Sustainability Policy and Events, Purpose and Context
The Green Screen for Safer Chemicals, a product of Clean Production Action, is a method of comparative Chemical Hazard Assessment that can be used for identifying chemicals of high concern and safer alternatives. Logo used with permission. See: https://www.greenscreenchemicals.org/
In 1987 while working as an environmental analyst in the Massachusetts budgeting office, I learned about a little program that was focusing on “Source Reduction”,[1] and I went right over to ask if I could work there, because after 17 years of trying to figure out how environmental problems could be most effectively addressed, I felt they had the answer: you address the problem at the source, instead of waiting for problems to arise and then trying to clean them up.
The next year I started working on what grew into one of the world’s first and biggest programs of technical assistance for toxics use reduction (at its height, our office was a little more than thirty employees. If I ran environmental policy, such agencies would have hundreds of staff). I stayed with what became more generally known as pollution prevention for the next twenty-seven years, becoming a true believer in its value, because I saw hundreds of companies find ways to reduce their toxics use and become not only safer, but more economically viable. Nearly all of the companies I worked with had good experiences and came to appreciate how worthwhile it can be to focus on environmental issues as clues to how to improve process and product. They also learned how helpful government can be when it is not just out to punish you: a much needed change in the relationship between government and the regulated community. My experience convinced me that our society can transition to cleaner production without the economic penalty so many expect from environmental initiatives, and without having to use harsh enforcement, except when dealing with the most entrenched laggards. (I also spent a few years as an enforcement attorney, and know that some companies do need punishment, or its threat). Many businesses will utilize a helping hand, and that made me convinced we should have a “two-handed” approach, offering assistance first, and using enforcement as a powerful backup when it doesn’t work. It is not one or the other, but both, appropriately targeted, that can accelerate progress.
Although many millions of pounds of toxics were reduced and companies saved millions of dollars,[2] and the rest of us received reduced toxic pollution and waste, skeptics constantly told me that my story could not be true, because, as one expert put it, company managers are “expert money hunters”, and if there really was a lot of savings in toxics use reduction, they would have found it by now. It is like the joke about an economist not bending down to pick up a twenty dollar bill, because “it couldn’t be there”. I came up with my reply too late after being humiliated by this expert in front of prestigious thinkers at MIT, but perhaps it can still do some good: “They don’t usually hunt in this part of the forest”.
The next year I started working on what grew into one of the world’s first and biggest programs of technical assistance for toxics use reduction (at its height, our office was a little more than thirty employees. If I ran environmental policy, such agencies would have hundreds of staff). I stayed with what became more generally known as pollution prevention for the next twenty-seven years, becoming a true believer in its value, because I saw hundreds of companies find ways to reduce their toxics use and become not only safer, but more economically viable. Nearly all of the companies I worked with had good experiences and came to appreciate how worthwhile it can be to focus on environmental issues as clues to how to improve process and product. They also learned how helpful government can be when it is not just out to punish you: a much needed change in the relationship between government and the regulated community. My experience convinced me that our society can transition to cleaner production without the economic penalty so many expect from environmental initiatives, and without having to use harsh enforcement, except when dealing with the most entrenched laggards. (I also spent a few years as an enforcement attorney, and know that some companies do need punishment, or its threat). Many businesses will utilize a helping hand, and that made me convinced we should have a “two-handed” approach, offering assistance first, and using enforcement as a powerful backup when it doesn’t work. It is not one or the other, but both, appropriately targeted, that can accelerate progress.
Although many millions of pounds of toxics were reduced and companies saved millions of dollars,[2] and the rest of us received reduced toxic pollution and waste, skeptics constantly told me that my story could not be true, because, as one expert put it, company managers are “expert money hunters”, and if there really was a lot of savings in toxics use reduction, they would have found it by now. It is like the joke about an economist not bending down to pick up a twenty dollar bill, because “it couldn’t be there”. I came up with my reply too late after being humiliated by this expert in front of prestigious thinkers at MIT, but perhaps it can still do some good: “They don’t usually hunt in this part of the forest”.