Transforming the Global Plastics Economy: The Role of Economic Policies in the Global Governance of Plastic Pollution

International policy discussions on plastic pollution are entering a new phase, with more than 100 governments calling for the launch of negotiations for a new global plastics agreement in 2022. This article aims to contribute to efforts to identify effective international policy levers to address plastic pollution. It takes stock of the evolution of views and perceptions on this complex and multi-faceted topic—from concerns about marine pollution and waste management towards new strategic directions that involve the entire plastics life-cycle and include climate and health impacts associated with the proliferation of plastics. It also traces the progressive development of responses—from voluntary approaches invovling multiple stakeholders to national and international approaches focused on regulation. The paper is informed by desk research, a literature review and participation by the authors in informal and formal global governance processes on plastic pollution, the environment and development in the United Nations and World Trade Organization between 2019 and 2021. It also draws on empirical findings from a novel and original database on the life-cycle of plastic trade created by the authors. The paper argues that the important focus on downstream dimensions of plastic pollution—and strategies to address them—needs to be complemented by a broad life-cycle and “upstream” perspective that addresses plastic pollution at its source. It highlights the political economy tensions and inconsistencies at hand, observing that while some countries are taking concerted efforts to reduce pollution (including through bans on certain kinds of plastic and plastic products); to promote more circular plastic economies; and to reduce the carbon footprint of plastics (as part of a wider effort to decarbonize their economies), trade and investment in the plastic industry continues to rise. The paper argues that to reduce plastic pollution, emerging global governance efforts must integrate international environmental law and cooperation with a complementary and enabling global framework that addresses the economic, financial, industrial and trade policies needed to drive the necessary transformation of the plastics sector.

Using Adaptive Capacity to Shift Absorptive Capacity: A Framework of Water Reallocation in Highly Modified Rivers

Damming and water regulation creates highly modified rivers with limited ecosystem integrity and resilience. This, coupled with an ongoing global biodiversity crisis, makes river restoration a priority, which requires water reallocation. Coupled human–natural systems research provides a suitable lens for integrated systems’ analysis but offers limited insight into the governance processes of water reallocation. Therefore, we propose an analytical framework, which combines insight from social–hydrological resilience and water reallocation research, and identifies the adaptive capacity in highly modified rivers as the capacity for water reallocation. We test the framework by conducting an analysis of Sweden, pre- and post-2019, a critical juncture in the governance of the country’s hydropower producing rivers. We identify a relative increase in adaptive capacity post- 2019 since water reallocation is set to occur in smaller rivers and tributaries, while leaving large-scaled rivers to enjoy limited water reallocation, or even increased allocation to hydropower. We contend that the proposed framework is broad enough to be of general interest, yet sufficiently specific to contribute to the construction of middle-range theories, which could further our understanding of why and how governance processes function, change, and lead to outcomes in terms of modified natural resource management and resilience shifts.

Corporate Governance Efficiency

Since the time of the first corporations, shareholders have expected boards to manage corporate governance processes in the best way. At the same time, the era of digital technology can significantly increase the effectiveness of corporate governance procedures through automation of corporate governance procedures as business processes. The board of directors and the corporate secretary can rely on performance indicators and manage the effectiveness of corporate governance processes. This chapter discusses opportunities for improving the business processes, including automation and analytics. The author considers approaches to project management of corporate governance procedures automation and its limitations.

Bringing ethics into governance: the case of the UK COVID-19 contact tracing app

PurposeIn April 2020, it was announced that NHSX, a unit of the UK National Health Service (NHS) responsible for digital innovation, was developing a contact tracing app that would offer a digital solution to managing the COVID-19 pandemic. Despite the urgency with which the app was developed, a clear commitment was made to designing the technology in a way that enshrined key ethical principles, and an ethics advisory board (EAB) was established to provide timely advice, guidance and recommendations on associated ethical issues. Alongside this, there were extensive criticisms of how NHSX adhered to ethical principles in the handling of the app development-criticisms that require empirical exploration. This paper explores how ethics was incorporated into decision-making during governance processes associated with the development of app.Design/methodology/approachInterviews were conducted with those involved in the app's development/governance, those with a consulting role associated with the app, or those who sat on the EAB.FindingsThe EAB fulfilled an important role by introducing ethical considerations to app developers. Though at times, it was difficult to accommodate key ethics principles into governance processes, which sometimes suffered from little accountability.Originality/valueWhile several articles have provided overviews of ethical issues, or explored public perceptions towards contact tracing apps, to the best the authors, knowledge this is the first empirical piece analysing ethics governance issues via stakeholder interviews.

Transition to a Sustainable Circular Plastics Economy in The Netherlands: Discourse and Policy Analysis

The circular economy (CE) has become a key sustainability discourse in the last decade. The Netherlands seeks to become fully circular by 2050 and the EU has set ambitious circularity targets in its CE Action Plan of 2015. The plastics sector, in particular, has gained a lot of attention as it is a priority area of both the EU and Dutch CE policies. However, there has been little research on the different and often contested discourses, governance processes and policy mechanisms guiding the transition to a circular economy and society. This paper aims to fill these gaps by asking what circular discourses and policies are being promoted in the Netherlands and what sustainability implications and recommendations can be drawn from it. It does so through a mix of media analysis, policy analysis, semi-structured interviews, and surveys using Q-methodology. Results indicate a dominance of technocentric imaginaries, and a general lack of discussion on holistic, and transformative visions, which integrate the full social, political, and ecological implication of a circular future. To address those challenges, this research brings key policy insights and recommendations which can help both academics and practitioners better understand and implement the transition towards a sustainable circular plastics economy.

Evaluation of an Automated Dispensing Cabinet in Paediatric Intensive Care – Focus on Controlled Medications

Evidence is limited of automated dispensing cabinets (ADCs) impact on effectiveness and efficiency of controlled drugs’ (CDs) governance processes. We carried out a mixed-methods study of an ADC in an intensive care unit. We found ADC improved effectiveness and efficiency of governance of CDs through secure storage, alerts and automated recording of transactions. Limitations were associated with ADC design and ‘fit’ between ADC and some types of CDs.

Participants’ Perspectives Regarding the Role of University Governance in Promoting Climate Change and Sustainability Interventions at University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania

Higher education offers several opportunities for faculty, administrative staff, and students to contribute to climate change mitigation and adaptation as well as promote sustainability within the areas where such institutions are located. Through training, research, and community engagement functions, higher education institutions can ably contribute to sustainability and climate change response. This paper presents part of the findings from a larger study conducted at University of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania. The researcher adopted a socio-constructivist perspective to explore the perspectives and views of lecturers, administrators, and students on climate change related programmes regarding the role that university governance and management can play in promoting climate change and sustainability interventions at their university. Data was generated using semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus group discussions (FGDs) from 33 participants. Data was analysed using thematic analysis based on Braun & Clarke (2006). Findings revealed several roles that their university’s governance has and continues to play in promoting climate change and sustainability interventions including integrating these aspects in the university strategy, adding climate change and sustainability to the university research agenda, and promoting sustainability practices in the management and governance processes and systems. The findings may be handy in supporting other universities to promote these aspects right from the governance levels.

Process expertise in policy advice: Designing collaboration in collaboration

Complex societal and environmental challenges motivate scholars to assume new roles that transcend the boundaries of traditional academic expertise. The present article focuses on the specialised knowledge, skills, and practices mobilised in the context of science–policy interfaces by researchers who advise policymakers on collaborative governance processes intended to address these pressing issues. By working on the backstage of collaborative arrangements, researchers support policymakers in the co-design of tailor-made strategies for involving groups of institutional and non-institutional actors in collaboration on a specific issue. The present article examines the expertise underpinning this practice, which we term process expertise. While already quite widely practiced, process expertise has not yet been comprehensively theorised. The study employs a self-reflective case narrative to illuminate its constitutive elements and investigates the advisory work of the authors’ research team, called “Co-Creation and Contemporary Policy Advice”, located at the intersection of science, policymaking, and civil society. The findings show that process expertise, when exercised by researchers and supported by an assemblage of enabling conditions inherent to the research context, goes beyond the possession of a set of skills at the individual level. Instead, process expertise in the context of science–policy interfaces unfolds in interaction with other types of knowledge and fulfils its task by generating a weakly institutionalised “in-between space”, in which researchers and policymakers interact to find more inclusive ways of tackling complex challenges. In this realm, relational work contributes to establishing a collaborative modus operandi at the very outset of the advisory process, while working at the processual level supports knowledge co-production among multiple actors. The article argues that it is the ongoing work of process experts at the intersection of relational and processual levels that helps maintain momentum in these collaborative partnerships. By formulating and discussing five constitutive elements of process expertise, this paper untangles the complex work that is required in collaborative research settings and gives a language to the invisible work performed by researchers who offer policymakers—and other invited actors—advice on the process of designing collaboration in collaboration.

Corporations, Health, and Global Politics

Since the mid-20 century, corporations have gained increasing political and economic power to shape the living conditions, lifestyles, governance processes, and environmental exposures that determine global patterns of health and disease. Globalization, the growth of the financial sector, deregulation, and increasing corporate control of science and technology have provided corporations with new power to influence the mechanisms that determine human and planetary health. A growing body of public health and social science scholarship analyzes how corporate use of this economic and political power has become a fundamental determinant of the most serious health crises facing the world. In response, governments, civil society groups and social movements have developed new strategies to challenge corporate power to shape global health governance, protect public health, and reduce health inequities.

Power Dynamics and Corporate Power in Governance Processes: Evidence From U.S. Environmental Governance Systems

Prior research has documented involvement of government and civil society actors in governance processes, but has largely neglected a key player: corporate business interests. Combining insights from social-ecological systems, organizational systems theory, theories of governance and power, interest group rule-making participation, and non-state alternative environmental governance, we examine corporate involvement and power in environmental governance systems. Drawing on a sample of Twitter messages about fuel economy standards, posted between 2012 and 2020, we offer a sector-level discourse analysis of corporate power and its interaction with the sociopolitical environment. The results suggest that business interests are gaining increasing power in the participation arena of U.S. fuel economy governance processes. The results likewise indicate corporations’ response to a changing political landscape in the U.S. Taken together, our analysis advances current scholarship on power dynamics in governance processes and on empirical assessment of power, offering implications for governance system design and implementation.