Chapter 4 - Sustainable Development and Environmental Reform

Abstract

This chapter develops a framework for sustainable development and environmental reform. Sustainable development tools and methodologies are discussed such as the environmental management system (EMS), cleaner production (CP), environmental impact assessment (EIA), and environmental information technologies (EIT). The initial procedure in the proposed framework is to develop a set of environmental regulations. Strict enforcement of environmental regulations would force investors to carry an industrial audit (IA) or implement the environmental management system (EMS) (ISO 14001: 2004) within the organization's policy and decision-making strategies to be able to identify the wastes and pollution in order to comply with environmental regulations. During the operation of the project an industrial audit (IA), sometimes called environmental audit (EA), must be implemented to evaluate its actual environmental performance. The main goal is compliance with regulations as well as conservation of natural resources, which will finally lead to sustainable development. This chapter suggests an integration of cleaner production and environmental management systems to promote and manage cleaner production implementation throughout the different industrial sectors. This is a proposed modification to the ISO 14001 standard to be discussed by the ISO Technical Committee in its next round. This chapter also proposes an environmental reform structure and presents a detailed discussion of all the relevant elements such as regulation, EIA, EMS, cleaner production (CP), and industrial ecology (IE).