Reducing environmental failures of public sector

Description

Reducing environmental failures of the public sector involves implementing robust regulatory frameworks, transparent monitoring systems, and accountability mechanisms to prevent mismanagement of natural resources and pollution. This strategy prioritizes enforcing compliance, strengthening institutional capacity, and promoting stakeholder engagement to address inefficiencies and corruption. Practical actions include regular environmental audits, public reporting, and integrating sustainability criteria into procurement and planning, thereby remedying systemic weaknesses and ensuring responsible stewardship of the environment by public authorities.

Context

In many countries, the public sector owns the most polluting industries and controls important natural resources. The public sector tends to follow environmental criteria less well, be less efficient, uses more resources, and creates more waste than the private sector. One of the main reasons for this difference is that the public sector can have great difficulties in self-regulation. The public sector is in essence governed by itself, the government, or in other words is both "the poacher and the gamekeeper". There is agreement that there needs to be greater separation between the regulator and the regulated by greater privatization of the public sector or by establishing autonomous regulatory bodies to regulate the public sector.

Implementation

The environmental problems of eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union demonstrate the environmental degradation as a result of public sector shortcomings.