New Approaches

Elen Strahle, Environment Agency England

Session aim

To explore the role of new approaches in environmental regulation?

•What are they?•Why use them? •Do they work?

Session outlineTime Item Speaker09.15 - 08.40 Choosing appropriate

interventionsDuncan Giddens and Chris Booth (England)

09.50 - 10.15 Voluntary Agreements with industry in Czech Republic

Jakub Achrer (Czech Republic)

10.15 – 10.50 Exploration and evaluation of Compliance Assurance through CMS

Han de Haas and Paul Meerman (Netherlands)

10.50 – 10.10 Coffee Break

11.15 - 11.40 Improving Environmental Performance In SMEs

Torbjörn Brorson (Sweden)

11.40 - 12.15 A Polish system for suspension of environmental penalties as a mechanism of promoting environmental investments

Krzysztof Wójcik (Poland)

12.15 – 12.30 Summary and conclusions Elen Strahle (England)

Complementary approaches and Choosing interventions

Duncan GiddensChris Booth

Context

• 7th EAP• Focus on implementation• Smarter regulation• Choosing the right interventions• Evidence base

IMPEL Project: Complementary Approaches to Inspections – 2011

Aims, Mission etc of your organisation and regulatory regime

The Regulator The Regulated

Sector

Chemicals

Energy

Agriculture

Etc

Business Drivers

Deterrence

Values

Financial (direct)

Financial (indirect)

Capacity

Size

Large International

Large National

Medium

Small

Micro

Attitudes and

Behaviours

Criminal

Chancer

Careless

Confused

Compliant

Champions

Where are you now. What

approaches do you use and what are they achieving?

Assess your regulated

community.

Review your own freedom to act. E.g. legal remit, capacity,

capabilities, smart regulation requirements

Select interventions according to

context

Co-opt others to exert influence over business

behaviour

Review what you have achieved.

E.g. effectiveness of approaches and

outputs and outcomes delivered

What do you want to achieve?

activities, outputs, outcomes, etc

Interventions. (full list at annex 3)

Inspections

Communication Approaches

Voluntary and Certification Approaches

Non-traditional inspections

Economic Instruments

Choosing interventions according to context

Guidance would be helpful for selecting interventions according to circumstances (such as the aspects of the regulated community listed above right). See annex 9 for an example.

Interventions. (full list at annex 3)

Inspections

Communication Approaches

Voluntary and Certification Approaches

Non-traditional inspections

Economic Instruments

IMPEL Project: Complementary Approaches to Inspections

• Regulatory Interventions• Economic Interventions• Voluntary Interventions• Information and Communication-

based interventionsAvailable from the regulatory evidence network:

https://connect.innovateuk.org/web/evidence/overview

• Direct regulation: relatively certain outcome but potentially costly, need to be targeted according to risk e.g. Environmental Permitting regime, REACH

• Economic instruments: less certainty of outcome but greater flexibility for businesses to choose least cost options, may provide long-term certainty e.g. Landfill Tax

• Information based approaches: uptake dependent on customer/supply chain interest e.g. EU Ecolabel

• Co-regulation: can encourage rapid action, flexible to changing circumstances, but may struggle to capture small businesses e.g. Courtauld Commitment

• Self-regulation: action motivated by financial, customer/supply-chain or reputational influences e.g. ISO14001

• Support and capacity building: impact may depend on credibility and trust.

Choosing appropriate interventions:Phase 1 - Developing a model approach (2012)

Conceptual model - the’ blue wheel’ diagram

1. Influencing factors (factors that influence business environmental performance) - nature of business- nature of regulator- environmental /regulatory outcomes

2. Types of interventions we might use, building on the typology developed by the SNIFFER regulatory evidence project, interventions that have come out of IMPEL complementary approaches project and similar findings in a study carried out by Defra/Cranfield.

3. A ‘tool’ that helps you (policy maker, practitioners) to take account of things that influence business environmental performance and knowledge of what interventions work in certain circumstances.

What is the Issue?: current, desired, what

needs to change?

Who is the target business

community?: Identify; Assess;

Segment into groups

What interventions are

available? Currently used,

what else is available? what

suits each business group?

Who can deliver interventions?

What are your remit, powers etc? Which

other delivery agents might be

used?

Preferred interventions and

delivery agents for each business

group:

Choosing Appropriate

Interventions

Problem and Outcom

es

Dep

ende

ncie

s

Possible Interventions

Possible D

elivery Agents

Final

Outp

uts

Choosing Interventions Phase 2 (2013): Developing and testing a modelling tool

• Phase 2 of the project has developed a tool called idepend that takes account of the things that influence business environmental performance and provides a means to help you decide what information you need, how each issue interrelates and what factors have most effect on achieving your desired state, or goal.

• idepend is based on the concept of a ‘belief net’- effectively a mind map - of factors on which your goal depends (the dependencies). Dependencies can be added in successive layers based upon evidence of the type set out above. The idepend tool allows you to build your ‘mind map’ or ‘belief net’ with the following benefits.

External influences incentives good business behaviour

Several Interventions are available

Delivery agents available

Let’s see this in a dependency model

Desired state. Eg environmental or regulatory outcome

Businesses behaviour and response is favourable

Choosing Interventions Phase 2: Testing the model and the tool

The IMPEL community is testing how a toolkit can help implement the model approach. The aims are to test whether the toolkit enables users to:

• Assemble and quantify risks and dependencies for a goal or desired state (idepend)

• Access information on available interventions and delivery agents (library of interventions)

• Choose interventions and delivery agents (idepend)

• Predict to what extent this might help you achieve your goal (idepend)

• Record and share the results of choosing and using interventions (regulatory evidence net)

Choosing Interventions Phase 2: Benefits of dependency modelling identified by workshop (June 2013)

Benefits of using model approach1. Forces you to articulate desired outcome(s) and dependencies2. Can be shared with and informed by others3. Improves understanding and visibility of issues4. Supports decision making to choose and compare interventions

Features of idepend tool5. Provides a logical framework to assemble dependencies6. Uses a standard methodology to describe and discuss risk7. Can be iterated to identify critical dependencies8. Allows complex situations to be split into easy to deal with parts9. Enables information to be stored and used as an audit trail10. Shows likelihood of achieving the goal/desired state

Example models developed using the iDEPEND tool

Example models developed using the iDEPEND tool

Predicting how an intervention might improve the chances of achieving your goal

Feedback from user testing

• Feedback from 25 users in the Netherlands, Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland.

• Effective use depends on the user’s knowledge and the available evidence of:• the dependencies and how they fit together, • probabilities of dependencies affecting the goal, • range of interventions available and how they might change • its early days and this process will become easier with experience.

• The tool forces you to think through a problem logically.

• Using the tool brings about a growing awareness of how much needs to be known and the uncertainties of so many aspects.

• It can be used at various levels from local through to national (scalable).

• Would be good for co-ordinating roles of various regulatory bodies involved.

Some quotes from test users

“Helps you to reach your outcomes and how to deal with

companies”

“A good means to develop Compliance Action Plans as it captures the reasons for

interventions”

“Being able to trial certain interventions and model potential success was useful”

“Captures and presentsall the aspects in a

pictorial manner which is useful in using to

demonstrate your thinking and putting a case to

management”

“Useful to use it with industry because

being regulated better is in industries interest

as well as ours”

“Potential aid to develop plans, strategies, site

specific action plans etc.”

“To be of greatest use, it should lead you more towards

the right interventions”

Next Steps

Timeline• Malta conference: presentation and

poster session - try it yourselves ! October 2013• Report to IMPEL Cluster and GA Oct – Dec 2013• Make available to IMPEL members 2014 (tbc)

Possible uses• Choosing interventions → framework for inspection?• Risk analysis & appraisal • Compliance assessment planning• Strategies and priorities

Hosting and maintaining• IMPEL/Regulatory evidence network?

Conclusions

It all depends!