Abstract
The relationship between industrialization and its effects
on the environment has captured the serious attention of national governments
and international organizations, especially in light of increasing
globalization. Sustainability in
products, processes, and services has been increasingly emphasized by placing
environment at the center of some industrial transformations -- or at least on a par with
competitiveness. The key to environmental
sustainability was recognized early as involving the design and implementation
of environmentally sound products, processes and services, rather than
addressing environmental concerns as an afterthought in industrial
systems. At the same time as the
environment has become more important in economic policy, European, as well as
American, industrial economies have also begun to pay attention to the
restructuring of labour markets reflecting changes brought about emerging
technologies, new environmental priorities, and globalization. However, policies has been largely reactive,
rather than proactive towards new job creation and better organization of work.
Just as thinking about environment after
industrial development is planned and implemented does not optimize
environmental quality, consideration of labour concerns also requires
deliberate and intelligent actions before embarking on industrialization
efforts in guiding industrial transformations.
The recent downturn of the extraordinary long economic boom might be
expected to reveal fundamental structural employment problems in the
industrialized world. It is likely that
employment considerations will be the central issue in the coming decade for
countries in the expanding European Union, and will influence the nature and
direction of (re)industrialization and the growth of the service economy. It is therefore timely to explore options and
opportunities for co-optimizing economic development (competitiveness),
environmental quality, and labour/employment concerns, all of which have
implications for the organization of work.
Introduction
Work and the workplace are
essential elements of industrial and industrializing economies. Work is
combined with physical and natural capital to produce goods and services. The
workplace is the place where the comparative advantages of workers and
owners/managers create a market for exchange of talents and assets. Beyond
markets, work provides both a means of engagement of people in the society, and
an important social environment and mechanism for enhancing self-esteem.
Finally, work is the main means of distributing wealth and generating
purchasing power in dynamic national economic systems. This essay explores the
complex relationship between employment, and the increasingly unsustainable and
globalizing economy; the changing nature of industrial economies presents new
challenges and opportunities for the organization of work in both
industrialized and industrializing countries.
The
Unsustainable Industrial State
Those
that argue that the industrialized state – whether developed or developing – is
currently unsustainable emphasize a number of problems. These are depicted schematically in Figure
1. The ‘environmental problems’ include
toxic pollution, climate change, resource depletion, and problems related to
the loss of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity. The environmental burdens are felt unequally
within nations, between nations, and between generations, giving rise to
inter-national, intra-national, and intergenerational equity concerns that are
often expressed as ‘environmental injustice’.
The Brundtland formulation of sustainability seems to focus concern on
intergenerational equity, but all three kinds of mal-distributions are
important.
The
environmental problems stem from the activities concerned with agriculture,
manufacturing, extraction, transportation, housing, energy, and services -- all
driven by the demand of consumers, commercial entities, and government. But in addition, there are effects of these
activities on the amount, security, and skill of employment, the nature and
conditions of work, and purchasing power associated with wages. An increasing concern is economic inequity
stemming from inadequate and unequal purchasing power within and between
nations – and for the workers and citizens of the future.
Whether
solutions involving industry initiatives, government intervention, stakeholder
involvement, and financing can resolve these unsustainability problems depends
on correcting a number of fundamental flaws in the characteristics of the
industrial state: (1) fragmentation of the knowledge base leading to myopic
understanding of fundamental problems and the resulting fashioning of
single-purpose or narrowly-fashioned solutions by technical and political
decision-makers, (2) the inequality of access to economic and political power,
(3) the tendency towards ‘gerontocracy’ – governance of industrial systems by
old ideas, (4) the failure of markets both to correctly price the adverse
consequences of industrial activity and (5) to deal sensibly with effects which
span long time horizons for which pricing and markets are inherently incapable
of solving. The solutions to these
system problems will be explored in the context of their implications for the
organization of work.
Globalization
‘Globalization’
has at least three distinct meanings [Gordon, 1995], with different
implications for workers and working life. ‘Internationalization’ is the
expansion of product/service markets abroad, facilitated by information and
communication technology (ICT) and e-commerce, with the locus of production
remaining within the parent country. ‘Multi-nationalization’ is where a
(multi-national) company establishes production/service facilities abroad, to
be nearer to foreign markets and/or to take advantage of more industry-friendly
labour, environmental, and tax policies, while maintaining
research-and-development (R&D) and innovation-centered activities in the
parent country. The third meaning is the creation of strategic alliances, what
some call ‘transnationalization,’ in which two different foreign enterprises
merge/share their R&D and other capabilities to create a new entity or
product line. Those concerned with enhancing trade are especially worried about
barriers to internationalization, while those concerned with possible erosion
of labour/environmental standards bemoan the consequences of
multinationalization. Transnationalization may lead to industrial restructuring
with unpredictable consequences for national economies. All three kinds of
globalization raise questions of excessive market, and hence political power
where concerns for profits overwhelm democratic and ethical values.
Globalization
raises new challenges for governance, especially vis-à-vis the roles of
government, workers, and citizens in the new economic order. Within
nation-states, the extent to which the ‘externalities’ of production – adverse
health, safety, and environmental effects – are internalized differ according
to the differential success of regulation/compensation regimes and the extent
to which economies incorporate the ethics of fair play in their practices.
There has been a constant struggle to establish good labour and environmental
standards/practices within nations. With the advent of globalized,
competition-driven markets, attention has now shifted to the harmonization of
standards through ILO conventions and multi-lateral environmental agreements,
with only a modicum of success. Countries are slow to give up national
autonomy, and only where there is a trend toward significant economic
integration (as in the EU) are there successes at harmonization. But
globalization has brought an even more complex set of challenges through the
creation of trade regimes – such as the WTO, ASEAN, and NAFTA – where the term
‘fair trade’ means the elimination (or equalization) of tariffs and so-called non-tariff
trade barriers, which place labour and environmental standards at odds with
trade objectives.
The trade regimes promote
international laissez-faire commerce; and rights-based law/protections and
market economics have become competing paradigms for public policy and
governance. Government plays very different roles when is acts as a facilitator
or arbitrator to resolve competing interests, than when it acts as a trustee of
worker and citizen interests to ensure a fair outcome of industrial transformations
[Ashford, 2002]. The differences are
pronounced when stakeholders have largely disparate power – or when some are
not represented in the political process, as in the case of emerging or new
technology-based firms.
John Rawls argues that no
transformation in a society should occur unless those that are worse off are
made relatively better off [Rawls, 1971]. Operationalizing a Rawlsian world has
its difficulties, but law operates to create certain essential rights that
enable just and sustainable transformations. These include the right-to-know,
the right to participate in decisions affecting one’s working/non-working life,
and the right to benefit from transformation of the state or global economy.
Struggles won at the national level are now being eroded by a shift in the
locus of commerce. Without consensus about fair play and the trustee
institutions to ensure fair distributions from, and practices in, the new
global economy, equity and justice cannot be achieved. It is now agreed that
future development must be ‘sustainable,’ but that means different things to
different commentators.
Sustainable development
must be seen as a broad concept, incorporating concerns for the economy, the
environment, and employment. All three
are driven/affected by both technological innovation [Schumpeter, 1939] and by
globalized trade [Ekins et al., 1994; Divan and Walton, 1997]. They are also in a fragile balance, are
inter-related, and need to be addressed together in a coherent and mutually
reinforcing way [Ashford 2001].
Technological innovation and trade drive national economies in different
ways [Charles and Lehner, 1998]. The former exploits a nation’s innovative
potential, the latter its excess production capacity. Innovation-based
performance is enhanced by technological innovation and changing product
markets, characterized by fluid, competitive production. Cost-reduction
strategies are enhanced by increased scales of production and/or automation,
usually characterized by rigid, mature monopolistic production. Economies seeking to exploit new
international markets may enjoy short-term benefits from revenues gained as a
result of production using existing excess capacity, but they may ultimately
find themselves behind the technological curve.
Performance-driven markets may be slower to gain profits, but may
outlast markets driven by cost-reduction strategies. The consequences for
workers may differ as well.
Increasing labour
productivity, defined as output per unit of labour input, is a concern in
nations pursuing either strategy. But labour productivity can be improved in
different ways: (1) by utilizing better tools, hardware, software, and
manufacturing systems, (2) by increasing workers’ skills, and (3) by a better
matching of labour with physical and natural capital and with information and
communication technologies (ICT).
Theoretically, increasing worker productivity lowers the costs of goods
and services, thereby lowering prices -- and ultimately increasing the demand
and sale of goods and services.
Depending on the markets, it can be argued that more workers may be
subsequently hired, than displaced as a consequence of needing fewer worker to
produce a given quantity of goods and services. This optimistic scenario
assumes a continual throughput society with increasing consumption. However,
the drive toward increased consumption may have dire consequences for the
environment [Daly, 1991]. In addition,
questions arise as to whether, in practice, (1) labour is valued, and paid,
more or less after productivity improvements, (2) there are positive or
negative effects on job tenure and security, and (3) more workers are hired
than displaced. The answers depend on
the sources of the increases in worker productivity and the basis of a nation’s
competitiveness.
Innovation-based
performance competitiveness presents opportunities for skill enhancement and
building optimal human-technology interfaces, while cost-reduction strategies
focus on lean production (with worker displacement), flexible labour markets,
and knowledge increasingly embodied in hardware and software rather than in
human capital. The consequences for workers are different for these two
strategies. The former strategy rewards and encourages skill acquisition for
many, with appropriate financial benefits for those workers. The latter creates
a division between workers, some of whom are necessarily upskilled and many
whose job content is reduced. Different national strategies might be pursued,
reflecting different domestic preferences and culture, but there are further
implications, depending on the extent to which trade drives the economy.
Interestingly, the US is globalizing and focusing on expanding markets abroad,
while the EU is selling a smaller amount and percentage of goods and services outside
its borders, focusing instead on integrating its internal markets in which its
various members compete on performance [Kleinknecht and ter Wengel, 1998]. In the US, wage disparities are large and
increasing, while in some parts of the EU – notably the Netherlands – wage
disparities are much smaller and decreasing.
The changing global
economy, however, presents challenges for all nations as concerns for the
number of jobs, job security, wages, and occupational health and safety
increase. In the private sector, labour needs a role in choosing and
implementing information-based technologies; in the public sector there is a
need for integrating industrial development policies with those of employment,
occupational health and safety, and environment. From the perspective of labour, these require
implementation of the right to know, the right to participate, and the right to
benefit from industrial transformations.
The right to know has
been described elsewhere [Ashford and Caldart, 1996: Chapter 7] and includes
the workers’ right to know/have access to, and the employer’s/manufacturer’s
corresponding duty to inform/warn workers about scientific, technological, and
legal information. Scientific information includes chemical or physical
hazard/risk information related to product or material ingredients, exposure,
health effects, and individual or group susceptibility [Ashford et al.,
1990]. As important as information about
hazards is, information about technology is the key to workers being able play
a role in reducing risks. This kind of
information includes not only knowledge about pollution/accident control and
prevention technology, but also technology options for industrial production. Knowing how production might be changed to
make it inherently cleaner and safer, and the source of more rewarding,
meaningful work, is a sine qua non of being able to participate
meaningfully in firm-based decisions (see below). Finally, information about legal rights and
obligations is crucial for using legal and political avenues for workplace
improvement and redress from harm.
The right to know is made
operational through the right of workers to participate in (1) the technology
choices of the firm (through technology bargaining and system design) [Ashford
and Ayers, 1987], (2) firm-based training, education, and skill enhancement,
(3) national and international labour market policies, and (4) in the setting
of national and international labour standards.
While national unions enable workers to work with employers through
industrial relations systems, and ILO utilizes a tripartite system that
includes labour, management and government, the trade regimes mentioned earlier
give little or no participatory rights to labour (or environmentalists) in global
economic activities which have potentially significant effects on wages and
working conditions. As trade becomes an
important part of national economies, this omission needs to be corrected
[European Commission, 2001]. Ironically,
under the WTO trade rules, importing countries can restrict imports or place
countervailing duties on items that harm their environment, but there is no
‘equalizing action’ that can be taken if the exporting countries produce those
goods unsafely or with adverse environmental effects within their own borders.
This reinforces non-enactment or non-enforcement of national health, safety, or
environmental laws in the exporting countries, to the detriment of their own
workers and citizens. Further, countries may be reluctant to ratify or adopt
international accords – including ILO or multi-lateral environmental agreements
– in hopes of maintaining or gaining short-term competitive advantage.
Finally, and at the core
of justice in the global work life, is the right of working people to benefit
from industrial transformations. The
right to know and right to participate are essential, but the ultimate rights
are those of a fair division of the fruits of the industrial or industrializing
state -- and a safe and healthful workplace. This translates into sufficient
job opportunities, job security, and purchasing power, as well as rewarding,
meaningful, and safe employment. This
can not be left to chance or serendipitous job creation. In formulating
policies for environmental sustainability, economic growth and environmental
quality are simultaneously optimized, rather than having environmental
interventions occur after harmful technologies are in place. Instead, we seek to design and implement cleaner
and inherently safer production. Employment concerns deserves no less a place
in center stage; growth, environment and employment must be co-optimized.
Systemic changes must be pursued and selected that intentionally benefit
employment. Even with better prospects for employment, in an industrial system
that continues to replace labour with physical capital, increasing worker
capital ownership and access to credit [Ashford, 1998] that turns workers into
owners may be an additional necessary long-term option if disparities of wealth
and income prevail.
Conceptualizations of
Sustainable Development
It
makes quite a difference whether you look at sustainable development as just an
environmental issue, or alternatively as a multidimensional challenge in the
three dimensions: economic, environmental, and social. We argue that competitiveness, environment,
and employment are the operationally-important dimensions of sustainability –
and these three dimensions together drive sustainable development along different
pathways and go to different places than environmentally-driven concerns alone,
which may otherwise require tradeoffs, for example, between environmental
improvements and jobs. The
inter-relatedness of competitiveness, environment, and employment is depicted
in Figure 2.
A sustainable
development agenda is, almost by definition, one of systems change. This is
not to be confused with an environmental policy agenda, which is – or
should be – explicitly effect-based, and derived from that, a program of
policies and legislation directed towards environmental improvements, relying
on specific goals and conditions. The sustainable development policy agenda
focuses at least on processes (e.g., related to extraction, manufacturing,
transport, agriculture, energy, construction, etc.), and may extend to more
cross cutting technological and social systems changes.
TABLE 1: Comparison of Current and
Sustainable Policy Agendas
AGENDA
|
Competitiveness
|
Environment
|
Employment
|
Current
|
Improve
Performance/Cut Costs
|
Control
pollution/make simple substitutions or changes
Conserve
energy
and resources
|
Ensure
supply of adequately trained people; dialogue with workers
Provide
safe workplaces
|
Sustainable
|
Change
nature of meeting market needs through radical or disrupting innovation (a
systems change)
|
Prevent
pollution through system changes
Change
resource and energy dependence
|
Radical
improvement in human-technology interfaces (a systems change)
|
Referring
to Table 1, note that current strategy agendas, even those that go
beyond environmental goals, are defined as those that are focused on those
policies that (1) improve profit and market share by improving performance in
current technologies or cutting costs, (2) controlling pollution/making simple
substitutions and changes, and conserving energy and resources, and (3)
ensuring an adequate supply of appropriately skilled labour, dialogue with
workers, and providing safe and healthy workplaces. We would describe these strategies as
‘reactive’ vis-à-vis technological change, rather than proactive. They are usually pursued separately and by
different sets of government ministries and private-sector stakeholders. At best, policies affecting competitiveness,
environment, and employment are coordinated, but not integrated.
In
contrast, sustainable agendas are those policies that are focused on
technological changes that alter the ways goods and services are provided, the
prevention of pollution and the decreased use of energy and resources through
more far-reaching system changes, and the development of novel socio-technical
systems -- involving both technological
and organizational elements -- that enhance the many dimensions of ‘meaningful
employment’ through the integration, rather than coordination, of policy
design and implementation.
The kind of innovation likely to be managed
successfully by industrial corporations is relevant to the differences between
current and sustainable technology agendas.
We argue that the needed major
product, process, and system transformations may be beyond those that the
dominant industries and firms are capable of developing easily, at least by
themselves. Further, industry and other
sectors may not have the intellectual capacity and trained human resources to
do what is necessary.
This
argument is centered on the idea of ‘the winds of creative destruction’
developed by Joseph Schumpeter [Schumpeter, 1939] in explaining technological
advance. The distinction between incremental and radical innovations – be they
technological, organizational, institutional, or social – is not simply line
drawing along points on a continuum.
Incremental innovation generally involves continuous improvements, while
radical innovations are discontinuous [Freeman, 1992] possibly involving displacement of dominant firms,
institutions, and ideas, rather than evolutionary transformations. In semantic contrast, Christensen [Christensen, 2000] distinguishes continuous
improvements as ‘sustaining innovation’ and uses the term ‘disrupting
innovation’ rather than radical innovation, arguing that both sustaining and
disrupting innovations can be either incremental or radical, where the term
‘radical’ is reserved for the rapid or significant performance changes within
a particular technological trajectory.
Thus,
in Christensen’s terminology, radical sustaining innovation is a major change
in technology along the lines
that technology has been changing historically, for example a much more
efficient air pollution scrubber -- and is often pioneered by incumbent firms.
Major innovation that represents an entirely new approach, even if it
synthesizes previously invented artifacts, is termed ‘disrupting;’ and in
product markets, it almost always is developed by firms not in the prior
markets or business. This is consistent
with the important role of ‘outsiders’ – both to existing firms and as new
competitors -- in bringing forth new concepts and ideas [van de Poel, 2000].
Counting
only or mainly on existing industries, or on traditionally-trained technical
expertise, for a sustainable transformation ignores increasing evidence that it
is not just willingness and opportunity/motivation that is required for needed
change, but that a third crucial condition -- the ability or capacity of firms
and people to change -- is essential [Ashford, 2000]. In some situations they may do so because
society or market demand sends a strong signal, but not in all or even in most
of the cases.
We argue here that the same
holds true for government and societal institutions faced by the triple
challenge emanating from new demands in the areas of competitiveness,
environment and employment. Intelligent
government policy is an essential part of encouraging appropriate responses of
the system under challenge, and of assisting in educational transformations as
well.
An
essential concept in fostering innovative technical responses is that of
‘design space.’ As originally introduced
by Tom Allen et al. of MIT, design space is a cognitive concept that refers to
the dimensions along which the designers of technical systems concern
themselves [Allen et al., 1978]. Especially in
industrial organizations that limit themselves to current or traditional
strategies or agendas, there is a one-sided utilization of the available design
space. Solutions to design problems are only sought along traditional
engineering lines. In many cases unconventional solutions – which may or may
not be hi-tech -- are ignored. For that
reason radical, disrupting innovations are often produced by industry mavericks,
or as a result of some disruptive outside influence (such as significantly new
or more stringent environmental regulation and foreign competition, or
influence of an outsider to the organization).
The Role of Government
Government is essential for achieving the kinds of
industrial transformations that are desirable from an economic perspective, but
that are also fair and just in their production and deliverance of goods and
services. Among the suggested general
functions of government are:
●
to
provide the
necessary physical/legal infrastructure
● to support basic education and skills acquisition
● to invest in path-breaking science and technology
development – for enhancing competitiveness, environmental improvement, and job
design
● to act as a facilitator or arbitrator of competing
stakeholder interests to ensure a fair process
● to act as a trustee of (under-represented) worker and
citizen interests to ensure a fair outcome
● to act as a trustee of new technologies
● to act as a force to
integrate, not just coordinate policies
More
specifically, depending on the specific transformation desired, there is a role
for government from the direct support of R&D and incentives for innovation
through appropriate tax treatment of investment; to the creation and
dissemination of knowledge through experimentation and demonstration projects;
to the creation of markets through government purchasing; to the removal of
perverse incentives of regulations in some instances and the deliberate design
and use of regulation to stimulate change in others; to the training of owners,
workers, and entrepreneurs, and educating consumers. The role of government should be considered
beyond simply creating a favourable climate for investment. While it is true that ‘the government may not
be competent to choose winners,’ it can create winning forces, and provide an
enabling and facilitating role by creating visions for sustainable
transformations.
There
is continuing debate about the appropriate role of government in encouraging
industrial transformations [Ashford, 2000].
Major differences revolve about two competing philosophical traditions:
the dominance of unfettered market approaches and a more interventionist,
directive role for government through laws and regulation. Market approaches concentrate on ‘getting the
prices right,’ ensuring competition in capital and labour markets, and
increasing demand for a clean environment, product safety, and good working
conditions through the providing of information and education. In contrast, government intervention approaches
focus on establishing minimum environmental, product safety, and labour
standards and practices; requiring full disclosure by employers and producers
of information needed by consumers, citizens, and workers to make informed
choices and demands; encouraging technology development, transfer, and
infrastructure through a deliberate ‘industrial policy;’ and requiring
decision-bargaining in industrial relations.
Alternative
roles for government in promoting sustainable development accomplish different things:
● correcting
market failures by regulating pollution, and by addressing inadequate
prices, monopoly power, uncompetitive labour markets, and lack of information achieves
static efficiency through better working markets,
● acting as a mediator
or facilitator of environmental and labour disputes/conflicts among the
stakeholders achieves static efficiency through reducing transaction
costs,
●
facilitating an industrial transformation by encouraging organizational
learning and pollution prevention leading to win-win outcomes (based on the
concepts of ‘ecological modernization’ [Jänicke and Jacobs, 2002; Mol, 2001] or
‘reflexive law’ [Teubner, 1983]) relies on rational choice and evolutionary
change that moves towards a more dynamic efficiency, usually over many decades,
●
moving
beyond markets and acting as a trustee for minority interests, subsequent
generations, and new technologies by forcing and encouraging innovation,
through coordinated regulatory, industrial, employment & trade policy transcends
markets, moving towards dynamic efficiency within a shorter time horizon.
Conclusion
Recalling
that a sustainable future requires technological, organizational,
institutional, and, social changes, it is likely that an evolutionary pathway
is insufficient for achieving factor ten or greater improvements in eco‑ and
energy‑efficiency and reductions in the production and use of, and exposure to,
toxic substances. Nor are fundamental
changes in the organization of work likely to emerge through evolutionary
change. Such improvements require more
systemic, multidimensional, and disruptive changes. We have already asserted that the capacity to
change can be the limiting factor -- this is often a crucial missing factor in
optimistic scenarios.
Such significant
industrial transformations occur less often from dominant technology firms, or
in the case of unsustainable practices, problem firms' capacity‑enhancing
strategies, than from new firms that displace existing products, processes and
technologies. This can be seen in examples
of significant technological innovations over the last fifty years including
transistors, computers, and PCB replacements.
Successful management of disruptive product
innovation requires initiatives from outsiders to produce the expansion of the
design space that limits the dominant technology firms [van de Poel, 2000].
Especially in sectors with an important public or collective involvement like
construction and agriculture, this means that intelligent government policies
are required to bring about necessary change.
Rigid industries whose
processes have remained stagnant also face considerable difficulties in
becoming significantly more sustainable. Shifts from products to 'product
services' rely on changes in the use, location, and ownership of products in
which mature product manufacturers may participate, but this requires
significant changes involving managerial, institutional, organizational, and
social (customer) innovations. Changes in socio-technical 'systems', such as
transportation or agriculture are even more difficult. This suggests that the creative use of
government intervention is a more promising strategic approach for achieving
sustainable industrial transformations, than the reliance of the more
neo-liberal policies relying on firms' more short-term economic self‑interest.
This is not to say that
enhanced analytic and technical capabilities on the part of firms; cooperative
efforts and improved communication with suppliers, customers, workers, other
industries, and environmental/consumer/community groups are not valuable
adjuncts in the transformation process.
But in most cases these means and strategies are unlikely to be
sufficient by themselves for significant transformations, and they will not
work without clear mandated targets to enhance the triple goals of
competitiveness, environmental quality, and enhancement of employment/labour
concerns.
The history of
innovation has amply demonstrated that disruptive innovations are feasible, and
they may bring substantial payoffs in terms of triple sustainability. They are
within the available, but unused design space.
However, the general political environment, governmental dedication, and
incentive structure have to be right for the needed changes to occur.
Government has a significant
role to play, but the government can not simply serve as a referee or arbiter
of existing competing interests, because neither future generations nor future
technologies are adequately represented by the existing stakeholders.
Government should work with stakeholders to define far-future targets – but
without allowing the agenda to be captured by the incumbents -- and then use
its position as trustee to represent the future generations and the
future technologies to ‘backcast’ what specific policies are necessary to
produce the required technical, organizational, and social
transformations. This backcasting will
have to be of a next-generation variety of backcasting. It has to go beyond its historical focus on
coordinating public and private sector policies. It must be multidimensional and directly
address the present fragmentation of governmental functions – not only at the
national level, but also between EU, national, regional, and local governmental
entities.
There is
a great deal of ontology, serendipity, and uncertainty in the transformation
process, and the long-term prospects may be not be sufficiently definable to
suggest obvious pathways or trajectories for the needed transformations. Thus, it may be unreasonable to expect that
government can play too definitive a ‘futures making’ role. What follows from this is that rather than
attempting tight management of the pathways for the transformations that are
sustainable in the broad sense in which we define it in this work, the
government role might be better conceived as one of ‘enabling’ or
‘facilitating’ change, while at the some time lending visionary leadership
for co-optimizing competitiveness, environment, and employment. This means that the various policies must be
mutually reinforcing. This
newly-conceptualized leadership role – focused on ‘opening up the problem space
of the engineer/designer’ -- is likely to require participation of more than
one ministry. Increasingly, ministries
of commerce/economic affairs and ministries of environment are working together
to fashion a vision of environmental sustainability. What has been missing is a similar proactive
role of ministries of labour to interface and integrate employment-related
policies into the national and global policy agendas.
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