4 ESTRUCTURAS Y FORJADOS DE HORMIGÓN.

The post-war years in the UK saw a continued move towards greater intensity of production, in both the sense of land conversion for urban-industrial use and in greater production from the food industry, but also increased public awareness of ‘nature’, as a result of school curricula and television (Clapp, 1994). The SS Torey Canyon oil spill in 1967 was a high profile ecological disaster considered to be a key influencer of the environmental movement in the UK (Worthington, 2013). The disaster left an international legal and environmental legacy that lasted decades and was influential in stirring environmental awareness in the UK around this time (Barkham, 2010). A sign of the growing concern for environmental matters in the UK was the increasing amount of space dedicated to environmental

issues in the media in the 1960s and 1970s. A new journal, The Ecologist, published Blueprint for

Survival in 1972, proposed a check to economic growth and new technology, and (somewhat

inconsistently) a lessening of the powers of the state. Despite its weaknesses, Blueprint for Survival, like

the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth, attracted a lot of attention (Clapp, 1994). The document further

raised the profile of environmental issues and established the new environmentalism as a force to be reckoned with amongst policymakers (Wilson, 2008).

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The growing environmental concern in Britain was met with a muted reaction compared to NZ and the USA. While in the other countries, this concern led to new environmental regulations, greater active political participation and numerous new politically active environmental pressure groups, the British government made only minor changes to the established practices. Traditionally, environmental groups (and other movement groups) were infrequently consulted by government departments in the 1970s, and the departments were generally unreceptive to environmental arguments and remained

development-oriented (Dryzek et al., 2003). The Department of the Environment, established in 1970,

opened a new institutional channel for the environmental movement; by merging the environmental, local government and housing portfolios, it provided environmental groups with some access to central

government (Dryzek et al., 2003). Access to government was provided by custom in the UK, while in

the US it was required by regulation or legislation. Environmental issues in the UK became downgraded and depoliticized, and outside mainstream national politics for nearly two decades – environmental representatives did not become recognized as lawful participants in environmental policy making until

the early 1990s (Dryzek et al., 2003).

Government move away from regulation

The British government moved away from regulation by undermining regulatory agencies through budget cuts and dismantling advisory bodies such as the Clean Air Council. Cabinet papers leaked in Thatcher’s first year in government (1979) revealed plans to ‘reduce over-sensitivity to environmental considerations’. Thatcher met with environmental non-governmental organizations and environmental agency representatives only once before 1988. Development approval processes were seen as unnecessary and were stripped out of regulation to avoid traditional arrangements of environmental consultation (Dryzek et al., 2003). According to Simmons (2001), since the 1980s, central government increasingly left land use decisions in private hands, with less collective say. Thatcher was contemptuous of the environmental movement; she considered environmental issues ‘humdrum’ compared to fighting the Falklands War (Robinson, 1992; Dryzek et al., 2003).

3.2.1 Increasing inclusion of environmental considerations in government policy in the UK

The Single European Act (SEA) (1986) established the capacity of the EU to preserve, protect and improve the quality of the environment and ensure prudent and rational use of natural resources, and so allowed for further consideration of the environment in business (Coordinating European Council,

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1987). Despite a long history of formulating and implementing environmental policies, environmental protection was not an explicit goal of the European Union (EU) until the SEA (Wilkinson, 1990); Britain signed in 1987.

In 1988, Thatcher acknowledged for the first time that it was necessary to act on global pollution and said Britain should have a lead role in the global response. Thatcher claimed her interest in environmental issues came from a political level – environmental concerns were being used to ‘attack capitalism, growth and industry’, and she wanted to reclaim environmental issues for the Conservatives (Smith, 2000). Thatcher’s newfound interest put environmental issues in the political mainstream, strengthened the environmental debate in Britain and raised the status of the environment portfolio (Dryzek et al., 2003). Thatcher played an important part in helping to set up the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). She had a significant influence in putting environmental issues on the agenda by adding her political gravitas to the environmental debate; she later switched to become a climate change skeptic, who viewed the IPCC as alarmist (Vidal, 2013).

Environmental representatives in the UK became recognized as lawful participants in environmental policy making for the first time in the early 1990s. Environmental groups’ senior members were now

involved in government meetings on environmental issues (Dryzek et. al., 2004) and environmental

aspects were integrated into a range of policy areas. ‘Green ministers’ were established within all government departments, and all departments were required to assign a chapter of their annual report to environmental issues. This was a massive development in bringing environmental issues into business considerations, even though these “green plans” were not regulated by law, making them more likely to stand and fall with the particular government in office (Janicke and Jorgens, 2000).