From 'grey to green'- investigating the capabilities of the ... - lumes

Sweden has a long history of bureaucratic institutions and have previously had major society changesmade through these type of organisations such as the creating of “the Swedish people home”(Lundqvist2004:1286).Hajer defines the origin of this process of Ecological Modernisation as eco-modernism, whichmeans that states can develop there way out of environmental problems (Hajer 1997:264). A process thatin the Swedish case of bureaucracy, has many times, been linked to the bureaucratic organisationscapability of engineering society. The concept of ecological modernisation can also be linked to theconcept of ‘weak’ sustainability, where the current structure does not need to be overthrown to ensure abetter environment, the current structure of society needs to be reformed instead to face the new problems(O’Riordan 1996 cited in Carter 2001:201) To endorse that bureaucratic organisations can stimulate thisdevelopment in the best possible way is therefore not only a goal to guarantee a better environment butalso to ensure an economic development within the state and/or within the Region. Hence, this conceptaccepts the basic foundation of the capitalistic society; however it claims that it needs to be reformed inorder to face the problems that the current society has created. One must therefore be aware that the SDthat the Swedish state is applying is a type of development that is created through reformation and not anorganisational revolution. The current structure therefore faces problems that have been identified; themajor obstacle is that bureaucratic organisations and institutions face what Carter claims to be “narrowsectoral objectives with little consideration for their overall environmental impact”(Carter 2001:208).Carter (2001) claims that this is the most important obstacle for implementation of SD policies withinwestern societies. New structures and organisational reforms as well as the transformation of establishedpolicy making processes are some of the key areas that Carter defines as important in this process ofimplementing sustainable development. This thesis will look at one type of organisational reformation thatseeks to address this new type of problem within SD policy implementation. The idea is that as theenvironmental issues and problems have become more obvious and larger there is a need forenvironmental agencies or organisations to implement the policies to solve or restrict the environmentalproblems in society. This can in the long term lead to more innovations and increase the economicdevelopment in states or Regions. Many governments and states have therefore created new organisationsto deal with these new types of policy implementation. Two types of reforms have been identified, onewhere governments have reformed the organisations in a way where the environmental issues have beensegregated to a single independent organisation, for example the French ministry of Environment. Thesecond version has been identified with a more general approach where the reformation of organisationshas led to a merge with already existing organisations within the state, such an organisational reform thatcan be identified in UK and the UK Department of Environment that has been given not onlyenvironmental issues in there concern but also non-environmental issues (Carter 2001:260). The twoversions both have their benefits and draw backs, but they both try to tackle the new types of policyimplementation. A SD policy is one of these “new problems” that bureaucratic organisations face toimplement. Carter defines this problem as one that many countries have been trying to tackle in variousways, though the most common perspective is to marginalize and construct independent organisations thatare given the obligation so implement specific environmental policies. Carter defines two versions ofenvironmental ministry organisations, where one version is given exclusive policy focus. Thought thisversion has met difficulties mainly because separating the environmental issues from the already existingorganisations many times leads to a marginalistation of the environmental issues. The second version isthe generalist organisational model, where already existing organisations face the concept of alsoimplementing environmental policies, the problem with this version is that the environmental questions aremany times not prioritised and sometimes “they struggle to reach the top of the departments agenda”(Carter 2001:259).Environmental issues can in many cases be specialized and suit specialized organisationswithin the state, however one of the foundations of SD is that the policy issues tackle all areas of thesociety. Therefore sustainability is problematic to generalise and must be implemented in all sectors of thestate organisation. This leads to a problem for the current structure within the state that many times isstructured through specialized sections that deal with specific issues within society. The administrativestructure of a bureaucratic organisation that faces implementation of SD is generally constructed in to“distinct policy sectors with specific responsibilities such as education defence or health care (Carter30