Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
of interchangeable parts, production processes,
information and communication (Bagby 2010).
Environmental standards will likely duplicate this
new revolution in two linked ways. First, environ-
mental standards create disincentives for negative
externalities (pollution) of products and processes
by incentivizing research and development (R&D)
into designs compliant with environmental control
standards. Second, the network effects of pollution
controls are enhanced by standards. Environmental
control can be viewed as a system that increases
in marginal value (less overall pollution) as each
additional compliant actor is brought together into
that network (Katz and Shapiro 1985). Consider
the classic example of how air pollution control
law drove environmental standards by requiring
vehicle manufacturers to lower automotive emis-
sions. This led to the suppliers of component parts
standardizing their products to achieve economies
of scale. For example, catalytic converters became
the standard pollution control design that was fi-
nancially feasible, but only after scale economies
were achieved in the mass production of those
standardized catalytic converters. The overall
societal costs of pollution control were minimized
by widespread deployment of catalytic converters.
Of course, catalytic converters are an example of
environmental standardization network effects
because they required special fuels (unleaded
gasoline). A similar modern example has been the
availability of low sulfur diesel fuels that require
special diesel engine technologies (blue tech).
Strategic value is created when firms, indus-
tries, nations, and international regions achieve
environmental standardization. Standardization
defines environmental technology into fields and it
incentivizes innovation. However, environmental
standardization is a political process with strategic
impact. Unfortunately, compliance with standards
is too often viewed only as a technical task, so it
is too often delegated to technical specialists who
are without strategic responsibilities. Standard-
ization should be viewed strategically by firm
other industry participants. This indifference to
the importance of standardization is exacerbated
because standardization is not considered as a
coherent field and the definitions of standards are
imprecise and field-specific. For the purposes of
this chapter, consider that standards are technical
specifications that form sufficient common de-
sign elements to enable compatible or compliant
products and processes. Standardization is one ap-
proach to the coordination problem in game theory
in which participants benefit from harmonized de-
cision making. Arguably sustainability might also
be achieved without standardization: thousands
if not millions of independent actors could each
deploy different environmental control technolo-
gies making environmental standardization an
unnecessarily and rigid dampener of innovation.
However, it is more realistic to incentivize science
and management to create similar, high quality
systems so that R&D investments are focused
less on unnecessary variety and more on targeted
success most susceptible to efficient deployment.
Thousands of compelling examples illustrate
how standardization assists in developing new
markets and new products, enhancing quality
of life, creating competition, and cutting costs.
Indeed, even the written and published standards
themselves are a key information infrastructure.
For example, information about environmental
standards simplifies the management of envi-
ronmental and compliance risks. While the stan-
dardization experiences of many technologies
are relevant both to an understanding of strategic
standardization as well as to pollution control and
measurement, most examples used in this chapter
specifically address environmental standardiza-
tion. Nevertheless, consider how the seemingly ir-
relevant transportation interconnectivity example
in the next section addresses the expansion of net-
works and shows how information technology (IT)
is cross-cutting to many fields of standardization.
This example actually illustrates the significant
environmental impact from standardization in
seemingly unrelated fields.
