Lobbying Case Study: Case Of Waste Management Organizations Essay

Introduction:

Waste management has become a huge concern of multiple organizations and countries because of the environmental concerns. Waste industry has a significant impact on diverse social groups. For this reason, governments are taking steps for waste reduction and prevention. Waste management is a broad area that covers several sectors like manufacturing, construction, food sector and so on so forth. For this reason, analyzing the role of stakeholders is not an easy task. It has been encountered that in previous business arena lobbying was not so complex as in the current age. The reason is that due to globalization numbers of firm has increased and so as waste. So, for the management of waste lawmakers and policy makers take initiative that make a significant impact on individual firms both public and private. For this reason, unlike prior ages in the current arena more and more sectors are involved in lobbying process. Today, for policy makers and law firms it is essential that interest be clear.
The aim of this paper is to encounter the stakeholders that are involved in waste management lobbying and how they lobby the policies, and their motives have been discussed. In addition, the changing nature of lobbying has been discussed.

Stakeholders and their motives

Huge numbers of organizations have an interest in waste management. Even multiple organizations show concerns before the formation of waste. For instance, citizens, packaging industry, manufacturing industry, delivery of goods all come under the domain of waste formation, and all have concerns with waste minimization so all these are stakeholders. However, stakeholders also exist at the end of the procedure where waste represents the economic value of material and energy. Public institutions play a significant role in waste minimization and environmental control practices. However, different stakeholders have diverse interests. For this reason, conflicts exist among the interest of stakeholders. These conflicts would include

Environmental interest versus industrial interest

Employment and environmental sustainability,
Local policy versus national policy,
Energy production and
waste minimization.
Because of such conflicts in interest controversies occur in the choices of waste management. Stakeholders are considered that all people, organizations and groups who have an interest in waste management or have a stake comes under the wider range of stakeholders. Stakeholders would include media, NGOs, lobby groups, policy makers, institutions for public health and environmental control. Other staekholders would be researchers, associations of citizens, waste management industry and companies, consumers, and local institutions. Authorities such as trade unions, hospitals, tourism associations, schools and government departments and, recycling industries, politicians, and lobbyists would also be part of stakeholders (Sulphey, and Safeer, 286; Ancona, 554).
Different stakeholders have different motives that result in conflicting interests. For example, some organizations may want to do lobbying for waste management because they wanted to reduce their costs, some may want to restrict their competitors, and some may have genuine concerns of minimizing waste. Different stakeholders have different positions in affecting public policies such as an increase in community concerns regarding the environment have lead public organizations and policy makers towards the promotion of legislation that encourage waste reduction and protect environmental practices. This legislation has significant positive implications for social and economic level, and the process of approval involves different stakeholders and institutions.
Waste management is a vast area, for this reason, in the process of decision-making, throughout several sectors do lobby. Citizens believed that European Union as a policy maker does not follow efficient process, and their legislation process are complex this untrustworthiness result in increasing concerns of European Union governance. If the case of electronic products waste is considered then stakeholders that play a major role in lobbying include reusing and recycling organizations, European citizen, electrical industry, retailers, and environmental groups. In Europe, lobbies that are working and representing manufacturers and national trade associations include CECED, EICTA, ORGALIME, EEB and RREUSE. Except these companies, some big electronic manufacturers do lobby by themselves such as Electrolux (Miquel). Government agencies have the motive to save electricity and the environment from the emission, and to protect natural resources, for example, minerals, water and timer (EPA).
Waste management has taken serious turn because of increased manufacturing that result in increased landfill. Companies’ motive behind waste management is to lower the cost and improve the credibility; for this reason they try to take initiative that can result in waste minimization. When it has been realized that waste can be utilized as raw material and in such way through the recycling of waste not only landfill can be reduced. However, through the saving of electricity in the manufacturing process and reduction in packaging expenses – the cost of the product can be decreased. In addition, this will serve companies with a competitive advantage by allowing them to sell products at lower cost as compared to international competitors.
Companies started making lobbies that can present their views to the government accurately and then these lobbies through different activities influence policies that result in the formulation of waste management regulations. Governments and lawmakers motive is to enhance the economic growth; policy makers and government in the whole process has a position of lobbyists. For example, In Europe, waste management experts and lawmakers had taken initiatives to encourage waste management through encouraging the quality of recycling material, but in 2013, a proposal that was presented turned into controversial proposal. This controversial proposal was presented for the purpose of changing the definition of waste but that initiative was going to damage the recycling sector of the paper industry. At this point, CEPI (Confederation of European Paper Industries) took a position of lobbyist and lobbied the authorities against the proposal. The reason is in the proposal, strict conditions were applied to the recycling process and asked to enhance the paper quality. This was not possible for the Confederation of European Paper Industries to meet those conditions. In addition, the process mentioned in the proposal to transfer “end of waste” point to the paper mill from its current location even at the earlier stage of collection. This change would result in the impossible to reuse the paper through recycling. Confederation of European Paper Industries declared the proposal at the end of recycling in Europe. They protested the proposal and lobbied the environment committee and parliamentarian to rethink on proposal. They succeeded in this motive because parliament and environment committee with the consultation of industry, joint research center and NGOs they decided to rework. They all publish the criteria as they were before the proposal (Confederation of European Paper Industries).

Changing the nature of lobbying:

There are several issues that resulted in changing the nature of lobbying and enhanced the transparency. With the increasing interest in waste management, it has been realized that issues of public and private sectors and their interest are equally important in lobbying activities. Enhanced globalization brought the mass of manufacturing and other industries at single place that created immense issues. This resulted in an increased number of lobbyists and officials; currently, public policy process of Europe include 15000 parliamentary official and commissions. They have to face about twenty thousand lobbyists on a daily basis (Greenwood, 78).
With the time and increased issues, the code of conduct of European lobbying has been improved and formalized. It has been made sure that during the information exchange information quality is not damaged, and the credibility of the process of policy is maintained. With the enhanced globalization, several groups took place that have concern with public policy. So, with increase members and resources interest groups of European Union has become able to influence on the overall process of policy making from rectification and initiation to the formulation and final interpretation of policy (Coen, 1-16). Now European interest groups have become a crucial source of information and legitimacy for the policy makers. In addition, in Brussels numbers of lobbyist are increasing that have taken important position and have become the concern to the European institutions same as interest groups.
In such a competitive environment of lobbying, the interest of private and public organizations has changed into new strategies of lobbying, complex political alliances, and actions arrangements. Interests of organizations have become matured, and they have additional information now lawmakers and policymakers with more information have ideas of differences, and they can find out the reasons behind the groups who lobby. With the multitude of voices, policy makers have understanding of the multi-level lobby, and governance structure and such understanding brought the transparency in policy making process. Now, for the policy makers the interest representation has become essential due to the institutional and multilevel lobbying.
In prior arena, it has been encountered that how interest groups influenced the Europe policy process, now the direct action of individuals make a significant impact on traditional forums of actions. In prior ages, lobbying was practiced by NGOs and trade associations but in the current arena, explosion of lobbying is mostly encountered by individuals such as law firms and companies.
Now unlike prior era lobbied organizations are open to lobbyists because policy makers think that they do not have enough resources for the expansion of laws regarding. For this reason, they require the participation of experts who can be lobbyists as well. With the growing numbers of business high political sophistication’s degree has been encountered, and it has been examined that successful lobbyists are that organization that have established and maintain their goodwill.

Conclusion:

It has been realized that enhanced globalization resulted in increased numbers of lobbyist and complex nature of lobbying. In poor ages NGOs and trade associations were used to lobbying policy makers, but in the current arena individual firms can make a significant impact on public policies. With increased information lobbied, organizations have a clear idea that why lobbying has been done. As the transparency has been increased, and it has been identified that law firm and companies are more constant in lobbying practices as compared to groups.

Works Cited

Ancona, Carla. Defining the stakeholders: an example from waste. IEHIAS, 2010. 23. Jan. 2015. http://www.integrated-assessment.eu/guidebook/defining_stakeholders_example_waste
Coen, David. Lobbying in the European Union. European Parliament. Nov. 2007. 23. Jan. 2015. http://www.eurosfaire.prd.fr/7pc/doc/1211469722_lobbying_eu.pdf
Confederation of European Paper Industries. End-of-Waste = end of recycling? Commission proposes end of recycling. Sep. 2013. 23. Jan. 2015. http://www.cepi.org/node/16449
EPA. Region 4: Resource Conservation Challenge. Dec. 2012. 23. Jan. 2015. http://epa.gov/region4/recycle/faqs.htm
Greenwood, Justin. Interest representation in the European Union. Palgrave Macmillan, 2011.
Mique, Ortega-Cerdà. Case study: European Governance and Waste of Electrical and Electronic management. 2003. 23. Jan. 2015. www.fundacioent.cat/images/stories/ENT/pdf/articles/WEEE.pdf
Sulphey, MM, and MM Safeer. Introduction To Environment Management, Edition 3. PHI Learning Pvt. Ltd., 2014.