Contested environmental policy infrastructure: Socio-political acceptance of renewable energy, water, and waste facilities

Abstract

Link to publicationCitation for published version (APA): Wolsink, M. (2010). Contested environmental policy infrastructure: socio-political acceptance of renewable energy, water, and waste facilities. Environmental Impact Assessment Review, 30(5), 302-311. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eiar.2010.01.001 General rightsIt is not permitted to download or to forward/distribute the text or part of it without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), other than for strictly personal, individual use, unless the work is under an open content license (like Creative Commons). Disclaimer/Complaints regulationsIf you believe that digital publication of certain material infringes any of your rights or (privacy) interests, please let the Library know, stating your reasons. In case of a legitimate complaint, the Library will make the material inaccessible and/or remove it from the website. Please Ask the Library: http://uba.uva.nl/en/contact, or a letter to: Library of the University of Amsterdam, Secretariat, Singel 425, 1012 WP Amsterdam, The Netherlands. You will be contacted as soon as possible. AbstractDecisions to build new infrastructure are often contested. The general idea is that such infrastructure is considered to serve the (proclaimed) public interests, whereas the impact or risk is concentrated at a smaller scale, for example in local communities. The nature of such risk is that it concerns threats to environmental quality. A frequently arising type of environmental conflict arises when the proclaimed public good lies within the domain of environmental policy and sustainability. Impact assessments are essential parts of identification and assessment of acceptability and risks associated with projects, plans or programs. The social acceptability of building infrastructure as a part of environmental policy, however, is hardly conceptually defined so far, and the role of policy appraisal methods is unclear. The social acceptance of environmental-policy infrastructure is conceptually defined as institutionally determined, and will be elaborated in three cases. The first case is the policy domain of renewable energy implementation, which is a major component of climate change mitigation strategies. The empirical basis comes mainly from studies on the implementation of wind power. The second case concerns the building of waste infrastructure, which is part of environmental policies that, however, not only focus upon sound waste management and disposal, but primarily upon waste minimization (the 'waste management hierarchy'). The third case is the Dutch policy on space-water management, that tries to implement a new style of management that contrasts with the current style of water management and governance that is based on control and 'hard' infrastructure. This is now becoming the spearhead of climate change adaptation policy. All three cases show a large variety of social acceptance issues, in which the appraisal of the impact of siting the facilities is confronted with the desirability of the policies. Th...

Conflictividad ambiental y territorial: un área de investigación en construcción. Aproximaciones al caso catalán

“…-Pero también se citan a menudo otros elementos como: a) la gobernabilidad y el proceso de toma de decisiones (Dente et al, 1998;Hackel, 2001;Wolsink, 2010;Subirats, 2008: 133;Nel·lo, 2003a;Ferran, 2008: 20;CIPMA, 1995); b) los «recursos escasos» (resource conflicts), vinculados a la degradación ambiental, a la mayor demanda de recursos naturales, etc. (Redorta, 2004: 144); c) «lo distributivo», que se ha trabajado desde la economía ecológica y la ecología política (Martínez Alier y O'Connor, 1996; Walton y Barnett, 2008) y que se refiere a la inequidad en la asignación de los recursos naturales o de los costes y los beneficios de una actuación determinada (Crespo, 1999); d) la «información» como fuente de conflicto y como circunstancia que influye en el desarrollo del mismo, y e) el frame, es decir, el prisma con el que vemos, sentimos y entendemos la realidad (Saarikoski, 2006;Alfasi, 2004;Lewicki et al, 2003;Dente et al, 1998).…”

“…De hecho, cada vez es más reconocido que, a pesar de la primacía de la tesis del factor único (single factor), muchas variables pueden estar involucradas en hacer emerger un conflicto particular, lo que convierte su análisis en una labor compleja (Sandole y Sandole-Staroste, 2009: 531;Çuhadar Gürkaynak et al, 2009: 293). Por ello, no es extraño encontrar estudios empíricos que emplean distintas aproximaciones analíticas (Wolsink, 2010;Fischer, 2010: 123;Turner, 2004) o que usan disciplinas que no trabajan específicamente el conflicto (por ejemplo: la antropología o la historia ambiental), pero que proporcionan información relevante para su comprensión.…”

Geography of Waste as a New Approach in Waste Management Study

“…Furthermore, social sciences propose a new methodology for social impact assessment (SIA -studies) arguing that an effective technical system does not provide good functionality of waste management system if it is not supported by the local community or the people directly involved in this area (employees). In this case, protests, public demonstrations, strikes, issues of governance may appear (Mengozzi, 2010;Wolsink, 2010). Also, psychology has an approach on positive or negative behaviour of individuals in relation to waste management: Swami et al (2011), Knussen et al (2004).…”

Subsurface activities and decision support systems

“…Hence, the challenge is to investigate whether policies, permit procedures, and associated instruments such as a decision support system (DSS) can be redefined. Furthermore, instead of focusing on siting issues of undesired activities ("not in my back yard"), it is important to maintain a broad perspective when analyzing policies or formulating a DSS (Wolsink, 2010). Therefore, following Koornneef et al (2008), we argue that the decisionmaking process and subsequent DSS for the permit procedure for a subsurface activity have to be expanded by including strategic and social concerns, that is, competing alternatives and views from host community members.…”