{'fraction_non_alphanumeric': 0.017985611510791366, 'fraction_numerical': 0.003320420586607637, 'mean_word_length': 5.44385026737968, 'pattern_counts': {'":': 0, '<': 0, '<?xml version=': 0, '>': 0, 'https://': 0, 'lorem ipsum': 0, 'www.': 1, 'xml': 0}, 'pii_count': 0, 'substrings_counts': 0, 'word_list_counts': {'cursed_substrings.json': 1, 'profanity_word_list.json': 0, 'sexual_word_list.json': 0, 'zh_pornsignals.json': 0}}
The arenas of environmental management

The objective with this background paper is to provide food for thought about how the arena concept can enrich the discussion in the IVA project “Environmental Foresight”. For such an endeavour to be successful in is important to explore sets of questions such as: (1) What is meant with arena in the scientific literature, (2) which are the most important arenas of environmental management, (3) do the environmental arenas change over time the last decades, and (4) if the arenas change, what factors affect these changes? Three rudimentary definitions of the arena concept are: a scene of action, a field where events take place, or a sphere of intense social activity. The report discusses some features of arenas. It concludes that is is difficult to use as an analytical concept but is valuable as a heuristic tool and serves to facilitate discussions of not only content, actors and rules of environmental action, but also of its boundaries. Globalisation and ecological modernisation (EM) both affect the future arenas of environmental management. Globalisation implies, inter alia, dispersion of production processes and environmental consequences around the globe and large flows of resources and goods. It also challenges the notion of enclosed places and affects national environmental policy-making as well as implementation at sub-national level. The EM idea emphasises the interdependence of environmental, social and economic issues. The integrative ambition of sustainable development as a policy concept globally and nationally in Sweden will continue to shape the arenas of environmental management in the future. The essential characteristic of EM is that the capitalist economy needs a conscious and long-term transformation so that economic development and environmental considerations can proceed hand in hand and mutually support each other. This differs not only from more radical forms of environmentalism, such as deep ecology, but also to the “limits to growth” and alternative economy ideas that were common in the 1970s. Another key character is its strong emphasis on regulation of the use of scare resources through ecological pricing, recycling and technological innovations. The background paper presents the most significant actors in environmental management since World War II. We see that the importance of national politicians have been circumscribed due to globalisation processes, yet, their importance as key actors on the environmental decisionmaking arena have in some respects grown in the last two decades. Particularly after a short peak in the late 1980s, the idea of a Green Welfare State brought environmental issues to a more prominent position in Swedish national politics. This has in turn widened the range of actors responsible for implementation and widen the fields of responsibility for traditional agencies, such as the Swedish Environment Protection Agency. Moreover, environmental cooperation has grown faster than any other area of international cooperation over the past thirty years, with new multilateral institutions as important actors. Development of international environmental law and the conclusion of multilateral agreements on a host of environmental issues have in turn spurred domestic organisational and regulatory action among the agencies. Swedish citizens consume a lot of media, which creates favourable conditions for information campaigns to succeed in changing environmental behaviour. Environmental Foresight – Miljoarbetets nya arena – www.iva.se/mna The arenas of environmental management