Empowering the Public: Information Strategies and Environment Protection

achieving effective environmental policy making and environmental protection. Its particular focus is on toxic substances and chemical hazards. It asserts that the community is a major stakeholder in respect of environmental policy, and it argues that access to information is an essential prerequisite for effective community input into environmental decision-making. More specifically, information concerning industrial waste and chemical hazards is fundamental to public accountability and for people to protect themselves and the environment from those hazards. The need for information is graphically demonstrated by major accidents at Seveso, Bhopal, and the explosion at the Coode Island chemical and storage facility in 1991. Such disasters have sensitised the community not only to the severity of the toxic hazards problem, but also to the need for access to information as a fundamental first step in addressing that problem. The threat of chemical accidents in particular, generates a need for access to risk assessment, emergency response planning, and more general information about the toxic properties of chemicals stored, used, and emitted from manufacturing installations. Of course, if adequate information is already available in the public domain, and those who have that information are willing to provide it voluntarily, then there is no problem. Unfortunately, this is usually not the case. Industry, which has access to crucial information about toxic substances and chemical hazards, has often been extremely reluctant to disclose that information voluntarily. Companies often fear that disclosure will enable some competitor to gain an unfair advantage, that some public interest group will sensationalise or otherwise exploit information provided or that the public will misunderstand its significance and overreact. In any of these cases, the company concerned stands to lose, either indirectly in terms of its reputation, or directly if the information is used to pressure it to spend on clean-up or safety measures, or as the basis for bringing a law suit against it.