Environmental Issues

E-Inclusion Recycling The Solution
E-Inclusion Recycling Community Investment Company is a Waste Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) waste collection company. They are also in charge of computer refurbishment and recycling these kinds of wastes. They were renowned because of their efficient operations in recycling these kinds of materials, which are considered very detrimental to the environment.

According to their website, they are a social enterprise that undertakes Digital and Social Inclusion Programmes, which means that they support social work by helping deprive communities in Wales. They also claim to exist with no income streams (we receive no funding for the work we do).

Because of their efficient operations, they are subject to many commendations and are actively supported by the Newport local government. Some ecologists even branded E-Inclusion as one of the manifestations of financially-dependent environmental government mechanisms that achieved success in their work, claiming that methods like those of E-Inclusion is a mark of sustainable development, and a perfect example of the unlikely fusion of business and environmental awareness.

Sustainable Development in the Ecological Approach
First, we would have to define the term sustainable development in order to make the analysis easier. Although sustainable development has many definitions from different theories, the generally accepted definition of sustainable development is a development which meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs (UN World Commission on Environment and Development, 1987). Thus, sustainable development can be considered the most logical end that a nation must achieve in order to make its people more content. According to Jonathan M. Harris in his paper Basic Principles of Sustainable Development (2000) and as well as many other theorists of sustainable development, there are three factors that must be given equal credit in order to create a truly sustainable pattern of developmentthe economic, the environmental, and the social.

First is the economic factor, which is considered the base because it is where the goods and commodities that will be managed and given to the citizens and will be used to support the government are grounded upon. Hence, an appropriate and sustainable economic system will be very elemental in realizing the said concept. Harris (2000) puts this system as something that must be able to produce goods and services on a continuing basis, to maintain manageable levels of government and external debt, and to avoid extreme imbalances which damage agricultural or industrial production.

The environmental factor, alse called the ecological factor in some circles, sets the limit for the development that the first factor wishes to tread. According to Herman Daly, a proponent of the sustainable development, natural capital (natural resources) must be conversed in order to create an inter-generational equity and thus achieve a long-lasting, if not constant and permanent development. He argued against the neoclassical economic view that natural capital, renewable or non-renewable, must not be conserved, given the condition that the depletion of a resource must invest into an artificial and renewable resource (Daly, 1994). This is exactly the logic of what Vladimir Lenin called imperialism, in which the resources of a neo colony is exploited by an imperialist because of a lack in raw materials, leading to the crippling of neo colony (Lenin, 1939). Of course, this crippling can also happen within a country if the country runs short of its natural resources and chooses not to import raw goods. Thus, the neoclassical point of view on the maximum use of natural resources is not that effective, as today even at the enormous accumulated wealth of the capitalist nations, there is still no effective and reliable substitute to the resources. Continued unregulated use of these resources may lead to an economic deadlock, which may lead to mass starvation and eventual extinction of the human race. Daly (1994) said that in order to avoid this fate, the best thing to do is to conserve the natural resources. He argued further that these natural resources are still the best resources in their own rightno artificial substitute can suffice to their lost. Thus, this ecological limit is very elemental in limiting the power of economics and achieves sustainable development.

Another view in the light of the ecological factor is regarding the connection of biodiversity and sustainable development. C.S. Holling, a renowned ecologist, gave the direct connection of the laws of biology and economy. First, he said that although neoclassical economic theory encouraged the limitless and unregulated power of economy, it still has very powerful and unalienable limits (limits set by time, space and energy will be inevitably encountered). In practice, Holling sets out that although economic will say that the economic system can sustain any number of individuals given that there must be no constraints against the system, population and consumption levels will still remain to be very important factors, as these two limits are in themselves inalienable.. However, his most important contribution would be his theory that biodiversity is the weapon of nature to prevent the extinction of species (Holling, 1994). Put simply, biodiversity (roughly, the number of species in an ecosystem) will be a buffer in case of blunders that external factors may inflict upon a species. Thus, a more diverse ecosystem will be able to handle a dilemma of similar proportions better than a less diverse one.

In practice, then, the state must take into consideration the environment in their economic policies. Thus, the adage Nature strikes back is not precisenature does its things to us but our own blunders discourages nature to help us in coping with it.

Nonetheless, Harris (2000) tells us that
Sustainability, then, is more than limits on population or restraint in consumption though these are important. It means that in our choice of goods and technologies we must be oriented to the requirements of ecosystem integrity and species diversity. It also implies that the apparent independence of economics from biophysical science is a luxury we can no longer afford.

In trying to achieve the state of sustainable development, then, economic policies will never be enough. Appropriate ecological policies will have a very important role in this action.

The next part of the paper will try to evaluate the extent that Newport City had already achieved in pursuing sustainable development and the E-Inclusion Recycling Company will have role in the said endeavour.

Is E-Inclusion  sustainable development
Having said the over-all framework of sustainable development, we now have to enter into an analysis of the E-Inclusion Recycling Community Investment Corporation.

One of the rather obvious traits that the E-inclusion possesses is their direct connection to the government. It would then be necessary to say that currently, Great Britain functions on the Keynesian political economy framework which was reaffirmed and supposedly improved by Thatcherism from 1975 to 1990. This kind of economic approach and method focuses on the goal of freer markets, in which social service and major industrial corporations will now be put into the private domain. Nonetheless, these private companies and other elements of economy such as the cash flow will still under the control of the state. This, in turn, leads to a controlled and regulated corporatism. E-Inclusion, on the other hand is a Community Invest Corporation, having a community service aspect but still works on the private-government tandem of giving social service.

It would ten be necessary to give a brief description of CICs, their management dynamics and how they operate within the economic and societal context. According to the E-Inclusion website
A Community Interest Company (CIC) is a new type of company introduced in the United Kingdom Government in 2005.

A CIC is designed for social enterprises that want to use their profits and assets for the public good. CICs are limited companies or public limited companied with all the flexibility and certainty of the company form, but with some special features to ensure they are working for the benefit of the community rather than rewarding owners and investors in the company.

Their definition seems good enough and we will even see an attempt to put positive light into the definition. However, there are grey areas that did not address either intentionally or not. First, they did not mention what are these special features which ensure that their stock holders and investors will not benefit from the company. In fact, these special features may not even do the job they the company claims it to do. The term investor itself brings in the picture that someone or something gave his financial part in order to get a benefit (hence the word invest). The company functions on the dynamics of companies, wherein stockholders exists to fund the company.

Nonetheless, one thing that E-Inclusion may be looked at the positive angle is their being backed by the state. Because the government endorses and enforces them to giver waste collection service to the citizens of Newport (in fact, the Newport website has the E-Inclusion as one of the most responsible for the current tag of Newport as the Greenest City in South Wales), they have more power and control over the WEEE waste. Hence, there will be more organized collection, disposal and recycling of these dangerous materials primarily because it is the government that spearheads the job. In contrast to an unregulated WEEE service, which will definitely be marked by fierce competition), E-Inclusions can collect the majority, if not all of the WEEE in Newport. There will be more likely no dumped wastes on the backyards due to the nature of the service. Looking at the larger scheme of things, pollution will also be more properly and efficiently monitored and controlled because of state control.

Other than this, another thing that can be gleaned in their remarkable claim (supposing it is true, of course) is their claim to put all their income into the investments so that it will augment and improve their services. Although the truthfulness of their claim is much disputed, the sense of recycling income is good in creating sustainable development. Of course, traditional business method is capital-profit-part of profit as capital- profit...and so on and so forth. This method is not different from E-Inclusions method. However, the good thing about the traditional business method is that is geared towards the achievement of profit. In E-Inclusions case, if all or majority of profit is dedicate as capital again, in the form of developing the service, then an increasing and more likely stable sustainable development will be created, especially if we include the fact that the corporation is backed by the state. Moreover, E-Inclusion is unlike other businesses which consume natural resources large-scale, and hence detrimental to the environment. E-Inclusion is definitely more of the opposite as it seeks to prevent ecological imbalance through proper collection of WEEE. This is of course not withstanding the fact that the company uses energy and other resources.

This kind of social capitalism (which has some resemblance with the current economic form of China) seeks to create income which will be used to used to advance the technology and use this technology to mitigate and act on the environmental problems. One notable example of this is the Kyoto Protocol shift in 1997 (Bohringer and Vogt, 2003) which prompted refrigerator manufacturers in the countries which signed it must shift from the use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) as coolant into safer coolants. This agreement arose from the findings that CFCs are one of the biggest contributor to the destruction of the ozone layer. However, this technology would not be readily available without the funded research regarding these things. Corporations have the capital to support them, advance the technology and thereby help in preserving the environment. In this case, we can already discount the assumption that corporatism inherently promotes the destruction of the planet.

Another thing how will we be assured that a company such as the E-Inclusion will realty uses their income to developmental projects rather than to feed their pockets This will be answered first by addressing the fact that corporations are geared towards profit. However, gaining profit is a very complicated matter as it touched upon the domains such as the image of the company, advertising and of course the service itself. By addressing environmental issues, however, the company can gain the trust of the citizens and thereby gain profit. Thus, being eco-friendly is profitable. Corporations would choose to use more eco-friendly methods. We can go further by addressing another fact that being environmentally friendly can also cut production costs primarily because the use of alternative methods rather than the mainstream (for instance, fossil fuels) will maximize profit. Of course, this too sounds rather neo-classical-ish. Nonetheless, the inclusion of the ecological factor makes this model close to the one favoured to sustainable development.

E-Inclusion, thus, can be considered a good model in advancing sustainable development in Newport. The proper management and high technological advance of the said company can be considered a very effective mechanism in making Newport achieve its current title as green city.

Critique
We have seen in the example of E-Inclusion that private entities under state-control can contribute to development of a city and at the same to the preservation of the environment. However, there are many backlogs that can be seen, especially if we include the third factor in achieving sustainable development, which is the social factor.

Firsts, although the goals and methods of E-Inclusion are heroic enough, it is inevitable to see these merely as marketing strategies. The company, as said earlier, is geared towards profit, not social servicing. Social servicing is only their venue for them to gain wealth. This logic will prove to be rather disturbing if we apply Marxist theory of wealth accumulation and the roots of inequality. It would then be logical enough to say that due to the developments and gain that E-Inclusion may have already gained, their garbage collectors may then be far richer than the urban poor of Newport.

Other than this, we can see another consequence that corporatism can actually lead into. Because companies are geared for profit, they are advancing the technologies that are related to their enterprise, not because of the goal of advancing the technology per see but to gain profit. Going further, we can conclude that the companies such as the E-Inclusion will only develop the technologies that are beneficial for them. If advancing a certain field, such as energy, may prove itself to be disadvantageous to the company, then the company will not choose to develop that field. Development and technological advance, hence, is selective in such a framework.

This is the exact logic of the poverty of the nations in many Asian countries. Because improving ways of energy will jeopardize the markets of the larger nations who profit on oil, advancement is often blocked. This technological deadlock can happen, sadly, to the nations who rely much on the private companies for their development.

Conclusion
E-Inclusion CIC has a very good framework as it pursue advance in technology of WEEE recycling and protecting the environment. However, because they are still a company who has investors, they are still geared towards profit and in this case, tendencies of technological deadlock may happen. Social inequality can also become worse, as capital and cash is increasing becoming centred in achieving wealth. Hence, E-Inclusion can become a tool for development, but this development is selective and not viable for a truly sustainable development.