Resource Sustainability Roadmap Elements

Figure 3-6 shows the sequence proposed to achieve effective resource sustainability.

The roadmap begins with the determination of a baseline scenario to assess the current situation in relation to:

1. The restrictions placed in the regulatory phase 2. The internal and external issues

3. The needs and expectations of different parties.

Specific goals set within the community in the strategic resource planning phase ensure the presence of criteria for monitoring the progress of the process. The strategic resource planning process is comprised of four stages, these being:

1. Setting a resource sustainability strategy 2. Setting SMART goals and strategic objectives

A Sustainability Management System, SMS is then incorporated within the organization's policy and decision-making strategies to:

● Classify the wastes and locate opportunities of utilization or reuse in order to comply with environmental regulations.

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● Incorporate C2C innovative design that allows compliance with EPR obligations.

The material collected through the SMS Analysis will be used to decide on whether the goals have been met or not. Cradle to cradle / Industrial ecology principles are applied and measured against the main goals. What makes SMS different, is that it does not target compliance with regulations alone but rather aims to go Beyond Compliance, thus contributing to the conservation of natural resources, which will finally lead to SD.

To ensure proper implementation, strategies developed should be circulated to act as guides for performance and progress measures. It should also include appointments of certain individuals to be in charge of certain sub-assignments towards the realization of the major goals within the strategy.

In order for a strategic plan to achieve its potential, it must be translated into determined execution in the implementation phase.

47 Direction of Flow of Information Feedback

Baseline Policy Resource

Strategic Planning

Implementation

& Operation Checking &

Corrective

Strategic Sustainability Management System (using C2C techniques)

Continual Monitoring and Measuring of the Progress

Implementation

Figure 3-7: Strategic Sustainability Planning

Figure 3-6: Proposed Resource Sustainability Roadmap

48 3.4.1. Environmental Regulations

For businesses to take the initiative of incorporating sustainable development objectives and making required trade offs, a strong legislative system is essential. The effectiveness of the implementation of sustainable development plans, therefore, depends heavily on the presence of a binding regulatory body.

Given that the exact goals and targets are known, environmental regulations are set by the government to standardize policies by which organizations and projects will abide by in order to reach sustainability.

To ensure proper implementation, fines/incentive need to be utilized to credit those who take positive steps towards sustainability and penalize organizations that do not follow sustainability laws of conduct set by certain predetermined standards/rating system.

Stringent enforcement of environmental regulations would oblige investors to undertake a sustainable development culture to ensure compliance. These regulations may engage concepts of extended producer responsibility to encourage environmentally friendly design to avoid the financial burdens of remediation at the product’s end of life. EPR relies on the fact that manufacturers best know their products, and are in control of the complete lifecycle, they are able to reduce the harmful impacts. Extended producer responsibility can be achieved by reuse, take back and recycling. The latter concept financially and logistically relieves the government from handling waste by delegating it to the private sector.

49 3.4.2. Key Issues of Concern

Along with environmental regulations, businesses should take into account the needs and expectations of involved parties and other internal and external issues. These inputs form the basis of the SMS and consequently determine issues that need to be addressed within the environmental statement. Results of this survey aims at finding out the following:

1. Involved parties

2. Major concerns of the different involved parties.

3. What are their concerns?

4. Why are they concerned?

5. What is the threshold of concern where change becomes unacceptable?

3.4.3. Sustainability management system (SMS) using a strategic approach

The first step in the roadmap is a proper implementation of a management system, also known as sustainability management systems. The information gathered from the SMS Analysis is used in the performance analysis to evaluate the actual situation against the goals set. SMS aims at achieving beyond compliance for the preservation of natural resources, finally leading to sustainable development.

Sustainability management systems can be counted as special cases of management systems that follow a strategic approach that supports resource sustainability. In the discussion related to this work, being strategic implies:

1. Having an underlying vision for resource sustainability and accordingly, be based on solid evidence, set priorities, goals and direction and set out the main tactics for achieving them.

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2. Setting strategic resource management goals, related to the five major categories of C2C and identifying means of achieving them.

The systematic framework these goals are put in, offers a set of practical processes and tools for effective accomplishment of these objectives. This is particularly important during the planning phase, where a strategy needs to be put in place to ensure that the specific sustainability goals are achieved and during the performance checks.

Adopting strategic approaches to sustainable development suggests the accepting of a different set of ideas that encourage:

▪ Adoption of adaptive planning processes instead of rigid plans that includes a continuous monitoring, learning and improvement based on previous practical experience.

▪ Adaptive structure of governance

▪ Embracing a civic engagement process instead of a centralized one

▪ Move to result based management process

▪ Move from sectorial towards integrated planning.

3.4.4. Beyond Compliance “BC”

Beyond compliance is a term used to describe efficiency rather than mere compliance. To achieve beyond sustainability, organizations need to switch from the reactive attitude to proactive. Proactive actions usually require innovation to avoid harm in the first place while reactive seeks a kind of adjustment to ensure compliance. Motives of reactive attitudes are merely compliance while being proactive primarily seeks sustainability.

While compliance cannot be an accurate measure of how close an organization is to sustainability, all journeys towards sustainability will begin with compliance. It can,

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however, be considered an initiative for the quest towards sustainability (El-Haggar, 2007)

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CHAPTER 4 : SUSTAINABILITY