Workshop on Environmental Regulation and its Alternatives, June 14, 2004
The National Academies, Room 201
Washington DC 20001
According to the World Business Council for Sustainable Development
"today each sector waits on the others..there will
not be real progress until business, government, and civil society team
up in new and dynamic partnerships." New approaches to
sustainability are needed. An important step in moving towards
sustainability is the development of a shared vision of its goals and a
cooperative approach towards meeting them. The vision would need to
recognize the divergent needs at stake and identify the common interest
all stakeholders share in achieving sustainable growth.
The National Academies' Roundtable on Science and Technology for
Sustainability convened a 1-day, exploratory workshop on June 14, 2004
to begin the process of developing such a shared vision and cooperative
approach to more environmentally sustainable economic development. The
exploratory workshop began with presentations of long-term
environmental sustainability goals by leaders from industry,
government, and the scientific and policy communities. Workshop
participants then examined the barriers and opportunities to achieving
these sustainability goals in various sectors of the US economy. The
purpose of these discussions was to facilitate dialogue among industry,
government, policy experts, the scientific community, and other
stakeholders so that they can identify opportunities to work together
to create future governance systems that would promote more
environmentally sustainable economic development.
The overall charge to workshop participants was to identify: 1) legal, regulatory, and
science and technology barriers to more environmentally sustainable
development, and 2) opportunities for industry, government, policy, and
scientific and engineering communities to work together to address
these challenges through improved governance systems.
The goal of the workshop is to initiate a broad-based discussion of the issue and to identify
specific parts of the problem where further work could lead to
progress. Participants also will consider the most appropriate approach
for making progress in each area (e.g., workshop series,
consensus-building forums, expert panels, etc), including the potential
role of the National Academies' Roundtable on Science and
Technology for Sustainability. The results of this exploratory workshop
were presented to the Roundtable at its annual meeting on June 15th.
More Information
Agenda (PDF,1.1 MB)
List of Participants (PDF,77 KB)
Biographies (PDF,1.3 MB)
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