Research project HL/DD/01 (Research action HL)
When analysing the influence and involvement of groups in society in terms of drawing up environmental policy and, more specifically, policy with a view to sustainable development, the emphasis is placed usually on the analysis of environmental movements, the influence of green parties, shifts in the direction of post-industrial and more qualitative social values, and so on. People often overlook the fact that the interventions of the modern society on the environment go hand in hand with radical changes in economic/industrial policy. Therefore, the basic hypothesis behind this investigative model is that the parties most closely involved in determining economic/industrial policy are also vitally important if a fully-fledged policy for sustainable development has to be realised.
Belgium and a number of other Western European countries have a long tradition of organised social and economic consultations. The tripartite consultations between trade unions, employers’ organisations and the government are indeed crucial to the formation and operation of social and economic life in the broad sense. Although changes in emphasis can be discerned throughout the history of these consultations (e.g. increasingly flexible working practices), integrating the issue of the environment within industrial consultations remains difficult. Nevertheless, a policy geared to sustainable development potentially has far-reaching consequences on the way in which we produce and consume things. Certain industrial sectors and production forms may even vanish if they do not face up to the need to carry out far-reaching reform. In countries like Belgium, where structured social consultations are tremendously important - in both global and sector-specific terms - to the debate surrounding industrial and production standards, the appropriate course of action is to analyse the role of the traditional social partners with regard to conceptions of environmental aspects in the production process. After all, changes to the production process have a knock-on effect on social relations.
One of the sticking points in the Belgian context is that environmental organisations are not part of the traditional global or sector-specific consultations. This makes the contribution of employers and employee organisations even more important when it comes to developing a policy geared to sustainable development, because they are the most influential and recognised representative structures in civil society. An additional problem is the fact that collective employment consultations take place at the federal level, whereas jurisdiction over the environment has been largely regionalised.
The purpose of this research project is to develop an insight into the link between social consultations and environmental measures geared to sustainable development. The study has four sections:
1. analysis of today’s social and economic consultations, focussing in particular on the environmental issue;
2. analysis of the viewpoints of the social partners with regard to sustainable development;
3. international comparison with other countries that have similar structures for social consultations: the Netherlands, Denmark, Austria, Germany and Great Britain;
4. development of future-orientated proposals designed to promote integration of the issues of labour and the environment.
working paper n° 1: Duurzame ontwikkeling : op zoek naar operationele definities en indicatoren
Hans Bruyninckx (KULeuven-HIVA)
Duurzame ontwikkeling: beleidsconcept en kader voor maatschappelijke participatie: eindverslag
Bruyninckx, Hans - Bachus, Kris Brussel: DWTC, 2001 (SP0989)
[To download]
[Exhausted]
Towards a social pact in sustainability matters: Concluding research remarks on participation in the Belgian sustainable development policy context : executive summary
Brussels : OSTC, 2002 (SP1079)
[To download]
