The norms, rules and motivational values driving sustainable remediation of contaminated environments: A study of implementation

Abstract

Efforts to achieve sustainability are transforming the norms, rules and values that affect the remediation of contaminated environments. This is altering the ways in which remediation impacts on the total environment. Despite this transformation, few studies have provided systematic insights into the diverse norms and rules that drive the implementation of sustainable remediation at contaminated sites, and no studies have investigated how values motivate compliance with these norms and rules. This study is a systematic analysis of the rules, norms and motivational values embedded in sustainable remediation processes at three sites across Australia, using in-depth interviews conducted with 18 participants between 2011 and 2014, through the application of Crawford and Ostrom's Institutional Grammar and Schwartz's value framework. These approaches offered methods for identifying the rules, norms, and motivational values that guided participants' actions within remediation processes at these sites. The findings identify a core set of 16 norms and 18 rules (sanctions) used by participants to implement sustainable remediation at the sites. These norms and rules: define the position of participants within the process, provide means for incorporating sustainability into established remediation practices, and define the scope of outcomes that constitute sustainable remediation. The findings revealed that motivational values focused on public interest and self-interest influenced participants' compliance with norms and rules. The findings also found strong interdependence between the norms and rules (sanctions) within the remediation processes and the normative principles operating within the broader domain of environmental management and planning. The paper concludes with a discussion of: the system of norms operating within sustainable remediation (which far exceed those associated with ESD); their link, through rules (sanctions) to contemporary styles of regulatory enforcement; and the underlying balance of public-interest values and self-interest values that drives participants' involvement in sustainable remediation.

Understanding the role of values in institutional change: the case of the energy transition

“…Others acknowledge that human behavior cannot be fully understood when only focusing on material selfinterest as a driver, but that values influence human behavior and thus also the development of institutions [37,38]. A first effort to go beyond merely acknowledging and mentioning values has recently been undertaken by Prior [39] in the context of the removal of pollutants from contaminated soil, sediment, and water. Using Schwartz' value framework [40,41], Prior [39] finds that different stakeholders are motivated by different values to comply with existing institutions.…”

“…A first effort to go beyond merely acknowledging and mentioning values has recently been undertaken by Prior [39] in the context of the removal of pollutants from contaminated soil, sediment, and water. Using Schwartz' value framework [40,41], Prior [39] finds that different stakeholders are motivated by different values to comply with existing institutions. For example, local governments are motivated by universalist values (concern for welfare and equity) while providers of services to remove the pollutants are motivated by achievement and power values (power and success).…”

“…Therefore, this section sets out to investigate possible literature perspectives that can be useful to integrate values into the dynamic IAD framework. Starting from first efforts of integrating values in the IAD framework by Prior [39], we observed in the previous section that he makes use of an account of values used in social psychology. We also draw from institutional economics as the original discipline in which the IAD framework was developed and in which recent work addresses the relation between values and institutions.…”

“…These include, for example, selfdirection (e.g., freedom, independence, self-respect), achievement (e.g., success, ambition, intelligence), power (e.g., wealth, authority, public image), or universalism (e.g., equality, wisdom, social justice) [40]. This approach to measuring individuals' values has recently been used within the IAD literature by Prior [39] to study why individuals comply with existing institutions that regulate the remediation of contaminated environments. Prior [39]…”

Farmers' perceptions and adaptation behaviours concerning land degradation: A theoretical framework and a case‐study in the Qinghai–Tibetan Plateau of China

“…China has a huge amount of contaminated land to be dealt with. The sustainable management of contaminated land, by means of restoration or conversion to safe use, has much wider societal impacts (Hou & Al‐Tabbaa, ; Prior, ). As reviewed above, the Chinese government has an ambitious plan to restore the degraded land caused by environmental pollution.…”