Surely you've ever heard about the environmental policy. Environmental policy is nothing more than the concern and the development of objectives that serve to improve the quality of the environment and its conservation. These goals try to conserve natural resources in order to improve human lifestyle by introducing sustainable development in cities. Environmental policy work both in the public and private spheres.
In this article we are going to tell you about all the characteristics, principles, and usefulness of environmental policy.
What is environmental policy
Environmental policy is distributed both in cities and in countries and throughout the world. In order to establish certain objectives, certain norms must be implemented. In the field of companies we find the introduction of environmental policies through ISO 14001 or EMAS certificates which are the ones that guarantee that said company has integrated an environmental management system.
This environmental policy aims to improve the care of the environment helping to conserve natural resources and promoting sustainable development. This tries to do it by means of well defined objectives and short and long term. Keep in mind that long-term goals are the ones that are really going to promote substantial changes. Short-term goals are all about small steps in order to achieve bigger goals. It is a way to keep all staff active in environmental matters.
Furthermore, this environmental policy can also be defined as various strategies that are carried out by different national and international institutions and that different environmental regulations apply. The main objective of these regulations is to deal with environmental problems that exist throughout the world. Environmental problems such as excessive pollution, uncontrolled discharges, deterioration of natural resources, promotion of renewable energies, reduction of the effects of climate change, etc.
This environmental policy is applied worldwide and guidelines are established to follow. The UN has an agency that is specialized in establishing these monitoring guidelines. The main mission of this specialized body is to power promote international cooperation on matters related to the environment. The main mission is to be able to evaluate environmental conditions at a regional, national level and to develop different action strategies. One of these programs is UNEP.
The importance of this plan is that it incorporates environmental law to be able to apply certain objectives with a binding nature. This environmental law is responsible for developing regulations and strengthening institutions to better manage natural resources and conserve the environment.
Environmental policies at European level
The European Union's environmental policies are primarily focused on fostering an economy that innovates technologically while better conserving natural resources. An example of promoting innovative economy and protecting the environment is the rise of renewable energies. It also tries to protect biodiversity and minimize environmental risks to people's health that come from the environment. In this way, an attempt is made to achieve growth through the decoupling of the use of natural resources.
All environmental policies at the European level are included in a Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. One of the most relevant articles included in this treaty is article 191, which summarizes the principle of environmental prevention of degrading activities: who pollutes, pays.
Principles of environmental policy
The environmental policy has certain principles that are established with the objective of implementing sustainable development, achieving objectives of clean, ecological and long-term economic growth. These are the principles:
- Principle of environmental responsibility. The key to this principle is that we can all improve our environment by doing activities and introducing healthy habits for the environment.
- Prevention principle: Prevention is better than cure. This applies when establishing guidelines for industries and economic activities in which ecological disasters are prevented.
- Substitution principle: it is based mainly on the exchange of dangerous substances for others that are less polluting. The same happens with industrial processes that have high energy consumption and are trying to change for more efficient ones.
- The "polluter pays" principle It is one of the best to prevent environmental damage.
- Principle of consistency: It is a principle that requires the coordination of the rest of the environmental policies of the different departments of a company. It is necessary that all the objectives of the different departments have a joint integration with the matter of environment.
- Principle of cooperation: For the principle of coherence to make sense, it is necessary to apply what has been integrated as a whole in the field of the environment and the rest of the departments. For this reason, it is essential that social groups work together with the objective of environmental and economic improvement.
- Environmental policies should always be based on the results of scientific research. These investigations must be current and fully up to date.
Examples of environmental policies
Environmental policy is something that must be present in all companies. Although they are small companies to large multinationals, environmental policy must be active and changing. There are a large number of aspects that can be modified to include objectives based on the protection and improvement of the environment. Let's see some examples:
- Modify the vehicle fleet for electric vehicles or bicycles.
- Recycle paper that is used and uses recycled paper.
- Establish guidelines when printing documents. Print only those that are strictly necessary.
- Train, communicate and educate all workers so that apply the principles of eco-friendly practices.
- Apply and promote the ecological activities of the company.
- Reduce environmental impact through energy efficiency. This can be done decreasing the amount in the use of air conditioning, heating, electricity and water.
I hope that with this information you can learn more about environmental policy.