Building an ecosystem in the fight against environmental crime
Towards optimal collaboration and information sharing
The disruptive effect of environmental crime
There are sometimes subjects for which relatively little attention is paid, while they have an enormously disruptive effect on our society. One such topic is environmental crime: violations of environmental laws and regulations. Environmental crime is usually committed with a profit motive, while the damage to the environment, public health and the economy is often considerable. It is a many-headed monster, with very diverse appearances. In the threat assessment published by the Public Prosecution Service (OM) in 2021, priority is given to nine forms of environmental crime, including manure fraud, waste crime, illegal crop protection products and (more international) wildlife crime. Environmental crime is a particularly lucrative business. In fact, according to Interpol, it is one of the most profitable forms of crime, although it is difficult to measure annual turnover. It is estimated to be between USD 90 billion and USD 240 billion.
A complex challenge
All the more reason for a firm approach. But that's not so easy, says Maarten Rijssenbeek of Deloitte. "This is primarily due to the diversity of environmental crimes, where both the harmful acts and the sectors in which they take place can be very different. Some environmental crimes have common ground with each other, others are very different from each other. As a result, the approach to environmental crime is often fragmented. Expertise in all these different areas is needed to understand exactly what is happening, how to make violations visible and how to bring a case to court. Secondly, environmental crime is not really conspicuous, unlike, for example, assault or homicide. It's so-called 'fetch crime': if you don't look for it yourself, you usually won't find it. In addition, many forms of environmental crime can often be part of legal activities in a licensed sector. It is only when a company in that sector exceeds the statutory or licensed bandwidth that it is legally criminal. This requires intensive and smart monitoring, which requires sufficient budget and capacity." And that ties in with the third reason: the lack of budget and capacity, precisely because environmental crime is not yet high enough on the political agenda. This means that the chance of being caught is low. "If enforcement is then carried out, on the basis of administrative law or criminal law, the sanctions are not very dissuasive."
Collaboration and information sharing
Then there is a fourth factor, which prompted a report that Deloitte recently prepared. It concerns the suboptimal cooperation and exchange of information within the landscape of government organisations that deal with this issue, both within administrative law and within criminal law. Maarten: "This is not due to a lack of involvement from all those organisations and people. On the contrary, they have an enormous drive to tackle environmental crime. But that's difficult in such a complex and fragmented landscape."
A matter of public interest
A great challenge for Deloitte: figuring out how to improve collaboration and information sharing. Maarten: "We want to be ready for the social developments that are coming our way and our customers. The fight against environmental crime and more broadly against global warming, against deforestation and against pollution of the oceans, is close to our hearts. We want to have a positive impact on the world around us by using our knowledge and experience for the benefit of society. Over time, for example, we have built up a great deal of expertise in the field of combating other forms of crime, such as fraud, corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing, including a number of lessons learnt. We now want to use that expertise to combat environmental crime. Because that is not only a responsibility of the public sector, but of society as a whole, from individual citizens to companies, regulators and advisors like us."
Discussions with stakeholders
What does that contribution look like in practice? Maarten's colleague Esmé Bosma explains. "We have asked various parties responsible for the supervision and enforcement of environmental crime, from the criminal and administrative chain, a number of questions about cooperation and information sharing. These include the Public Prosecution Service, the Police, the Human Environment and Transport Inspectorate, the Netherlands Food and Consumer Product Safety Authority, the Dutch Labour Inspectorate, the Environmental Services and provinces and municipalities. What bottlenecks do they experience? We have also organised workshops with stakeholders on possible bottlenecks in the legal framework and in the technical infrastructure. What ideas have they got about better cooperation and information exchange? Based on the results, we have written an advisory report with a concrete step-by-step plan towards a more effective and efficient approach to environmental crime. ”
Old and new bottlenecks
The organisations' responses showed that already known bottlenecks, such as fragmentation of the landscape, are still topical. "In terms of co-ordination and commitment at the political-administrative level, there is plenty of room for improvement. The approach to environmental crime is too non-committal. Differences in (organisational) culture and, partly as a result, a shaky trust - for example between the domain of administrative law and the domain of criminal law - were also mentioned. The same applies to the legal framework. For example, it is not always clear what information may or may not be shared. The entry into force of the GDPR has made this even more difficult and the balance between privacy and information sharing for the purpose of fighting crime is also an important social issue here. Finally, there is also the technical infrastructure that is not yet suitable for optimal data exchange."
Thematic tables
But it's not all doom and gloom. In addition to an analysis of the bottlenecks, the report also contains recommendations on how to tackle the bottlenecks. Such as a pilot with thematic tables, in which the right people sit down with each other to tackle a specific theme. The people who sit down together come from different organisations, but have in common that they are specialists or have relevant information at their disposal on that specific theme. Because these people are freed up to work together very regularly in a joint location, to share information and to co-ordinate joint interventions, a culture of mutual trust and openness is stimulated. Maarten: "At such a 'table' sit people who can look beyond the boundaries of their domain and get to know each other's wishes, possibilities and limitations. If they start working together on such a specific theme, can put all the pieces of the puzzle together and co-ordinate the intervention options, then the collaboration will become much more effective and efficient. Even without an advanced IT system, you can already bring together a lot of relevant information and jointly steer towards effective interventions, both preventive and repressive." An additional advantage: if you show how successful such an approach is on one or two sub-themes, there will be even more support for broadening that collaboration. "Incidentally, we did not come up with this approach specifically for this project, it is a proven method that fits well within the Dutch polder culture." In short, as the title of the report says: At the table!
Want to know more about this article? Please contact Maarten Rijssenbeek , Ellen Bisseling or Esmé Bosma.
Working together against environmental crime
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