Smarter Approach to Sustainability, Says Canadian Conference Board

Economic growth and concern for the physical environment need to be integrated into a single concept of sustainability. This can be done by improving measurement and reducing overlap in provincial and federal environment regulations, the Conference Board argues in a new publication.

“Let’s recognize that economic growth cannot come at the expense of the physical environment,” said Glen Hodgson, Vice-President and Chief Economist. “Improved measures of sustainability will help us understand the relationship between growth and its impact on the environment.”

The briefing, Sustainability: A Winning Merger of Growth and the Environment, further argues that environmental regulatory processes in Canada are reasonably well-designed, but they are not functioning well. Approvals for new mills, mines, oil and gas developments, and electrical generation and transmission are based more on processes than scientific and environmental evidence. Thus, they take too long and are too cumbersome. Moreover, regulatory duplication among different levels of government makes approval processes complex and costly.

The briefing also outlines the concept of industrial ecology, in which cities would use resources more efficiently and produce less waste. The final report of the Conference Board’s Canada Project, Mission Possible: Sustainable Prosperity for Canada, will offer more detailed ideas on principles of sustainable economic growth when it is published in early 2007.