But the other beauty of sustainability is that there is no place for misinformation, dishonesty, dogma, or prejudice. One must come to the table with an open mind, an honest demeanor, an interest in facts, and a willingness to try to understand diverse points of view. One-sided attitudes about people and politics don’t fit with the effort to balance all points of view. People who come with hidden agendas and insincere motives are soon discovered, as the round table process is rigorous and thorough. This is why “politicos” don’t like the process. They have an ideological approach to the world and they already know who is right and who is wrong. They aren’t there to learn from other perspectives but only to push their own narrow agendas. In the end they are boring.
The intellectual stimulation of the round table proved infectious. Nearly all of us were excited by the exchanges and the conversations and the debates. Almost miraculously, within six months, members with disparate interests bonded: we came to like people with whom we had intense philosophical and political differences. We realized political differences were partly about social separation and the context of our daily lives. When we were forced to sit opposite one another and experience one another’s points of view first hand, we developed an empathy that hadn’t existed before. Heaven help us, we “understood” one another better.
It wasn’t as if there weren’t irreconcilable differences among some of our members. But at least we could separate the person from the problem and begin to focus on interests rather than positions. Just learning to speak to the “other side” in a civil manner made all the difference in the world.
The main result of our deliberations was a series of documents on various aspects of sustainability and the consensus process. We covered sustainable transportation, urban design, energy, education for sustainability, and wrote our own version of how to get to yes. The latter involved a series of case histories of previous successful resolutions to difficult conflicts in B.C. and other regions of Canada.
We published a guide explaining how local round tables could be set up and operated. I chaired this committee. As a result I developed a keen interest in the role of the facilitator in round table procedure. A facilitator takes the place of the traditional chairperson, playing a very different role with a different set of skills.
Here is an excerpt from an essay I wrote some years later titled “From Confrontation to Consensus”
Consensus process is not a rigid, rules-based, system such as Robert’s Rules that govern directors meetings and the like. But it is not a free-for-all either. The dialogue must be structured in such a way as to achieve an understanding of each other’s points of view among all the participants. This can only be achieved if certain principles and methods are adopted and adhered to.
First and foremost, it is important that a professional facilitator, who understands the nature of consensus and has had experience with it, is retained to help guide the process. The facilitator is not “in charge” like a chairperson but rather provides a service function, helping to steer the group towards mutual understanding.
Second, and just as foremost, consensus process does not mean unanimous agreement about everything. While it may be nice to think about an ideal or theoretical definition of consensus meaning perfect harmony, in practical terms this is never possible. The practical definition of consensus must recognize there will always be differences of opinion and therefore differences in the position taken by various participants in the Round Table process. This is where the talent of the professional facilitator is needed.
The job of the facilitator, in the final analysis, is to help the Round Table produce a consensus document, which expresses the areas of unanimous agreement among the participants, and where there is not unanimous agreement, an expression of the disagreement in words unanimously agreed to by all the participants.
The above definition of consensus can usually be achieved, providing the facilitator is capable and the participants are genuine in their desire to reach agreement.
Round Tables are not a substitute for government. They don’t make policy like the Fijian elders; they provide policy advice to democratically elected bodies, whether these are national, state/provincial, or local. For this reason it is not usually appropriate for Round Tables to be ad hoc (self-constituted) in nature. It is usually best if Round Tables are appointed by, and answerable to, a democratically elected body that is in a position to make decisions based on the Round Table’s advice.
There are many variations on this theme. For example, if a private company wants to foster the creation of a Round Table to consider an industrial proposal, it can do so by working with the appropriate level of government. If an environmental group wants to employ the Round Table process to focus attention on a development it believes is harming the environment, it can also do so by working with the appropriate elected body.
It is nearly always desirable that the appropriate elected body be responsible for determining or approving the terms of reference, appointing the members, and appointing the facilitator for the Round Table. Then the Round Table is consultative to, and answerable to, the democratic system. Private sector proponents can fund local Round Tables, providing they do not control the membership or direction of the process. This creates a situation where the credibility of the process is in the hands of elected government. If the government body loses confidence in the process, it can be disbanded.
The membership of a Round Table has an initial meeting with the appointed facilitator in order to review the terms of reference and to provide any feedback to the conveners of the process, such as the elected government that appointed it. At this stage the members must be satisfied all legitimate interests have been included in the make-up of the Round Table. If they think additional members are required they must indicate this. Also, the members must be satisfied with the terms of reference; that they are not too limited in scope but also not too open-ended. All members must agree at the outset that no interest group is missing and the terms of reference are correct. A good facilitator can usually help the group reach consensus on these two points. If new members need to be appointed it is up to the facilitator to go to the authority and convince them to do so. The principle is that the Round Table must be inclusive, excluding no legitimate or even possibly legitimate interest. Beginning with these basic issues, if all members of the Round Table agree to the membership and terms of reference they have already reached consensus on important points. The process has begun!
Once the Round Table is comfortable with its membership and mandate, it can move on to the next stage, the identification of issues and concerns. Issues are real points of substance that most members agree are important to the dispute or task at hand. Concerns are like worries, not always accepted by a majority of the members, but they must be given consideration even if only one member has the concern.
The process of identifying issues and concerns begins to allow the members to stop stating their positions, and to identify the reasons why they hold those positions. Instead of saying, “I am against the uranium mine”, they are asked to say why, such as “uranium mining may cause water pollution”. The process of identifying issues and concerns should be an exhaustive one; no stone should be left unturned. Even after all issues and concerns have been identified, this agenda item should be left open throughout the process, for additions if necessary. As a general rule in consensus process, the agenda should always be open to make it clear nothing has been cut off from discussion.
The issues and concerns should then be listed in some logical or methodical way. Sometimes a group of issues will come under a single general heading. The identification of issues and concerns will usually require two or three full meetings.
Then begins the process of working through the issues one at a time. For each issue, a process for information gathering is determined. Documents, maps, and experts are identified. All members of the Round Table should be able to put any information before the group and should be
able to suggest experts who might shed light on the issue. This often requires a budget for bringing people to the table. In addition, it is often beneficial to go on field trips to see the location(s) involved in the dispute or discussion. For each issue or concern, all members should be satisfied the information-gathering phase has been sufficiently exhaustive and all relevant information is now before them.
The next stage involves the facilitator’s attempt to help find common ground on as many issues and concerns as possible. It is quite usual for the Round Table to reach unanimous agreement around many issues. In the case of a uranium mine, for example, it is likely the statement “Occupational exposure to radiation must be strictly monitored and controlled” would be unanimously adopted. But other statements, such as “Uranium mining should be banned in this country”, will likely not find unanimous support.
At this point the facilitator’s most important task is at hand. The facilitator must draft a document, outlining the nature of agreement or disagreement for each issue and concern, finding wording that is accepted unanimously by the Round Table members. This means producing a document expressing clearly where there is unanimous agreement, and where there is disagreement, a description of the nature of the disagreement(s) in words unanimously accepted by the members.
Thus, a consensus document can be produced even though there is disagreement on some points. The great benefit of this process is it provides the actual policy-makers, government, with a very clear expression of public opinion. Compared to the war of headlines in the media that often characterizes land use and other resource issues, the Round Table approach brings clarity and coherence to the forefront of the debate.
The Consensus Document should then be distributed widely in the community, and formally presented, in person, to the level(s) of government involved in decision-making. Then it is up to the political process to make decisions that bring public policy more in line with the round table’s advice. It is a very powerful tool because it is difficult for governments to ignore a clearly stated set of recommendations where everyone has agreed with the language.[2]
We would find out later this is one of the reasons governments don’t always like round tables, sometimes they cast too much light on the subject.
Global Warming: The Early Years
In the autumn of 1989, the B.C. government published a paper reporting on the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted from various industries and sectors in the province. This was early on in the province’s discussion of climate change and this was an important inventory as it provided a baseline for consideration of policies that might reduce greenhouse gas emissions. The report indicated that the forest industry was the largest emitter of carbon dioxide, followed by the transportation sector, heavy industry, and commercial and residential buildings. I studied the report and soon realized the forest industry was being unfairly used as a whipping boy. It had become a kind of national sport to attack the evil tree killers at every opportunity and here was another example of how they were messing up the environment.
Upon careful reading it became clear that most of the carbon dioxide emitted by the forest industry was from burning waste wood, bark, and biomass in sawmill and pulp mill operations. In other words, the industry was using renewable energy rather than fossil fuel. This prompted me to do two things. First I wrote an essay titled “Are All Carbon Atoms Created Equal?” in which I made the case that carbon dioxide from renewable fuels (biomass) should be treated differently from carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels, even though they are chemically identical.[3] This is because biomass fuels are part of a cycle of carbon dioxide first absorbed by plants, in this case trees, then released by combustion, and then absorbed again by new growing trees. There is no cycle with fossil fuel combustion. Fossil fuels are a one-way trip taking carbon that was stored in the ground for millions of years and releasing it into the atmosphere as carbon dioxide. This concept of distinguishing between CO2 from renewable fuels versus nonrenewable fuels has since been accepted by the international community of climate scientists and has been incorporated into the Kyoto Climate Change Treaty and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change policy.
Second, I paid a visit to Ray Smith, a friend of my dad’s and the president of MacMillan Bloedel, which was then B.C.’s largest forest company. I explained to Ray how the greenhouse gas inventory unfairly targeted the forest sector as the worst culprit. I also explained that the defense coming from spokespeople for the forest industry was just as misleading and off the mark. It had become standard practice among foresters to claim it was good to cut the old forest down and plant new trees because young trees were growing and absorbing more carbon dioxide than old trees that had stopped growing. While this is true, it is only half the story because when you cut trees down much of their stored carbon gets released in the form of carbon dioxide. In balance, forestry is close to neutral, but it can be a net carbon dioxide emitter (source) and it can be a net carbon dioxide absorber (sink). No matter what, forestry is far more in balance than fossil fuel combustion. But the industry wasn’t doing itself any favors by painting a rosier picture than it deserved. Ray took all this in and agreed it would be useful to create an initiative aimed at getting a better understanding of the carbon cycle, especially as it applied to the forest industry. He introduced me to his vice-president for research, Dr. Otto Forgacs. We got along famously.
Otto and I developed a plan and applied to the British Columbia Science Council for funding for research and meetings. We succeeded in bringing together, into regular round table meetings, all the significant emitters and regulators of greenhouse gases in the province as well as the hydroelectric utility and a representative from Greenpeace. We called our group the BC Carbon Project. Its aim was to develop a common understanding among all parties of the role each played and could play in greenhouse gas emissions reductions. We commissioned an independent review of the relationship between forest management and greenhouse gas emissions, which was eventually tabled with the provincial government and all other interest groups. We established clearly that biomass energy was in a different category from fossil fuels and that it was transportation, moving people and goods, which accounted for the highest carbon emissions.
War in the Woods
About six months after I was appointed to the B.C. Round Table on the Environment and the Economy, I received another phone call, this time an unsolicited one. It was Jack Munro, president of the forest worker’s union, and he had an invitation for me. At the time it seemed harmless enough. He wanted me to join a new citizens’ group, the Forest Alliance of B.C., which was being formed by the major forest industry companies in British Columbia to help them with their environmental issues, which included public concerns about clearcutting and old-growth forests. This was an initiative of the CEOs and they had asked Jack, a career labor union leader, to chair the citizens’ group. Jack had a reputation for being a tough negotiator, but he was also the kind of union guy who would share a meal with the bosses. Over time he had proven to be pragmatic rather than just “hard left” as were many of his contemporaries and rivals in the union movement.
Jack explained that forest companies were concerned about the negative publicity they were receiving from environmental groups in B.C. Collectively polls showed that only 34 percent of the province’s public believed companies were doing a good job of protecting the environment. That was quite a condemnation in a province that was responsible for half of Canada’s forestry production, which amounted to about US$12 billion per year. And there was a growing threat from large export markets, Germany and the U.K., in particular, that they would boycott B.C. forest products. North American environmental groups such as Greenpeace, the Sierra Club, and the Rainforest Action Network were fueling this campaign.
Ninety-five percent of the commercial forestland in B.C. is Crown land, meaning land that is publicly owned and therefore controlled by the provincial government. Unlike in the U.S., where most public land is
federally owned, in Canada public land is nearly all provincially owned. The forest companies operate under various forms of license, giving them the right to cut timber in approved areas in return for paying a royalty, called “stumpage,” to the government. This worked fine until there were accusations of bad forestry practices. The companies quickly pointed out that the government had approved all the forestry plans so that was where responsibility rested. The government became very good at deflecting attention to the companies: after all they were the ones cutting the trees. Government promised to crack down on offenders and the environmental groups were happy to attack the companies in the name of corporate greed and environmental destruction. The War in the Woods was to define environmental politics and, to a large measure, politics in general, during the 1990s in B.C.
The industry initially reacted like a deer caught in the headlights. Its leaders could not understand why none of the existing mechanisms, such as its own communications and public relations departments, the industry associations, or even the government, could get a handle on deteriorating public perception. A group of industry CEOs began to meet informally to discuss their growing dilemma. They hired the Canadian office of one of the world’s largest public relations companies, New York–based Burson-Marsteller, to advise them on strategy. Its advice was to create a citizen’s advisory board, modeled after the chemical industry’s Responsible Care program, which had helped that sector with its environmental issues. So Jack Munro and the CEOs began to draft prominent citizens from all walks of life across the province. The only interests they didn’t invite were the activists who were campaigning to boycott the industry. In that sense the Forest Alliance was not a true round table; not all interests were to be included. Yet it was a kind of hybrid in that most of the members were non-forestry industry people and the group was to operate independently of the companies and to provide them with recommendations.
Confessions of a Greenpeace Dropout: The Making of a Sensible Environmentalist Page 23