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BRIEFING

W Y ECOLOGICALPOLICYMUST INCLUDEHUMAN AND ANIMAL WELFARE

David Whee le rGeneral Manager Environment Health and Safety Th e Body Shop International

INTRODUCTION

There has been considerable recent debate aboutecolabelling and eco-auditing in the context of EuropeanCommunity policy making. Both raise issues of philosophicaland ethical importance. Both are covered by voluntaryregulations of the EC which many wou ld have preferred tosee mandatory.

The question remains, will either contribute significantlyto improved ecological performance i n European industry?Or w il l they simply provide frameworks for yet more greenclaims by vested commercial interests?

WHAT S ECOLOGICAL?

The environmental, human and animal welfare movementshave a number of features in common. They campaign forconservation - whether of environments, natural resources orspecies. They are committed to more caring values in societyand the alleviation of stress and suffering. They reject

over-consumption and the exploitation of living beings orthe environment. However, by tradition, areas covered byadvocacy groups have often been divorced, each groupseeking to establish the importance of their own issue s).Indigenous peoples, refugees, the homeless, whales,elephants, laboratory animals, the atmosphere, land, water- all have their protectors and defenders.

But in recent years a more holistic agenda has emerged;an agenda which embraces the mul tipl icity of caring valuesexpressed in the single issue campaigns but which placesthem within their broader socio-economic and politicalframework. This agenda i s sometimes called ecologicaland sometimes green.

In practical terms ordinary people draw no distinctionswhatsoever between the terms environmental, green orecological. This i s one of the reasons why many believe thatthe days of single-issue campaigning are numbered. Itfollows therefore that any policy initiative which seeks toseparate environmental impacts from their broader social,economic and moral implications risks non-credibility andmay even fail complete ly.

This proposition has already been well established in thecontext of Environmental impact Assessment. The planningauthorities and the general public would be rightlyunimpressed by an impact statement whi ch excludedsocio-economic factors, human health, impacts on flora andfauna or issues of publi c perception and acceptability. There

i s more to the environmental impact of a new powergeneration plant than the weight of concrete and steel

required for construction and the subsequent emissions fromthe plant. And yet this is precisely the type of minimalistanalysis proposed by some industrialists for environmentallife cycle assessments of products.2

It is worthwhile noting in the context of consumerproducts, that the Green Consumer Guide3 s subtitled highstreet shopping for a better environment emphasis added).In the introduction to the Guide, the authors list seven Keyissues for the Green Consumer. These include protection ofthreatened species and environments, protection of humanhealth, avoidance of animal cruelty and avoidance ofimpacts on Third World countries. There i s no betterdemonstration of the overlap of environmental, human andanimal rightdwelfare within a green or ecological agendafor industry and consumers alike. Interestingly, the bookdevotes the entire section on cosmetics and toiletries 6pages) to a comparison o f manufacturers stances on animaltesting and cruelty free product formulations.

As for eco-auditing, this i s necessarily a comprehensiveprocess4. The EC Eco-management and audit regulation

provides a useful framework for addressing relevantenvironmental effects for individual manufacturing sites andrelating these to external factors such as legislative,regulatory and other policy initiatives. The regulation wouldbenefit from a more explic it statement of the holistic agenda,but at least it is not artificially restricted to a narrow range ofissues.

The Body Shop International has now produced twoenvironmental statements in line wi th the Eco-managementand audit regulation.The Company thus has no difficulty inendorsing .the regulation and encouraging the industrialsector to adopt it as a major contribution to effectiveenvironmental stewardship. Indeed The Body Shop hascampaigned publicly for mandatory application of the

regulation at the earliest opportunity.6

THE ECOLOGICAL VIEWOHUMAN AND ANIMAL RIGHTS

Human and animal rights and welfare) have long featuredwithin the ecological world view.Three broad positions canbe discerned in the green perspective of human and animalrights. The first and most pragmatic viewpoint i s thatecological ethics should embrace all sentient beings. Thushumans, whales, elephants and laboratory animals clearlyare part of the moral community. In contrast, Anophelesmosquitoes, nematode worms, and the AIDS virus are not.

The second, more fundamental position asserts that all lifehas intrinsic value including presumably, mosquitoes etc).

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The third, very deep green position would assert the rightsof all natural systems eg streams, the land and theatmosphere.

We need not explore these positions in greater detail. I t

i s simply enough to note that the pragmatic viewp oint is theone which is advanced most strongly by the principaladvocates of h igher ecological standards for industry.

On ecolabelling, international companies like The BodyShop and Ecover, and a large range of European NGOs areinsisting that issues li ke animal welfare and social impacts indeveloping countries are taken into account in standardsetting. In adopting this stance those organisations are nottaking a fundamentalist position; they are being practical.Theirs i s a rational approach which i s consistent withpolitical and social reality and the views of their customersand/or memberships. A variety of public opinion polls andother sources of information may be cited in support of theirview.

As far as European regulations are concerned, theinclusion of human and animal rightdwelfare in ecologicalpolicy i s legitimised by the inclusion of a field of impact inthe ecolabelling regulation which refers to effects onecosystems in the matrix of potential life cycle impacts. Thisi s equivalent to the effects on specific parts of theenvironment and ecosystems criterion in theEco-management and aud it regulation. It would be a strangeecosystem indeed which excluded humans and animals. Andwhether these beings liv e in houses, homelands, reserves orcages they certainly have ecosystemic links.

THE SCIENCE O LIFE CYCLE ASSESSMENT

An issue of special relevance to bo th eco-labels andeco-audits is the question of product stewardship. Lookingat the impacts of product design from cradle to grave i snow a feature of environmental best practice in a widevariety of organisations. The main vehicle for this activity i smost usua lly described as produ ct l ife cycle assessmentLCA). It has also been described as ecobalancing.

Life cycle assessment i s the subject of considerabledisagreement between those embrac ing social and ecologicalvalues in a holistic world view versus those who remainstuck in a more technocentric m in d- ~e t. ~ owever, the useof the term eco should drive LCA firmly in the direction ofholism, certainly as far as eco-labels and eco-audits are

concerned.Thus, it has been argued by a number of groups that

ecolabels whic h ignore -the wider issues of human andanimal welfare, endangered species, biodiversity, theprecautionary principle etc will be incomplete and flawed.They may be labels, but they w il l certainly not be ecolabels.That i s why comprehensive life cycle assessment procedurestake into account a wide range of social, economic andenvironmental impacts. Anythin g less cannot be consideredecological.

This point seems to be gaining momentum in academiccircles. A recent text book on Environmental Assessment ofProducts lists a range of environmental impacts andwelfare effects which should be considered. These include:violation of human rights, health effects, working conditions,

gender issues, consumer information, income distribution,regionalisation effects, social security and violation ofanimal and/or nature rights eg by limiting the behaviouralperformance of laboratory and domestic) animals. Welfare

impacts also feature as an integral part of LCA inforthcoming publications from the US EnvironmentalProtection Agency.

As far as life cycle inventories are concerned, theconventional environmental fields used to list impactsshould not be interpreted simplistically. The EC ecolabellingscheme refers to a number of fields of impact: wasterelevance, natural resource consumption, energyconsumption, po llution of air, land and water, noise and (asnoted above) effects on ecosystems. But i t has been notedthat these fields are i n themselves affected by societal valuesand thus should have three dimensions: nature, society andeconomy.

CONCLUSION

This paper has sought to place ecological policy-making inits proper philosophical and social context. It is submittedthat the holistic and interdependent viewpoint advancedhere is consistent wit h pu blic opin ion and thus with effectivepublic policy. This perspective i s not confined to greenactivists or deep green philosophers. It has, for example,been advanced by the Vice President of the United StatesI2and it is at the core of many international agreements,including the UN Convention on Biolog ical Diversity. The5th Environmental Action Programme of the EuropeanCommunity also takes a relatively holistic approach. For

example, one of the targets of the Programme i s a 50%reduction in animal testing by the year 2 0 0 0

In the context of ecological policies for industry, it wouldbe more than unfortunate if the technocentrism of the tradeassociations and certain commenta tors was to be allowed tocut across the be liefs and desires of ordinary people. And i twould be absurd to exclude human and animalrightslwelfare issues from ecological po licy instruments suchas ecolabelling and eco-auditing. It is after all, for ordinarypeople, their well being and their planet that public policyi s devised.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

An earlier version of this paper was originally presented tothe Club de Bruxelles Conference on Eco-auditing andEco-labelling in Europe at the Palais de Congres, Brussels onNovember 4/5 1993. The author wishes to thank SallyPower of The Body Shop International Environment, Healthand Safety Department for the preparation of thismanuscript.

REFERENCES

1. Porritt, I. (1984) Seeing Green, Oxford: Basil Blackwell.2. Wheeler, O., 1993) The future for product life cycie assessment,

Integrated Environmental Managemenr, No.20 pp. 15-1 9.3

Elkington, 1. and Hailes, J., 1988) The Green Consumer Guide,London: Victor Collancz.

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Callenbach, E. Capra, F. and Marburg, S (1991) The ElmwoodGuide 0 Ecc-Auditing an d Ecologically Conscious Manage ment,Global File, Report No.5, Berkeley, CA: The Elmw ood Institute.Wheeler, D., (1993) wo years of environmental reporting at TheBody Shop, Integrated Environmen tal Man agem ent October

Wheeler, D., (1992) Memorandum by The Body ShopInternational, In: Com mu nity Eceaudit Scheme, 12th Rep ort ofthe Select Committee on the European Communities, House ofLords Paper 42, HMSO, London.Button, I. (1988) Dictionary of Green Ideas, London: VictorCollancz.Dobson, A., ( 1990) Green Political Thought, London: HarperCollins.Wheeler, D., 1 993) Ecolabels or ecoalibis? , Chemistry an dlndustry No.7, p.260.

( 1993), pp. 13-16.

. .10. Pederson, B., (ed.) (1 993) Enviro nme ntal Assessment of Products,

Helsinki: UETP-EEE.11. Baumgartner, T. and Rubik F. (1993) Evaluating techniques for

ecpb alanc es and life cyc le assessment, European Environment,Vo1.3, Part.3, pp. 18-22.

12. Gore, A,, (1992) Earth in the Balance, Ecology and the Hu ma nSpirit, Ne w York: Plume.

13. Johnson, S.P., (19 93) The E arth Sum mit, L ondo n: Gra ham andTrotman.

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