Supporting Research

Over the past one hundred years, sufficient experience in the field of environmental control has been gathered such that characteristic past "eras" can be discerned and projections made on how environmental needs will be managed in the future. The initial era, prior to 1970, was concerned chiefly with controls affecting contaminants which had visual impacts (e.g. coarse air particulates, sediment discharge to waters) or direct economic consequences (e.g. navigation in rivers and harbors). From 1970 to 1990, the proliferation of significant new environmental legislation brought about increases in water and air quality regulations. The focus was on end- of-pipe treatment characterized by a "firefighting" mentality. Environmental expenditures were viewed as nonproductive, and many companies found it difficult to justify proposals for long-term investments in pollution prevention, waste minimization, and manufacturing process modifications. Any gains were strictly short term, environmental problems were downplayed, and communication to the public, and even regulatory authorities, was limited and guarded.

Since 1990, however, a significant shift in corporate environmental policy making has begun to occur. During this period, relatively few new environmental statutes have been promulgated and those that have been re authorized have reflected a new approach, one based to an increasing degree on health effects and risk management, with less emphasis on direct regulatory control. States have assumed greater responsibility for environmental oversight. At the same time, many companies have found that they had significantly underestimated both the price of end-of-pipe controls, the importance of environmental functions to overall corporate health, and the synergy between environmental and manufacturing technologies. Because of these factors, plus increasing global competition, environmental management functions are increasingly being integrated with long-term corporate policy. Thus the questions asked with respect to environmental initiatives are of the nature of "what is the return on investment?" instead of simply "how much will it cost?"

Consistent with these trends are changes in the way environmental engineering and science are being practiced, from one based exclusively on technical problem solving to one requiring more management-oriented skills. "Design-build-operate" and even "finance-design-build-operate" approaches have become more common. Frequently built into these enterprises are performance standards reflective of the need to minimize penalties by minimizing the production of waste across all media (air, water and solids) and focusing on pollution prevention whenever possible. Inevitably this leads to questions regarding the modification of manufacturing processes that are often complex enough that a team of specialists is needed to solve problems, indeed to uncover what the problems are and where they lie. Each member of such a team possesses specialized knowledge of their respective area of expertise, but responsible overseers of such complex problems must have multidisciplinary exposure to the applicable elements of engineering, science, social concerns, and management.