Today, environmental stakes are of direct concern to every policy and business actor even if it is often not the primary focus of their core duties. Is this an opportunity or a threat? In any case, it is a driver for major change.
Key features of this process are:
- Legislation still remains the main driver for organizations to take measures but it tends to be less prescriptive and to rely more on economic instruments and planning tools.
- The concerns are shared amongst several stakeholders whose views might be quite different but all legitimate. Perception does matter as much as scientific realities.
- The stakes encompass several areas of expertise and cover different scales of time and place. Significant uncertainties on the state of natural resources and the mode of impacts must be coped with.
- Environmental systems do not easily correspond with the socio-economic organization of the society. Existing assessment and management tools do not often fit the job.
Being confronted to a new
paradigm, organizations cannot rely on any sustainable
development expertise which would deliver turn-key solutions.
They have to elaborate their own adaption strategy based on
their specific situation. The complexity of environmental issues
and the many interactions with external factors call for a
specific type of intelligence able to deal with a wide context
and to integrate inputs from various origin. Mastering the
information is a key success factor to understand the links
between an organization and its environment and to learn how to
respond to a growing demand for a greener society.
“In the field of observation,chance favors only the prepared mind".
L. Pasteur 1854
The added value of such an approach is manifold:
- Detecting early signals of change in the environmental context,
- Positioning environmental performances in a broader strategic framework,
- Anticipate crisis generated or amplified by environmental
unbalances,
- Strengthen the evaluation capacity of complex situations linking business, social and environmental factors,
- Becoming both influential and open vis-à-vis new demands
for better conservation of environmental assets,
- Prevent disinformation attempts in relation with
environmental practices.