Industrial Metabolism: Restructuring for Sustainable Development (UNU, 1994, 376 pages): Part 3: Further implications: 12. The precaution principle in environmental management: Precaution as a science-politics game

Industrial Metabolism: Restructuring for Sustainable Development (UNU, 1994, 376 pages)

Part 3: Further implications

12. The precaution principle in environmental management

		(introduction...)
		Introduction
		Precaution and "industrial metabolism"
		Precaution: A case-study
		History of the precaution principle
		The precaution principle in international agreements
		Precaution on the European stage
		Precaution as a science-politics game
		Precaution on the global stage
		References

Precaution as a science-politics game

Table 1 illustrates the dilemma facing a decision maker confronted with a demand for action yet unsure of the pay-off. The options for action are:

1. Do nothing but monitor the environmental situation. This is nowadays politically untenable, but where uncertainties are very great or the environmental system is regarded as tolerant it may still be a sensible course.

2. Do nothing but embark on a programme of research. This is the desired British position, at least as expressed by the government in its environmental policy statements of 1990 (HM Government, 1990). Of course, if the UK government were serious about this view it should be supporting research, at least to the point where a reasonable judgement could be made over the degree of advance investment required.

Table 1 Pay-off matrix: science, economics, and politics in precaution

Outcome	Strategy
Outcome	Monitor and do nothing	Research and do nothing	Research and take sequential action	Take action and research
No serious damage	High pay-off	Prudent investment	Political insurance	Economic waste, political embarrassment
Regional damage	Political authority challenged	Avoidable political pressure	Deficit political pressure	Create precedent
Irreversible damage	Catastrophe	Loss of scientific prestige	Undermine scientific and political levitimacy	Establish political and scientific legitimacy

3. Combine research with action to contain pollutants. This is a form of "environmental insurance," and is a tactic adopted by the North Sea states. It is vital that the research mode combines both scientific investigation and economic valuation of removal or status quo, based on sensitivity analysis and public debate.

4. Take action in advance of definitive/final research. This is the pressure for making precaution legitimate, in which science is subservient, or at least secondary. This tactic can result in avoidable economic waste in the minor damage case, but can be vital in the case of irreversible damage.

It can be seen that the optimal strategy requires a combination of innovative science, economics, and politics, working sequentially and progressively. This is why we need to embark on extending science into the realms of economic and political analysis, to weld the concepts of negotiation, adaptation, and learning into political institutions and economic valuations. At the same time we need to find ways of depicting the outcomes of each of these pay-offs so that the interested public can negotiate and participate in the outcome as it weaves its way backwards and forwards through the matrix. Public involvement based on well-founded images of possible futures and their economic consequences provides one way of characterizing the valuation of uncertain environmental situations. It is this "negotiated science" that becomes one of the off-springs of the precaution principle.