Environmental  Accountability: What exactly does it mean?

John Crawford ,Technical Adviser, Caledonian Environment Centre, Glasgow Caledonian University

Although ‘sustainability’, ‘green issues’, carbon foot-printing’ etc are terms which abound in all sections of journalism today, the concepts aren’t new and have in fact been promoted for over a century.  For the first time in recorded memory however, the human race is running out of new territories with the capacity for being polluted and exploited for the winning of virgin materials.

The growth of the Indian and far-eastern technological economies has the ability to replicate many of the consequences which resulted from the industrial revolution, yet the lessons learned from the aftermath of that phenomenon appear to be being either ignored, or incapable of being used to prevent a repetition on a global scale.

The ‘polluter pays’ approach adopted by the EU many years ago has resulted in many manufacturing bases being moved away from the west for financial advantages. Multi-national approaches (eg Rio 1993 and Kyoto) have mapped out potential environmental pollution prevention strategies but the implementation of practical solutions has stumbled as politicians have had to acknowledge the financial and unpopular consequences anticipated.

At more mundane levels, efforts by Councils to promote and encourage more waste minimisation, re-use and recycling have been assailed by some sections of the national press who while denigrating new services, offer little if any alternatives.

This paper will try to review the concept of ‘Environmental Accountability’ in terms of both the environmental protection community and the effects on individuals. It will range from such diverse global issues as the impact on carbon footprinting in the antipodes resulting from can recycling in the UK, to those 21st century families who insist on safe, clean healthy environments for their children at school while at the same time transport their children to and from school in large passenger vehicles which make significant greenhouse gas emissions, contribute to traffic congestion and increase road safety risks near schools.

The paper will consider the effects of ‘intervention’ and ‘financial’ strategies on the everyday behaviour of individuals and question whether these can be achieved on a long-term basis when the life of parliaments is comparatively shorter.