Using Lay Environmental Knowledge in Industry

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Using Lay Environmental Knowledge in Industry

• Dr. Kate Burningham
• Dr. Julie Barnett
• Dr. Anna Carr
• Dr. Walter Wehrmeyer
• Prof. Roland Clift

2
Background

• Increasing emphasis on public participation in
  environmental decision making/public engagement
  with science
• Much existing work focuses on public sector
  decision making

3
Rationales for industry to engage with the public

• companies can only be expected to take part in
  engagement if they can prove how it benefits
  their businesses, and stakeholders can only be
  expected to take part if they can see a clear
  benefit from their involvement (Jane Gregory)
• Instrumental reasons means to an end
• Business benefits (e.g. understanding
  stakeholders, building trust, establishing
  licence to operate, avoiding conflict, saving
  time and money down the line)
• Substantive reasons leading to better
  decisions
• Provision of different perspectives and early
  warning of key environmental and social issues
• Normative reasons the right thing to do
• Conducted in good faith, it is the clearest
  possible demonstration of a company's
  accountability and sense of community.

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Research Aim

• To understand how lay environmental knowledge and
  concern is conceptualised, accessed and used by
  industry

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Some of the things we wanted to know

• How do organisations think about the public and
  public knowledge?
• What factors encourage and inhibit engagement
  with the public?
• Is information from the public that does not stem
  from the chosen mechanisms for public involvement
  taken into account?
• Whose knowledge counts?
• Does lay environmental knowledge make a
  difference?

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What we did in the chemical sector

• 4 case studies Approx. 10 interviews in each.
• Telephone survey.

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Some case study findings

• Who are the public for industry?
• How is public environmental knowledge
  characterised?
• How do companies communicate with the public?
• Does lay environmental knowledge ever make a
  difference?

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Who are the public for industry?

• Consumers for B-C companies and large B-B.
• Not just consumers diverse publics (NGOs,
  media, public bodies, competitors consumers) and
  multiple roles.
• Citizens?
• Neighbours/local residents.

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Public environmental knowledge?

• Public seen as having range of environmental
  concerns but little knowledge.
• Environmental concern understood as informed by
  self interest and immediacy of problems
• I think that people generally speaking are, and
  I dont mean this in a nasty way, pretty
  self-motivated, a little bit selfish and areonly
  girded into action when they can see the direct
  impact on them or their loved ones. (large B-C)
• High degree of media dependency assumed
• the general public has to rely on the media and
  information reaching him or her through the media
  (small B-C)

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Shades of the deficit model

• Public understanding of chemical industry
• I think generally the public at large are very
  ignorant and they just see the chemical industry
  as producing all this fume and smoke and dust
  and chemicals and very underhand (small B-B)
• what we do here how we try and dispel the
  satanic mill argument, its very much heres
  what we do, come and see, understand, youre
  actually talking about educationIts about
  making sure people understand what you do and
  they can make informed judgements.(small B-B)
• they get a tour to give them more of an
  insight...So were not the scary, scary place
  down the roadand were not all mad professors in
  labs and thats what they expect you know, (small
  B-B)

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Shades of the deficit model

• Public understanding of science behind the
  product
• sometimes you have people who presume they have
  all the knowledge but you ask them one or two
  questions and its finished, especially when they
  talk about biodegradability. If you ask one or
  two questions they cant answer any more so I
  think 99 are not aware. (small B-C)
• if you gave people a list of fifty ingredients
  and said five of those are in a box of (product),
  which ones, I think youd be lucky to get more
  right answers than just a sort of a normal
  random (Large B-C)

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Defending deficits

• Complexities and uncertainties
• Its industrys job to ensure product safety
• in a very blunt way the product has to do its
  job and you at (company) have to take care of the
  environmental issues. Its kind of a mandate to
  do that for the consumer and I think personally
  this is the right way to handle it. (small B-C)
• Why would the public want this knowledge?
• I dont think that people really know or want to
  know (large B-C)

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Communication with the public

• Product related communication with consumers for
  B-C companies and large B-B.
• Various forms of interaction/engagement with
  neighbours
• Publicly initiated communication about issues
  beyond the product or factory characterised as
  rare and largely from students or activists.
• I mean the people who tend to seek you out are
  either people who are really interested or people
  who are troublemakers, looking for trouble.(large
  B-B)

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The survey

• Aim to explore in sample of chemical companies
  patterns of contact with, and attitudes to,
  different publics
• Consumers
• Local Residents
• NGOs

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Method

• Completed telephone interviews with
  representatives of 261 chemical companies
• Response rate of 27 (961 were rung)
• Selected on basis of SIC Codes
• Survey given backing of Judith Hackitt and
  Alistair Steel (Chemical Industries Association)
• 20 minute interview.

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The Survey

• Had company demographic info e.g. size, sales,
  profits.
• Job title, core business, B-B or B-C
• For 3 publics asked about
• Relevance of publics
• Product/company association
• Patterns of providing gathering information
• Ability of publics to influence company
• Contact with publics
• Attitudes to publics

17
Our sample Company size
18
Our sample Companies by type of product and core
business
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Attitude items

• 28 attitude items measured on 5 point scale,
  strongly disagree strongly agree.
• Three factors emerged from this each constituting
  a reliable scale
• Willingness to engage with public (7 items a.
  .74)
• Qualities of the public (8 items a. .61)
• Public product relationship (4 items a. .61)

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Willingness to engage

• Example items
• It is not our companys job to engage with
  members of the public
• There is no need for our company to engage with
  the public as their concerns are adequately
  addressed by government regulations
• Communicating with the public is a job for trade
  associations rather than individual companies

21
Qualities of the public

• Example items
• The public are not well informed about
  environmental issues
• The public are not scientifically literate
• The costs of listening to the public outweigh the
  benefits

22
Public product relationship

• Example items
• Public opinion has the potential to benefit our
  companys product development activities
• Input from the public can help shape corporate
  policy or practice
• The public contacts us mainly to inquire about
  our products

23
Significant differences on willingness to engage
companies with over 100 employees are more
willing to engage than those with less. Similar
but not significant differences on the other two
factors
24
Clear and consistent trends greater sales
associated with more positive attitudes. Companie
s with lowest sales show significantly less
willingness to engage than those with sales over
20 million
25

• Significant differences on Factor 1 (willingness
  to engage) and Factor 3 (public product
  relationship).
• Those who say local residents are most important
  public significantly more willing to engage than
  those saying consumers or NGOs are.
• Those saying consumers most important public
  significantly more positive about public product
  relationship than those saying local residents or
  NGOs

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Key findings from case studies

• Public seen as having concerns rather than
  knowledge or understanding
• For B-C companies communication with the public
  is mainly with consumers about products
• For B-B companies communication is mainly with
  neighbours about risk and nuisance
• Overall little sense of broader or upstream
  public
• engagement

27
Key findings from survey

• willingness to engage with the public varies
  systematically with company size and sales.
• willingness to engage was partly a function of
  who was seen as the most relevant public.

28
Benefits of and barriers to engagement

• Makes business sense (can lead to product
  improvements good sense to lead environmentally
  and to stand out from competitors)
• BUT
• Expensive/time consuming
• Raises expectations
• Who is a legitimate participant?
• Little public interest/demand?
• Is it our job?

29
Little public interest/demand?

• We did have the community meetings every couple
  of months but ..the last couple of times they
  havent wanted to come in because if they havent
  got an issue theyre not interested. (small B-B)
• Weve not yet cracked how we really make this
  categoryreally interesting for peopleits an
  uphill task but I dont think its impossible.
  (Large B-C)
• Wouldnt you think intuitively that if theres
  a need for a dialogue and a communication that it
  would automatically develop of its own accord?
  (Large B-B)

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Is it our job?

• I dont think its kind of a sin of omission,
  the fact that were not engaged in a waywere
  here to do a job and if people want to know,
  fine, there is a PR department, theres a
  website, anyone can ask questions but we dont
  proactively go out and invite it. (Large B-B)
• Its difficult to realise where the line is for
  a corporation in taking some of the
  responsibility from perhaps what was
  traditionally seen as government role, if not a
  non-government role, to raise these sorts of
  abstract debates rather than we make a product,
  we want to sell the product and so its away from
  simple consumer sort of function. (Large B-C)

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Does Lay Environmental Knowledge make a
difference?

• Yes, if
• Enough people say it
• Employees ideas
• Official body/NGO/Influential individuals
  involved
• Media interest
• Affects market
• In line with our research
• Allergy/safety issues
• Examples almost all product based (e.g. changing
  packaging, introducing new product lines)

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For discussion

• Are current messages about public engagement
  relevant/realistic for small companies?
• Does public engagement mean the same thing to
  industry as it does to academics and policy
  makers?
• companies can only be expected to take part in
  engagement if they can prove how it benefits
  their businesses, and stakeholders can only be
  expected to take part if they can see a clear
  benefit from their involvement (Jane Gregory)