Decisions, Science, and Values: Crafting Regulatory Alternatives Analysis.

Emerging "prevention-based" approaches to chemical regulation seek to minimize the use of toxic chemicals by mandating or directly incentivizing the adoption of viable safer alternative chemicals or processes. California and Maine are beginning to implement such programs, requiring manufacturers of consumer products containing certain chemicals of concern to identify and evaluate potential safer alternatives. In the European Union, the REACH program imposes similar obligations on manufacturers of certain substances of very high concern. Effective prevention-based regulation requires regulatory alternatives analysis (RAA), a methodology for comparing and evaluating the regulated chemical or process and its alternatives across a range of relevant criteria. RAA has both public and private dimensions. To a significant degree, alternatives analysis is an aspect of product design; that is, the process by which private industry designs the goods it sells. Accordingly, an RAA method should reflect the attributes of well-crafted product design tools used by businesses. But RAA adds health and environmental objectives to the mix of concerns taken into account by the product designer. Moreover, as part of a prevention-based regulatory regime, it implicates important public values such as legitimacy, equity, public engagement, and accountability. Thus, an RAA should reflect both private standards and public values, and be evaluated against them. This article adopts that perspective, identifying an integrated set of design principles for RAA, and illustrating the application of those principles.

The viability of professional wet cleaning as a pollution prevention alternative to perchloroethylene dry cleaning.

The vast majority of dry cleaners worldwide use the toxic chemical perchloroethylene (PCE), which is associated with a number of adverse health and environmental impacts. Professional wet cleaning was developed as a nontoxic alternative to PCE dry cleaning but has not been widely adopted as substitute technology. In the greater Los Angeles, CA, region, a demonstration project was set up to showcase this technology and evaluate its commercial viability by converting seven cleaners from PCE dry cleaning to professional wet cleaning. The demonstration site cleaners who switched to professional wet cleaning were able to maintain their level of service and customer base while lowering operating costs. The cleaners were able to transition to professional wet cleaning without a great degree of difficulty and expressed a high level of satisfaction with professional wet cleaning. Crucial to this success was the existence of the demonstration project, which helped to develop a supporting infrastructure for professional wet cleaning that had otherwise been lacking in the garment care industry.

Advancing Alternative Analysis: Integration of Decision Science.

BACKGROUND: Decision analysis-a systematic approach to solving complex problems-offers tools and frameworks to support decision making that are increasingly being applied to environmental challenges. Alternatives analysis is a method used in regulation and product design to identify, compare, and evaluate the safety and viability of potential substitutes for hazardous chemicals. OBJECTIVES: We assessed whether decision science may assist the alternatives analysis decision maker in comparing alternatives across a range of metrics. METHODS: A workshop was convened that included representatives from government, academia, business, and civil society and included experts in toxicology, decision science, alternatives assessment, engineering, and law and policy. Participants were divided into two groups and were prompted with targeted questions. Throughout the workshop, the groups periodically came together in plenary sessions to reflect on other groups' findings. RESULTS: We concluded that the further incorporation of decision science into alternatives analysis would advance the ability of companies and regulators to select alternatives to harmful ingredients and would also advance the science of decision analysis. CONCLUSIONS: We advance four recommendations: a) engaging the systematic development and evaluation of decision approaches and tools; b) using case studies to advance the integration of decision analysis into alternatives analysis; c) supporting transdisciplinary research; and d) supporting education and outreach efforts. https://doi.org/10.1289/EHP483.

Use of multi-criteria decision analysis in regulatory alternatives analysis: a case study of lead free solder.

Regulators are implementing new programs that require manufacturers of products containing certain chemicals of concern to identify, evaluate, and adopt viable, safer alternatives. Such programs raise the difficult question for policymakers and regulated businesses of which alternatives are "viable" and "safer." To address that question, these programs use "alternatives analysis," an emerging methodology that integrates issues of human health and environmental effects with technical feasibility and economic impact. Despite the central role that alternatives analysis plays in these programs, the methodology itself is neither well-developed nor tailored to application in regulatory settings. This study uses the case of Pb-based bar solder and its non-Pb-based alternatives to examine the application of 2 multi-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) methods to alternatives analysis: multi-attribute utility analysis and outranking. The article develops and evaluates an alternatives analysis methodology and supporting decision-analysis software for use in a regulatory context, using weighting of the relevant decision criteria generated from a stakeholder elicitation process. The analysis produced complete rankings of the alternatives, including identification of the relative contribution to the ranking of each of the highest level decision criteria such as human health impacts, technical feasibility, and economic feasibility. It also examined the effect of variation in data conventions, weighting, and decision frameworks on the outcome. The results indicate that MCDA can play a critical role in emerging prevention-based regulatory programs. Multi-criteria decision analysis methods offer a means for transparent, objective, and rigorous analysis of products and processes, providing regulators and stakeholders with a common baseline understanding of the relative performance of alternatives and the trade-offs they present.

Integrating pollution prevention technology into public policy: the case of professional wet cleaning.

This paper discusses opportunities to promote pollution prevention technologies through public policy, describing the case of dry cleaning. The crisis in dry cleaning is associated with the industry's reliance on perchloroethylene (PCE), the chemical cleaning solvent used by the vast majority of cleaners. The limits to the current pollution control or end-of-pipe system of laws and regulations and the search for nontoxic alternatives are analyzed in light of the environmental and occupational hazards associated with PCE use. Criteria to evaluate those alternatives are then described, including their application to professional wet cleaning, a commercially available pollution prevention alternative to PCE. The article concludes with an evaluation of several public policy instruments that could be used to promote the diffusion of professional wet cleaning as a potential solution to this regulatory crisis. These include environmental and occupational regulations designed to reduce or eliminate risk from exposure to toxic substances as well as incentive-based programs. Both barriers and opportunities for the use of each instrument are identified. This review reveals that, while the pollution control approach to public policy has deepened the regulatory crisis in the garment care industry, policy instruments are currently available to create an effective transition toward a pollution prevention outcome.