Some recent virtual exchanges have encouraged me to ponder the question: "What 's the point of environmentalism?"; and I shall, hopefully with some humour, post on this subject shortly. In the meantime, I'm going to suggest that one function of environmentalism, based upon my own experience, is to help governments, commercial businesses and individuals save money. Over the nearly 30 years I have been professionally involved with planning and environmental issues, the financial stakes have often been high. As a consequence, I have directly helped save the exchequer at least £0.5 billion, and probably prevented one major corporate bankruptcy. Whilst this may be relatively small beer in an age of "Big Banking" and public sector profligacy (yes, I'm afraid it still goes on!), for most people and businesses (most being small) this is a very large sum of money.
The much greater sums of public money required for the proposed new HS2 high speed rail link are now increasingly being called in to question, with the Institute of Directors being the latest organisation to challenge the project's economic value and financial viability. However, such objections have been around since the proposal first surfaced under the previous government. That it did so without a full appraisal of possible alternative options for increasing rail capacity and improving the wider UK transport network is simply testimony to the flawed project management culture of many public institutions, in this case the Department for Transport. Again in my experience, environmental objections to major projects, or portfolios, have often served to highlight the weakness of the planning and appraisal process, which frequently overlooks a number of key issues. This has certainly happened with HS2, where those whose objections are primarily environmental have done a sterling job in highlighting other flaws associated with the proposal.
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