Residents, Regulators, and Risk in Two Industrial Towns

Abstract

Background This paper examines an important relationship created in the process of regulating major chemical and petrochemical installations in two towns: Grangemouth in Scotland, and Ludwigshafen in Germany. These are towns very different in size, and which have recently experienced very different economic fortunes. Nonetheless, they share the common characteristic of a long association with chemicals and petrochemicals, and have each been dominated by a single corporation: BP has been based in Grangemouth since 1924; BASF originated in Ludwigshafen in 1865, and the town remains its global headquarters. The relationship we examine here is that between environmental regulators and residents: that is, between the various regulatory and planning authorities responsible for the safety of the industries in both places, and the residents who make up the wider public of each town and who have the most direct stake in the efficacy of the regulators' work. We thus explore the local context within which environmental risks and their regulation have been evaluatedötacitly and informally as much as through any formally institutionalised arrangements öin each town. Our interest has been in local public commentaries on the regulation of each town's industry, in the

Explaining public risk acceptance of a petrochemical complex: A delicate balance of costs, benefits, and trust

“…Besides employment, an important component of the community-wide economic benefits is indirect benefits through tax revenues. The loss of direct control over industrial rates due to local government reorganization was found to be one of the main reasons for growing unease in Grangemouth and Ludwigshafen (Phillimore et al, 2007;Schlu¨ter et al, 2004). This study provided for an interesting comparison between one community (Zwijndrecht) functioning as an independent municipality directly reaping the benefits, and another community (Berendrecht-Zandvliet) seeing tax revenues flowing away to a much larger governing body.…”

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The governmentality of corporate (un)sustainability: the case of the ILVA steel plant in Taranto (Italy)

“…This is the reason why this kind of governance requires a multi-actor dimension approach (Shiroyama et al 2012) and a deep level of knowledge integration, "as a means to deal with multiple dimensions of sustainability and uncertainty" (Shiroyama et al 2012, p. 46). However, a multiactor approach increases the complexity of sustainability governance (Phillimore et al 2007;Shiroyama et al 2012), in particular when "confronting risk tradeoffs" (Graham and Wiener 1995, p. 1). In the ILVA case, many experts were involved in a multi-actor dimension approach; the novelty is that the Italian Government played the role of integrating two streams of knowledge.…”

“…Most of the research examines the ways in which risks are individually governed by single actors, i.e. a state, a local community, or a company (see Gouldson and Bebbington 2007;Tait and Chataway 2007;Phillimore et al 2007;Power 2007). The present research takes a difference stance and focuses on the role of the state in "governing" the sustainability trajectories and decisions of companies and local communities.…”

Institutional change in the forest sector: trust and mental models

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