Smart Methods for Environmental Externalities

Urban Planning, Environmental Health and Hygiene in the Netherlands

Gert de Roo, Jelger Visser

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• ISBN:
  9781317054153
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Política y relaciones internacionales
• Subtopic: Política pública de planificación local y regional

In recent years, Dutch environmental policy has undergone some pivotal changes, the most significant of which have been decentralization and deregulation, encouraging local communities to develop and deliver policies which are tailor-made to their particular situation. These changes have led to the development of some innovative practical instruments for aiding sustainable environmental spatial policy. This book discusses these new 'methods for environmental externalities' and their significance in the development and delivery of Dutch environmental policies, particularly how they ensure that issues such as health and hygiene are introduced in the early stages of spatial planning processes. This book highlights the most prominent and relevant of these innovative 'methods for environmental externalities' as well as comparing them with some of the classic methods, and analysing strengths and weaknesses. It argues that having such a broad and varied choice of methods is the key to ensuring the impressive and groundbreaking Dutch creativity in environmental management. In conclusion, the book extrapolates current trends in environmental policy, expresses likely and possible developments in 'methods for environmental externalities' and shows how such methods can contribute in our ongoing attempts to develop and deliver liveable, pleasant and sustainable towns and cities.

Chapter 1
Smart Methods: Methods in a Changing Environmental Policy Climate

Smart Methods for Environmental Externalities is a book totally dedicated to innovative initiatives generated in the environmental policy and spatial planning arena in the Netherlands. Over the years, and since approximately 1985, various methods have emerged relating to the effects of environmental externalities on urban development. The result is a rich and wide range of methods that take into account a variety of aspects relating to environmental externalities. On the one hand, these wide-ranging methods together constitute a wonderful toolbox for policymakers, spatial developers and government officials, but on the other hand it is no longer obvious which method to choose. Therefore, this book not only presents the variety of Dutch methods for environmental externalities but also proposes a categorization for the methods that is clear and coherent, and will be considered useful in selecting methods for a specific issue.

The categories for methods for environmental externalities are presented in Part B of this book. The logic behind the categories requires a brief explanation. The Dutch methods for environmental externalities are, to a certain extent, a direct response to policy practices. The methods are tools for making policy practices visible and workable, and for translating environmental policy directives into spatial consequences. The methods for environmental externalities therefore reflect the changes that have taken place in environmental and spatial policies.

In the 1980s, environmental policy directives were driven by top-down, quantitative standards, constraining spatial developments in order to guarantee a healthy local environment. Environmental standards were used to physically separate environmentally intrusive and environmentally sensitive functions, thereby ensuring a safe distance between residential areas and industrial sites. The same applies to housing versus traffic and infrastructure. The first methods for environmental externalities therefore focus strongly on setting conditions, building on environmental standards and presenting their spatial consequences.

In the early 1990s, almost ‘hand in hand’ with planning theory - which underwent a communicative turn in response to a failing technical-rational approach to planning - the focus of environmental policy in the Netherlands shifted from top-down and technically driven policy to policy that took account of local conditions. This shift resulted in the decline of the environmental standard in Dutch policymaking. We see instead the rise of communicative approaches, area-specific and tailor-made policymaking and the decentralization of responsibilities and initiatives. With this shift, environmental issues no longer constrain spatial developments but should contribute to more sophisticated approaches, integrating the spatial, infrastructural, social and environmental aspects of a specific location.

The methods for environmental externalities have evolved accordingly. The evolutionary path will be elaborated upon in Part A of this book. While Dutch environmental policy is no longer the inspiration to the world that it once was, and in the light of the considerable uncertainty as to how Dutch spatial policy should move forward, the Dutch methods for environmental externalities still stand, and are used and tested under various conditions. The result is a range of methods that, together, constitute an excellent toolkit from which the ‘right’ method can be selected to tackle a situation involving environmental externalities, whatever that situation might be. There are methods for dealing with straightforward, relatively simple environmental-spatial conflicts, methods for dealing with complex environmental-spatial conflicts, and methods that can be used in the most chaotic of conflicts that are overly complex due to the opposing interests of numerous stakeholders and to the intangible ‘jumble’ of intrusive and sensitive functions in the urban environment. It is this range of methods and its internal coherence that are reflected in the title of the book, Smart Methods for Environmental Externalities.

1.1 Prologue: An Emerging Policy Field1

In 2001, the Dutch cabinet presented the policy document ‘Where There’s a Will There’s a World. Working on Sustainability’. This document, the fourth National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP-4), deals with more than environmental policy for the coming years. It also assesses thirty years of environmental policy in the Netherlands. During that time, environmental policy was developed from scratch. The message is clear: a great deal has been achieved, but there is still a long way to go. NEPP-4 identifies seven persistent environmental problems that the policy has not yet come to grips with. These vary from global climate change to negative impact on the quality of the living environment. In order to solve the last problem, NEPP-4 proposes a reform of policy on the living environment. This policy reform means that other levels of government ‘will be afforded greater freedom and as much integrated responsibility for the local living environment as possible, including the related instruments’ (VROM 2001; 329).

An important step in that direction was taken on 13 May 2004. The MILO method was presented at the conference ‘Kwaliteit van de leefomgeving’ (Quality of the Living Environment).2 The audience included environmental officials and spatial planners from municipal and provincial authorities, local and regional environmental agencies and water boards. MILO is a practical method that will enable them to improve liveability and the quality of the environment. It is definitely not a blueprint but ‘a tool and source of inspiration for policy practice’ (VNG et al. 2004; 5). There was a good reason why this policy practice was the source of inspiration for the tool: rather than following national programmes, policy proposals are shaped by local circumstances. MILO builds on practical experiences with methods - referred to in this book as methods for environmental externalities - that can be used to streamline the harmonization of the environment and spatial planning.

MILO is certainly not the only method developed to support local and regional environmental policy and integrated environmental policy. Over the years, various organizations in the Netherlands3 have taken the initiative to develop their own methods, so that the range now available is extensive and above all diverse. As a result, the Netherlands has established a unique position in the world, both in terms of environmental policy and methods for environmental externalities.4 This book is about spatial methods regarding environmental health and hygiene and is intended to serve as a guide to selecting a suitable method for aligning planning activities and the quality of the living environment.

MILO is clearly a product of today. The ‘area-specific approach’, ‘quality ambitions’ and ‘area types’: these are all MILO concepts that were not yet used in the early years of Dutch environmental policy. After a period of social and political awareness, in which the publications Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962), the renowned report by the Club of Rome (1972), and the UN environmental conference in 1972 played a role, the environment was suddenly high on the agenda. In the early period, this was reflected above all in the cleaning-up of the largest and most serious forms of environmental pollution. In Urgency Policy Document on the Environment5 of 1972 - seen by many as the beginning of environmental policy in the Netherlands - the Biesheuvel cabinet still believed that this clean-up policy would take only five to ten years. In practice, however, this proved too optimistic.6

In the early years of environmental policy in the Netherlands, the belief in the ‘makeability’ of society was still evident.7 The prevailing line of thinking was that tightly coordinated government intervention could fundamentally improve society. It is also one of the ideas that shaped the early development of environmental policy. It is reflected in the Urgency Programme of the Urgency Policy Document on the Environment: ‘In the coming period, priority will be given to extending statutory measures’8 (VM 1972; 23). The publication of the policy document on ambient environmental standards (Nota milieuhygiënische normen) laid the foundation for the current interpretation of the concept of ‘environmental quality’. Generic environmental standards were seen as the instrument that would give shape to environmental policy, and the mechanisms of the first methods for environmental externalities are largely based on this concept of quality.

Under the later - more moderate - cabinets of Van Agt, belief in the makeability of society began to erode. Results were not achieved as easily as was assumed in the Urgency policy document. Society is only makeable to a certain extent. As the belief in makeability faded, there was greater interest in more integrated approaches in environmental policy. The State became convinced that it should approach environmental issues in relation to each other, rather than pursuing a compartmentalized policy of remediation. However, it took some time before this was put into practice.

The ‘maturing’ of environmental policy went hand in hand with the development of instruments to give shape and structure to it.9 In the early years of environmental policy, it was usually environmental standards that were embraced as the solution to environmental issues. The realization gradually dawned that ad-hoc approaches to urgent environmental issues would cause environmental policy to become compartmentalized. In the mid-1980s there was a shift of emphasis in environmental policy, and the remediation approach was partly abandoned. The shift was a result of the wish to align the various policy lines. In the Environmental Policy Integration Plan (PIM; Plan Integratie Milieubeleid), integration is seen as a condition for effective policy. The principles of this plan proved to be highly decisive for the developments in environmental policy.10 The shift also placed other demands on the instruments for supporting environmental policy. Hence the need arose in this period for methods that would make it possible to harmonize environmental and spatial considerations in practice. The ‘Compact City’ spatial-planning policy,11 in which spatial and environmental objectives increasingly clashed,12 undoubtedly contributed to this need (Bartelds and De Roo 1995).

The response to this was area-specific environmental assessment methods. Perhaps the most widely known of these is the environmental zoning method13 of the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG). In 1986 the VNG compiled a list of almost every type of business and the recommended distance between the companies in question and a quiet residential area. The aim of the VNG was to provide a practical tool to help policymakers plan for environmentally harmful functions. The method was a success, and the fourth version is now available (VNG 2007).

However, the way in which the original VNG method was structured leaves little room for nuance and consideration. This means that it cannot be used in complex situations involving large-scale enterprise and several sources of environmental burden. The VNG method is a welcome tool for relatively straightforward situations with clear causes and consequences. One of the reasons that Integrated Environmental Zoning (IMZ; Intégrale Milieuzonering) was introduced in 1989 was to compensate for the shortcomings of the VNG method. The IMZ method was designed to produce an integrated contour of environmental load around an area with large-scale, multiple sources of environmental load. The method classified and standardized various types of environmental load. This made it possible to compare them and, using a cumulation method, ‘add up’ the loads to obtain an integrated value for actual situations. Although the term ‘integrated’ suggests otherwise, the IMZ method is the classic product of a time when standards-based thinking was seen as the only route to success. Tensions between centrally imposed environmental standards and the possibilities for spatial development at local level are partly to blame for the fact that the method never progressed beyond the ‘provisional system’ stage.

The supposedly destructive character14 of the IMZ method and the discussions relating to it undoubtedly contributed to the shift in environmental policy that took place in the mid-1990s. Standards, which were still embraced at the beginning of the 1970s as the solution to environmental issues, are no longer sacred (compare e.g. De Roo 1999). Environmental quality is no longer expressed only in quantitative standards but is more often described qualitatively in terms of liveability. A similar shift can be seen in the methods for environmental externalities developed in the second half of the 1990s. The Rotterdam method ‘Milieu op z’n Plek’ (A Place for the Environment), for example, is based on a environmental commitment in the form of a locally formulated minimum required quality and a target quality (Municipality of Rotterdam, 1998). Environmental standards are still used, but in a less restrictive and prescriptive way; the standards serve as a guideline. A similar approach is used in the later LOGO15 and MILO methods.

The shift in environmental policy described above led to a change whereby central frameworks were replaced by greater policy freedom at local level. Local authorities were given more opportunities and greater responsibility with regard to policymaking for the living environment. These developments are categorized under the heading ‘decentralization’ (Kamphorst 2006, De Roo 2004), making it possible - as Secretary of State Van Geel claimed at the aforementioned ‘Kwaliteit van de leefomgeving’ conference - to formulate ‘an ambitious and attractive environmental policy’ (Van Geel 2004).

We have now sketched the development of a policy field that has been in almost constant flux from the start. In that time, priorities have been continually adapted to the circumstances in which the Dutch government found itself. This has produced not only a colourful mosaic of approaches in environmental policy, but also a diverse collection of methods for environmental externalities. And the developments continue.

1.2 A Changing Policy Field: Decentralization

Environmental policy in the Netherlands is currently undergoing several visible changes. These changes can...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Figures
• List of Tables
• Preface
• 1 Smart Methods: Methods in a Changing Environmental Policy Climate
• PART A CONTEXT AND CONDITIONS
• PART B METHODS AND TOOLS
• PART C RELATIONS AND REFLECTIONS
• Bibliography
• Index