Compliance and enforcement in a brave new (green) world: best practices and technologies for green governance

Science and technology studies (STSs) remind us that technology is not deterministic, and that there is still agency and contingency as we embark on new and unprecedented technological possibilities. The STS scholarship also acknowledges that emerging technology does not unidirectionally shape our values and norms; rather, our understanding of governance and social organization informs the co-production of technology and what we make of nature, society, and the “real world” (Jasanoff 2012). The increasing use of digital information and communication technologies (ICTs) and artificial intelligence (AI) in environmental monitoring, regulation, and governance must be carefully considered as we try to tackle climate change, nature and biodiversity loss, pollution, and waste. This is because such technological measures may paradoxically result in increased damage through rebound effects. Adopting a co-productivist and constructive technology assessment (CTA) approach (Rip et al. 1995) to environmental governance, this paper argues that the social problems surrounding the use of these new technologies—for example, the global expansion of AI surveillance, the infringement of civil liberties, extractivism, and the commodification of nature via digitalization—must be addressed with humility and the inclusion of a large diversity of stakeholders in technological design and implementation processes (Kemp et al. 2001).

While knowledge of the intersection between advanced technology and the drivers (and impacts) of planetary threats holds tremendous promise in helping policymakers anticipate future risks to develop scenarios to test the possible effects of different policies and decisions (Foray and Grübler 1996; Jaffe et al. 2002), CTA must include sociotechnical critique in the design, development, and implementation phase so that policy informs the dynamics between emerging and advanced technologies and governance structures (Jaffe et al. 2003). Relying on Canadian examples of green governance, we examine the social and political shaping of a range of technologies and take into account the coproduction of these technologies and its effects on society.

The distribution of new technologies in society is uneven at best: it is often beyond the reach of nonexperts and pertinent rights-holders in many jurisdictions, including compliance and enforcement bodies. This is especially so with regard to the transfer and adaptation of environmentally sound technologies (ESTs). As the 1992 Rio Declaration reminds us, nation-states should cooperate “… by enhancing the development, adaptation, diffusion, and transfer of technologies, including new and innovative technologies” (Rio Declaration on Environment and Development 1992: 366). International and transnational CTA is needed to strengthen various environmental governance efforts. While this is desirable, it may also be implausible, forcing sectors to seek alternative forms of regulation and governance, which, in turn, raises ethical considerations. How do we ensure environmentally sound governance of advanced technologies (what we conceptualize as “green governance” of new and emerging tech), so that we may achieve the 2030 Sustainable Development Goals? Such analysis is, in turn, the topic of this perspective article as we draw upon examples of the Canadian technology–environmental policy nexus.

As AI, soil, water, and air sensors, satellites, and drones equipped with sensors and cameras (Kloppenburg et al. 2022) support green governance and help achieve sustainability goals, it is important to find ways of proactively limiting or eliminating the detrimental social impacts associated with these advanced technologies that occur through algorithmic bias, misunderstanding, unaccountability and, of course, the expansion of surveillance and infringement of civil liberties. It is quite clear that the global governance of climate change will involve the use of advanced technologies as a way of mitigating the consequences of the planetary crisis unfolding before us. However, at the present time, countries are in no way united about the best path forward. During the negotiations leading up to the 2015 Paris Agreement, disagreement between industrialized and developing countries over policy direction and options occurred, raising purposeful questions about the power imbalances in the EST trades, as well as problems surrounding their privatization.

It is our contention that the absence of a genuinely global or transnational CTA framework for green governance will inhibit the efficient adaptation of ESTs and hinder the prospect of bringing forth sociotechnological changes that could help us effectively respond to biodiversity loss, climate change, pollution, ecosystem health, and resource depletion. While we recognize that ESTs are in themselves not a panacea for all of the world’s environmental problems, we believe that ESTs, when developed, designed, and used appropriately, can do some good. Advanced technologies are contradictory: they can harm, help, and hinder and advance the pursuit and achievement of environmental sustainability. If not for the historical development and diffusion of techno-social systems powered by energy sources whose use drove up carbon emissions, we would not have the Anthropocene. However, at the present time, advanced technologies through a CTA lens can support green governance measures to identify and assess the Anthropocentric consequences, and help us imagine new practices for adapting to or mitigating these impacts.

If used well, advanced technologies for green governance can improve public safety by safeguarding resources, aiding in the gathering and analysis of evidence about those responsible for environmental harm, and enhancing enforcement and management strategies. However, environmental law enforcement agencies may be slow to adopt and implement said technologies, as they lack guidance via appropriate policy responses. Like many public entities, they grapple with a wide range of political prerogatives, fiscal constraints, and institutional inertia when determining which technologies may be most appropriate and cost-effective for their compliance and enforcement practices (Nakashima 2014). Technology is additional to existing systems and can replace the current system (often with conflict), and can be added into the current works, which can result in less effective solutions. Law enforcement with regard to the efficient and effective adoption and use of new technologies is by no means a new issue (Timberg 2014). Near the close of the 20th century, concerns were raised that the diffusion of new internet and ICTs would hamper law enforcement’s ability to investigate crime (Swire and Ahmad 2011). This ignited the “going dark” debate, which entailed questions about law enforcement’s ability to intercept and monitor real-time online communications and was concerned with how officers could operate within electronic surveillance laws and conduct court-mandated surveillance of digital communications (Finklea 2015). How might such questions be addressed in the global green governance context, where law enforcement struggles to define and adapt best practices for investigating the proliferation of cyber poaching or using drones to facilitate the illegal wildlife trade?

The Faculty of Social Science and Humanities and the Digital Life Institute's Sustainability, Equity, and Digital Culture research cluster (both at Ontario Tech University) hosted a Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council-funded symposium to explore such questions. Entitled Tech With a Green Governance Conscience: Exploring the Technology–Environmental Policy Nexus, the symposium addressed broad issues such as emerging technologies and the illegal and legal wildlife trade, invasive species, climate change, smart cities, smart homes, tech-inspired economic expansion, and Indigenous environmental knowledge. Attendees spanned diverse disciplines, sectors, and countries, bringing unique and intersectional perspectives to the technology–environmental policy nexus. The first day focused on the role of technologies in global environmental governance through wildlife forensics; web scrapers and the governance of online illicit markets in endangered species; technoscience, biosecurity, and biological conservation; and even the role of the metaverse in the fight against climate change. On the second day, various themes of the tech–society–ecology interface were explored: the authoritarian intensification of digitalized environmental governance, “technocracy”, and the ethical implications of sacrificing democratic legitimacy in the face of imminent environmental destruction—to name a few. All participants (i.e., co-authors) provided additional input on a preliminary framework, which led to this perspective article. In what follows, we comment on the politics surrounding green governance in the 21st century. This is followed by an exploration of constructive technology assessments of advanced technologies and environmental governance. We then turn our attention to data privacy and sovereignty, and also the role of humility in citizen/community science, as a way of achieving a balance with traditional forms of governance. Finally, we provide some concluding thoughts on governance frameworks as we enter a brave new (green) world.

There has always been a persistent and troubling gap between the inherent value of new and emerging technology and the ability to put it to work effectively. Key challenges that organizations face include legitimate resistance to change or even the choice (and manner) of implementation of new technology (Leonard-Barton and Kraus 1985). The literature in innovation studies, science and technology studies, political science, the sociology of infrastructure, history of technology, and governance also reveals that political contestation also contributes to high barriers to behavior change when societies switch from older familiar systems to newer, potentially more effective ones (Geels et al. 2017). As such, emerging technology is truly a Janus-faced creature (Jones 2012) insofar as it can support strategic cross-sector environmental enforcement efforts and also open doors for potential exploitation by a range of malicious actors. While the diffusion of emerging technologies offers opportunities and challenges, so does its security (Finklea 2015). Cutting-edge technologies that exist but cannot be employed or deployed (for various reasons ranging from uneven diffusion and access, to legal, policy, and regulatory regimes, to ethical concerns to high cost) is where the friction with green governance will be significant. Remote sensors could be set up in industrial facilities to report directly on emissions to regulatory authorities, provided that regulations are amended to allow remote monitoring (Macauley and Brennan 1998). Imagery from satellites or remotely operated platforms could be used to survey distant habitats in almost real time—if it were affordable (Manfreda et al. 2018; Shirk et al. 2022). Wildlife can be tracked with electronic tags feeding data back to wildlife managers to be able to make near real-time management decisions for the benefit of wildlife populations and people—if data integration and management systems could be refined (Cooke et al. 2022). However, caution must be exercised because such innovations do not always lead to equitable outcomes for Indigenous and global Southern communities; for example, concerns about electronic tagging and habitat surveillance via digitalisation and the commodification of nature lead to new forms of what Upchurch (2020) refers to as “extractive capitalism”—that is, a new dimension of colonial extractivism under the ideology of neoliberalism. Clearly, the practical application of technologies to environmental governance is fraught with problems, some of which limit collaboration and increase inequity and unaccountability while maintaining the status quo.

Jasanoff (2007) echoes this point by arguing that in the case of climate change, science cannot tell us how to allocate technological resources between prevention and mitigation, or whom to hold responsible for protecting those most vulnerable to the effects of rising temperatures. In fact, she advocates for technologies of humility—in other words, recognizing the limits of scientific knowledge and about when to stop turning to technology to solve problems. Technologies of humility encourage us to reframe environmental problems so that their ethical dimensions are brought to the forefront, directing us to address people’s vulnerability to emerging technology and their risks and benefits (Jasanoff 2007). A reflexive approach to technological policy-making and practice, technologies of humility are contrasted against the traditional technologies of hubris that view technology as a tool for controlling nature and the world with greater certainty. A potent example of this lack of humility comes in the form of the Jevons Paradox. Succinctly put, technological advances that allow resources to be used more efficiently do not tend to conserve those resources in the long run. Jevon first noted this in the late 19th century regarding coal-saving technologies and the paradox has repeated itself with things like energy-saving appliances and efficient automobiles (Alcott 2005). More efficient and lower cost LED light bulbs have now created a situation where light pollution is emergent with significant deleterious impacts (Pawson and Bader 2014). Recently, green technologies in the cruise ship industry have similarly corresponded with increased, instead of decreased, adverse environmental impacts as they have increased efficiencies, reducing per passenger costs and prices, and therefore increasing the overall demand for cruises, ratcheting up CO₂ emissions (MacNeill 2023). We can consider Tesla’s innovation in the electric vehicle (EV) space as another example. Although EVs have a lower cradle-to-grave environmental impact than internal combustion (ICE) vehicles, they remain too expensive compared with others to effectively replace ICE vehicles in mass markets. Tesla’s solution is to find efficiencies in production as they redesign auto manufacturing around EVs. Specifically, the innovation of the gigapress in EV manufacturing will introduce a new economic mode that exhibits high fixed, but low variable costs, creating long-term price drops in auto production. This, if the Jevons paradox continues to hold, will result in increased production and consumption of cars—EV or otherwise—possibly erasing and surpassing any per unit environmental gains via the saturation of global markets with more cheap cars (and more lithium mines). A similar perverse effect might be seen when monitoring technologies, designed to reduce environmental harm by detecting illegal wildlife trade activities, are used by illegal hunters to more efficiently find and trap endangered animals, thereby increasing environmental harms.

The challenge of achieving such humility in environmental governance is rooted in entrenched governmental structures and unresponsive politics, and the presence of multinational companies intentionally developing new technologies to defeat compliance monitoring technologies, or assuming they are too powerful to be compelled to comply with global, regional, and national emissions standards when utilizing their technologies to bypass regulations (i.e., Volkswagen’s egregious role in “Emissionsgate”). Companies also look to reduce the data quality by claiming that aggregated data in the form of high-level harmonized system codes on shipment declarations are necessary to enable the speed of trade, while this aggregation of data impinges upon understanding the full biodiversity of the wildlife trade (Tlusty et al. 2023). Simply put, in the future, how do we keep firms and other actors from using computers to erode planetary data accuracy and abet environmental crime?

Geo-engineering is another new technology laws on the books did not anticipate, and still do not. In 2012, a First Nations salmon restoration group in Haida Gwaii garnered worldwide attention after dumping more than 100 metric tonnes of iron into the Pacific Ocean in a process known as ocean fertilization. This act of geo-engineering was supposed to create a phytoplankton bloom that would spur salmon returns and capture carbon for profit (Omand 2016). It was reported and authorities investigated the case but in the end, no one was prosecuted. It was too complex and there were too many layers of potential jurisdiction—international, federal, and Indigenous. Yet geo-engineering to counter climate change potentially has a bright future, given the lack of serious progress in implementing global green agreements across economies.

Transboundary resources such as air, water, and all types of migratory species are nonstationarity (Wolkovich et al. 2014). After all, the Anthropocene is planetary, and though its consequences cross borders, humans and governments still try to govern transboundary resources through the construction of bordered spaces (whether national, subnational, or protected zone regulations), resulting in continual negotiation, contestation, and compromise (Miller et al. 2022). Nevertheless, there are many avenues of convergence between environmental governance and high-tech applications to monitor air pollution, fisheries, forestry, and other burning issues. Are we misplaced in focusing our resources and hopes in the development and adaptation of new technologies as key to environmental law compliance and enforcement? What of the human dimension—agency, creativity, and resilience? After all, regulation and enforcement are de minimis rules that represent the final safety net of a long process designed to ensure people respect the environment. What about culture and peer pressure, education, awareness, and compliance promotion directed at users that aim to encourage behavioral change at the individual and collective levels of modern society? The activities to ensure seafood are produced more sustainably rely on programs that encourage innovation that troubles business-as-usual scenarios and status quo national rule making (Tlusty 2012). Only when operation above the de minimis level fails does enforcement and the justice system step in. Kloppenburg et al. (2022) suggest that the convergence of technologies and environmental governance draws upon three pillars of seeing and knowing, participation and engagement, and interventions and actions. Again, we must be wary of this convergence, as it often treats technology naively as objective and separate, rather than a co-productive system-actor, leveraged for vested interests. However, the aforementioned pillars reconfigure what we see and know, which, in turn, informs levels of participation and engagement. There is little consideration of humility in such reconfigurations and as Jasanoff (2007, p. 2) states, “policy-makers need to focus on when it is best to look beyond science for ethical solutions. And science advisers need to admit that other sorts of analyses must also inform political decisions”.

We all are told that we can think globally and act locally. However, can we act globally as well? How could we use our technologies to achieve such a feat? For example, illegal deforestation is responsible for between 12% and 20% of global greenhouse gas emissions, depending on the source, in addition to reducing biodiversity and chopping down carbon storage sinks (Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment 2023). This is clearly a global issue with local consequences. What can Canadian scientists and policymakers do to help address this global issue that impacts us? It is not just in our long-term biological survival interest to look at this, it is also in our short-term, selfish economic interest as well. It is estimated that 10%–12% of wood products imported into Canada, mainly furniture and paper, come from timber at high risk of having been illegally harvested or transported (Ramage et al. 2017). This is worth some CA$1.5 billion or, as a government economist estimated, impacts 13 000 direct and indirect Canadian jobs in our regulated forestry sector. And it goes both ways. For example, Canadian logging companies have also been implicated in sending “biofuel” wood pellets abroad in violation of strict green energy rules. Canada has come a long way in the last 50 years with respect to environmental governance, but it still has a very long way to go to improve its sustainability track record, especially as provincial governments sometimes seek to weaken and remove environmental protections. What green governance lessons remain to be learned, considering the presence of multisectoral, multiscalar, and cross-border approaches to constructive technology assessments and polycentric governance (Heikkila et al. 2018)?

In a related vein, satellites can track fishing vessels, sometimes even when their automatic identification system beacons are turned off. These vessels are a haven for illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing, but also for modern slavery and exploitation. Right now, nongovernmental organizations are identifying and tracking these vessels—on the high seas and on the edges of national exclusive economic zones, where governments cannot or will not intervene—but all they have the power to do is track. Still, the costs are high and their ability to influence recalcitrant states and companies to submit to compliance controls is limited. Assuming that we all depend on healthy oceans for our survival, are there ways Canada can—from a policy perspective—put pressure on this industry through the management of emerging technologies across borders, scales, and sectors? Can the government use new technologies to ensure the legal and sustainable sourcing of imported fish, like the European Union is doing? From an enforcement perspective, Canadian authorities can only act in Canada and on laws that exist. However, if laws are being broken elsewhere while the impacts are felt here, how do we react? We contend that the solution here lies in this notion of humility, cross-border participation, and collaboration in constructive technology assessments. Undoubtedly, Canada has the technologies and the means to be more proactive in environmental governance outside of its borders on issues that impact the country, such as illegal emissions, forestry, and fisheries, both through active surveillance and enforcement in international spaces, as well as through other mechanisms such as targeted foreign aid and security spending and capacity building on the issue, but that is a policy choice, and one that current governments may not be keen to make.

Many thanks to the wonderful staff at Ontario Tech University—namely, Kim Mitchell, Karyn Douglas, and Kirstie Ayotte. We would also like to thank the other attendees for their active participation and engagement during the symposium. Your presence and active involvement contributed to the collaborative spirit of the event. Finally, we would like to acknowledge the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council (SSHRC) for a Connections Grant (P.I.s Stoett and Omrow) for this symposium.