaptation of green technologies as we navigate toward sustainability. Networks tend to develop more innovative policies, foster more effective policy implementation, and help realize goals through consensus between social actors with different values, developed through dialogue and exchange. (Research has shown that the creation of some networked pattern is a common starting place for innovation. [3]) With the creation of networks, however, emerge issues of transparency, legitimacy, accountability, administration, and leaderships. Managers should thus be prepared to craft processes of negotiation and consensus-building to help the diverse set of actors interact cooperatively, legitimize their institutional relationships, and remain accountable. When stakeholders such as the public, private, and third sectors discuss and solve problems in green technological development through an open and legal framework, the public value that technological developments seek to achieve will be enhanced.

The interaction between governments and businesses has become increasingly important when taking action on the environment, and theoretical models such as Public Entrepreneurship Networks support this observation. Public Entrepreneurship Networks is a model that captures the dynamics of change and the implications for action by diverse actors that engage in inter-organizational relationships and who are ultimately attempting to move toward a sustainable development. This model requires government participation to ensure that public entrepreneurship networks function effectively and stay oriented toward publicly endorsed goals. Furthermore, governments should learn how to facilitate the creation of these networks in order to enhance their impact. [4]

In sum, learning to manage the interactions among the public, private, and third sectors — illustrated by the policy approach described above — is a central topic in the transition to a new model of development. The way in which decision-makers at various institutional levels — government agencies, NGOs, businesses, and social entrepreneurs — approach this challenge will determine, in no small measure, the extent of progress toward the challenge of sustainability. In moving toward sustainability, public administrators and entrepreneurs must therefore focus on developing inclusive, cross-sectoral, and “closed-loop†managerial decisions; to do otherwise threatens a decisionâ€^TMs long-term viability. Similarly, public managers and entrepreneurs should strive to unlock the learning possessed by actors from diverse constituencies (e.g., communities, unions, and small companies), while creating interactive mechanisms to feed this knowledge back into the policy design process.

We may think about a new institutional vision that sees public agencies not only as providers of solutions, but as facilitators and partners that work with citizens to produce collaborative solutions. The core of adaptation through experimentation can also help develop new institutional arrangements, thereby allowing experimentation on the institutions themselves. These experiments could explore, for example, the relationships within and among agencies and stakeholders to help find new ways to promote flexibility, cooperative management, and the long-term thinking [5] that is so crucial to sustainable development.

- Ricardo Jimenez, Colombia; recent graduate of the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA

Additional resource

de Jongh, P., and S. Captain. 1999. Our Common Journey: A Pioneering Approach to Cooperative Environmental Management. London: Zed Books.
Footnotes

[1] Peterson, J., and L. Oâ€^TMToole. 2001. Federal Governance in the US and the EU: A Policy Network Perspective.

[2] Rip, A., T. Misa, and J. Schot. 1995. Pollution Prevention, Cleaner Technologies, and Industry. In Managing Technology in Society: The Approach of Constructive Technology Assessment. Printer Publishers.

[3] Peterson, J., and L. Oâ€^TMToole. 2001. Federal Governance in the US and the EU: A Policy Network Perspective.

[4] Laws, D., L. Susskind, et al. 2001. Public Entrepreneurship Networks. Environmental Technology and Public Policy Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

[5] Johnson, Barry L. 1999. Introduction to a Special Feature: Adaptive Management, Scientifically Sound, Socially Challenged? Conservation Ecology 3(1): 10, http://www.consecol.org/vol3/iss1/art10.