Media Clipping – July 16, 2004, The Chronicle-Herald

No spin on waste-management benefits

By Ronald Colman

Ken Rozee, in his July 15 letter "Spin not needed," has some key facts wrong. Nova Scotia's new waste-management system created more than 1,000 new jobs, not 150 to 200, as he says. Also, he only lists three of the system's many benefits, and misses some of the biggest cost savers, like the energy saved by using recycled materials rather than extracting virgin materials. The correct facts and full description of benefits and costs are in the GPI Solid Waste report, which is available free at www.gpiatlantic.org.

Nevertheless, Mr. Rozee's basic argument is valid and I agree with it. It would be much better if policy-makers, the press and the public understood, appreciated and protected social and environmental values without needing to describe the benefits in dollar figures. It would be splendid if everyone recognized, as Mr. Rozee says, that "the benefits of the new program are clear and do not need to be contrived."

Sadly, however, these benefits are too often taken for granted, not fully acknowledged, ignored, and even undermined; and the "costs" of environmental stewardship and social responsibility are too often cited as reasons for inaction. In fact, many other provinces and countries are reluctant to follow Nova Scotia's lead in waste management partly because they only count the higher operating costs of recycling and composting, and fail to count the full benefits and savings.

Far from being a contrivance or "spin," as Mr. Rozee claims, full-cost accounting is actually a far more accurate and comprehensive way of assessing the full range of economic, social and environmental benefits and costs of a project than the narrow accounting mechanisms currently in use. In an era of fiscal restraint, where budgets largely determine policy, it is more important than ever to document actual savings that are invisible in the conventional accounts.

That's the reason, for example, that GPI Atlantic went beyond describing the value of voluntary work in Nova Scotia in qualitative terms, to calculate what it would cost to replace our volunteers for pay. We found that volunteers contribute the equivalent of nearly $2 billion worth of services to the Nova Scotia economy annually. Many volunteer organizations told us that the dollar figure helped highlight the extraordinary value of the services they perform, made volunteers feel more appreciated, and raised support for their work. At the same time, we should all aspire to Mr. Rozee's excellent vision of a time and a society in which social and environmental benefits will be recognized in their own right, without the need to assign monetary value to those benefits - a society in which social and environmental benefits and costs are naturally and automatically considered in every government policy decision. Until that time, however, and in order to penetrate the policy arena, we literally have no choice but to assign monetary values to social and environmental costs, benefits and savings if we want policy-makers to consider these issues properly and fully.

Mr. Rozee's argument points to the long-term vision. GPI Atlantic's full-cost accounting methods are a necessary strategy for the times. The vision and the strategy are not in conflict, and are, in fact, fully complementary.

Ronald Colman of GPI Atlantic lives in Tantallon.