Setting environmental standards : twenty-first report / Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution.

  • Great Britain. Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution
Date:
1998
Catalogue details

Licence: Open Government Licence

Credit: Setting environmental standards : twenty-first report / Royal Commission on Environmental Pollution. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    SCIENTIFIC UNDERSTANDING Scientific understanding is, and must remain, the essential basis for environmental standards. Procedures have been developed for assessing the effects of substances on human health and the natural environment, and a wide range of data is used. The data that would be most relevant, however, are often lacking, and the available data are often subject to much uncertainty. In seeking to base decisions about environmental issues on scientific evidence, there needs to be awareness of the nature of such uncertainties, and their implications. 2.1 We have emphasised the need for rigorous and dispassionate investigation of any presumed environmental hazard. Our consideration of such investigations starts with the scientific evidence because, except where there is already a good scientific understanding of a hazard, the first stage must normally be a scientific assessment. 2.2 When we began this study of environmental standards we indicated our intention to focus on different types of scientific evidence and the ways in which these are utilised. The conflicting interpretations of such evidence sometimes advanced by different experts and the refutation in other cases of explanations originally advanced by governments or regulators have shown how important scientific uncertainties can be. We wished to find out how endemic such difficulties are, and whether there is substance in the doubts that have been expressed about the objectivity and adequacy of the scientific basis for environmental regulation. 2.3 The focus in this report is mainly on standards related to pollution. To illuminate the general issues involved, we take as an example of the scientific investigations made in setting standards, assessments of new and existing chemical substances under European Community (EC) legislation (appendix C, C.69-C.70). These seek to answer three basic questions (the emphasis given to each question may vary in individual cases, and in other assessment procedures): how intrinsically hazardous is the substance in question in terms of effects on human beings? how intrinsically hazardous is the substance in terms of effects on the natural environment? how does the substance move through the environment, and what levels of exposure to it are likely to occur? 2.4 The EC procedure for assessing new and existing chemical substances is first described (2.5—2.13). We then look in turn at the sources from which evidence is obtained so that this and other forms of scientific assessment can seek to answer the three questions above. After identifying certain basic features of assessing the toxicity of substances (2.14—2.22), we look at the assessment of human health effects (2.23—2.37) and effects on the natural environment (2.38—2.50). In both contexts we discuss how dose-effect relationships are determined. We review briefly understanding of environmental pathways and exposures (2.51—2.56) and consider whether, and to what extent, the environment should be considered to have a capacity to assimilate pollution (2.57—2.64). This chapter concludes by considering how scientific evidence can contribute most usefully to decisions on environmental policies (2.65—2.74), how the conclusions of scientific assessments should be presented (2.75—2.82) and the need to extend scientific understanding through research (2.83—2.87). 1]
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