Regulation in an Ecoeconomy

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Regulation in an Eco-economy

• Transforming economic drivers

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Principles Trends

• increasing economic complexity demands more
  conscious involvement and direction.
• Planning is more, not less, important, but
• The state cant do it all.
• Integrated design
• Social environmental
• Cross-disciplinary

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Trends Principles -2

• political-economic integration
• moves beyond the state
• more connected to overall rules of economic life
• more connected to all stakeholders involved
• should be part of a movement toward direct
  democracy

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Knowledge-based / Quality-based development

• Greater focus on the human factor
• From mindless to mindful markets
• Centrality of end-use purpose of production
• Integrated design multi-dimensional goals
• Greater levels of democracy/participation
• From hierarchical to decentralized regulation
• From external to internal self-regulation
• Greater stakeholder involvement
• Greater integration with everyday exchange
  civil society

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Historical Trends in Regulation

• early industrialism separation between state and
  markets. Focus on production.
• Fordist state-socialist industrialism
• More concern with consumption / demand.
• Need for more planning political-economic
  intervention.
• Today even greater involvement of consciousness
  planning is necessary integrated
  ecosystem-based design.
• Post-Fordist globalization avoidance or
  disguising of conscious planning.
• Suppression of new modes of mass collaboration.

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Trends in Mainstream Regulation

• End of pipe control and cleanup 70s
• Point Source Prevention 80s
• Consumption Patterns and Product System Design
  today

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Contending Alternatives toCommand-and-Control

• Corporate critique
• Regulation costly and inefficient
• Trade a panacea
• Avoidance of accountability
• Focus on single bottom line
• In Practice tends to starve governments of
  regulatory resourcesproducing a self-fulfilling
  prophecy

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Design Perspectiveon Regulation

• Commoner, Hawken, Boyd, Geiser, Stahel, etc.
• Need for levels of incentives/disincentives
• Regulatory pluralism
• From prescriptive to performance standards
• Democracy inclusion of stakeholders, growth of
  accountability
• Movement toward fundamental solutions
• Service economy redefining output
• Lake economy organic redesign
• Must deal with silo structures

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Next Generation Regulatory Instruments

• Often a confused combination of corporate and
  design elements
• Variations of Regulatory Pluralism
• self-regulation
• co-regulation
• voluntary agreements
• regulatory flexibility
• negotiated agreements
• environmental partnerships
• informational regulation
• economic instruments.

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Questions about Instruments

• Do they accept or reinforce chronic underfunding
  of government?
• Are they based in corporate ideology (i.e.
  obsolete views of market forces)?
• Do they deal with fundamental problems and
  solutions?

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Elements of Green Economic Self-Regulation

• the Scale of the economy community and
  bioregional organization, harnessing
  technological potentials for decentralization via
  reutilization-industry, distributed
  energy-generation, eco-infrastructure, local
  money, co-operative consumption, etc.
• Participatory democracy Green Municipalism,
  participatory Green City Plans, community
  indicators pattern-language development.
• a Green regulatory structure including community
  design pattern-languages, performance standards,
  product stewardship systems, product substance
  bans, and other rules which encourage
  bioregionalism, quality and community.
• Green market mechanisms ecological tax systems,
  account-money other community currencies, and a
  green financial infrastructure.
• Knowledge as a regulatory force via resource
  inventories, eco-accounting, product information
  labelling, and community indicators.

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Surrogate Regulators

• community groups, NGOs
• buyers / suppliers
• investors
• financial institutions
• insurance companies
• Question are these surrogates, or just vital
  elements of regulation today?

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Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR)

• designing ownership patterns to achieve
  stewardship
• a positive form of accountability that can
  change the DNA of corporate entities
• closes loops and encourages service production
• takes different forms in different industries and
  situations.

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Varieties of EPR

• liability where responsibility for environmental
  damages caused by a productin production, use,
  or disposalis borne by the producer
• economic responsibility where a producer covers
  all or part of the costs for managing wastes at
  the end of a products life (e.g. collection,
  processing, treatment or disposal)
• physical responsibility where the producer is
  involved in the physical management of the
  products, used products or the impacts of the
  products through development of technology or
  provision of services one common expression of
  this would be
• ownership where the producer retains ownership of
  the product over it entire service life, and
• informative responsibility where the producer is
  required to provide information on the product
  and its effects during various stages of its life
  cycle.
• (Thorpe and Kruszewska,1999 Linquist, 1998)

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Expressions OF EPR

• Product take back for waste management
• Life-cycle partnerships for waste management
• Materials selection
• Materials management
• Extended environmental management programs
• Leasing systems
• Delivering service and function instead of
  products
• Design-for-the-environment programs
• Environmental purchasing

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Frontiers of EPR

• Braungarts Intelligent Product System
• Consumables
• Products of Service
• Unmarketables
• Product-Service Systems
• typically tries to facilitate
• --sale of the use of product (rather than the
  product itself)
• --operational leasing, rather than ownership by
  consumers
• --repair rather than throwaway relationships

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Strategic Modes of Regulation

• Civil Society-based Certification systems
• Ecological Tax Reform / tax shifting
• Subsidies / green scissors
• Green Procurement
• EPR legislation
• Guidelines for Green Finance green development
  plans, etc.

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Sector-based Action

• green belts
• building codes / zoning
• renewable portfolio standards standard offer
  contracts
• product substance bans, etc.