INECE Documentary Film: An Interview with Barbara Young The Prague Statement: Improving Competitiveness Through Good Environmental Regulation Broadband Version The Prague Statement: Improving Competitiveness Through Good Environmental Regulation Dial-up Version The high quality movies require Quicktime 7 (a free media player) and Flash. Clips will open in a new window. The Contribution of Good Environmental Regulation to Competitiveness Full text of the Prague Statement Competitiveness & Compliance: The Porter Hypothesis Chapter Intro from Making Law Work Environment Agency of England & Wales Business & Industry Resources

The report, referred to as the Prague Statement, reviews the evidence on the links between environmental regulation and competitiveness. Barbara Young, as chair of the Network of European EPA's Interest Group on Better Regulation, was instrumental in driving this work forward.

It finds that a modern approach to regulation can:

• reduce costs for industry and business;
• create markets for environmental goods and services;
• drive innovation;
• reduce business risk and increase the confidence of the investment markets and insurers;
• assist competitive advantage and create competitive markets;
• create and sustain jobs;
• improve the health of the workforce and the wider public;and
• protect the natural resources on which business and we all depend.

The Statement concludes that there is now significant evidence from international research that good environmental management and regulation does not impede overall competitiveness and economic development. On the contrary, it can be beneficial by creating pressure that drives innovation and alerts business about resource inefficiencies and new opportunities.

Please find an excerpt of the discussion between Durwood Zaelke and Barbara Young below.

Barbara Young: The Prague Statement is a publication by all of the environmental protection agencies across the Europe Union, explaining and demonstrating the evidence for the case that says that good environmental regulation and achieving high environmental standards is not a dead weight on business and the economy, but is a real opportunity for both businesses and national economies in driving innovation and reducing risk in anticipating new technologies, in opening up markets, and in reducing costs.

So the thesis really is to achieve high environmental standards, embrace environmental regulation, with an enthusiasm providing it’s good, modern, risk-based regulation, because it’s good for your business.

Zaelke: In your opinion, what has been the public response to the move towards raising environmental standards for business?

Young: I think that if you talk through the principles of the Prague Statement with the man on the street, they would recognize it with no problem at all. The man on the street knows about this stuff. The blockage at the moment is industry groups, government and those businesses who’ve not really had the opportunity to think it through. And it’s these groups that we’ve got to convince that there is a real case here and that environmental regulation is a good thing for them. The public are pretty pleased about the idea that environmental regulation is there to protect them, and don’t believe that this is a dead weight on business.