Environmental Liability

Optimised Capital Expenditure

 The reality of environmental remediation is that we probably can't replace what is gone, which is why saving what is left is so important.

Even with this motivation there is still the question of the law of diminishing returns, as shown by the exponential growth of pollution control costs in relation to exponentially decreasing environmental benefits in the chart above.

Economic constraints more than other barriers will determine what environmental costs the future will suffer as a result of determining an optimum capital expenditure and time scales for each issue.

Environmental Liability

The implementation of ESD National Initiatives such as the mandatory upgrade of On-Site Sewerage Management (OSM) Systems (septic systems, etc.) to current health standards appears to most to be a mandate of Local Government through the "Septic Safe Program", and that is true.  However, the Internalisation of Environmental Costs Principles of ESD do not provide Councils with absolute discretion for cost allocation, which is also a question for "those best placed", according to ESD.

The reality over some 6 years has been that the implementation of this National Initiative in NSW has been undertaken under a Strict Liability Scheme, (i.e. conviction without charge).  The alternative is known as a Negligence Based Liability Scheme., where polluters are only held liable where the damage can be shown to be attributable to negligence or insufficient care (also referred to as Fault Based Liability).

The strict liability approach is quite contrary to the both the Principles of Intergenerational and Intragenerational Equity, and more importantly to the Internalisation of Environmental Costs Principles of ESD.  The consequence for our society is that Council's have selectively targeted individual entirely innocent constituents to pay tens of millions in dollars for benefits which fall almost exclusively to the whole community, in order to remedy environmental problems which were originally generated by the Council itself.

A link to discussion on establishing the "Environmental Value Chain" in the production costs of goods and services is below: 

Go to Environmental Value Chain Page

Follow this link to discussion on the "Five Capitals" of ESD:

Go to Five Capitals Page