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Where Do We Go from Here?
Environmental industry must shift focus from compliance to sustainability, Commerce study finds
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Business New Haven
11/2/1998
By: BNH
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The $181 billion U.S. environmental industry faces obsolescence due in part to outdated regulations that prescribe a focus on post-pollution clean-up. That's according to the first comprehensive report on the industry issued October 22 by the U.S. Department of Commerce's Office of Technology Policy during a briefing at Yale University.
The nation's environmental industry encompasses some 110,000 revenue-generating organizations providing such goods and services as potable water, wastewater treatment and management as well as the equipment and services needed for compliance with pollution control, remediation and other federal, state and local environmental requirements.
The industry has become a significant sector of the U.S. economy while making the nation's environment the cleanest in the world for the population and quality of life it serves.
But it finds itself at an historic crossroads today, says the Commerce Department study. In the past, according to study co-author Grant Ferrier, a San Diego-based consultant and environmental entrepreneur, industry growth was driven by the need to comply with existing regulations and heavily focused on cleaning up after pollution. By now, substantial compliance with existing regulations has largely been achieved, and regulation-induced demand for the industry's produced and services has begun to erode.
According to letter endorsing the report from the Environmental Industry Coalition: “The existing regulatory system characterized by 'command and control' has passed the point of diminishing returns. Generators of waste and pollution have had little to fear from regulators in recent years, and environmental compliance has reached a standstill at compliance. Yet most American rivers are polluted and most U.S. cities experience air-pollution episodes each year.
So, where does the industry go from here? The greatest demand today is for high productivity and sustainable growth, yet the industry as a whole has been slow to adopt the creative and technologically innovative approaches necessary to meet these new demands - due in part to budget constraints, traditional thinking and outdated regulations that focus on clean-up and punishment, rather than environmental sustainability.
For the environmental industry to remain viable and return to the double-digit annual growth figures common from 1970 to 1990, the study concludes, government and industry leaders must develop policies that encourage simultaneous economic growth and environmental protection which, in tandem with pollution prevention, must become integral aspects of industrial processes.
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