Cuadernos de investigación UNED (Sep 2014)
Debilidades y oportunidades de los Programas de Gestión Ambiental Institucional en el sector público de Costa Rica: la perspectiva de los funcionarios
Abstract
Environmental management in the Costa Rican public sector: weaknesses and opportunities for Institutional Environmental Management Programs: officials perspective. Costa Rican public institutions are required to implement Institutional Environmental Management Programs (IEMP) to mitigate negative environmental impacts from their work. Each institution must formalize an IEMP Committee. I identified IEMP implementation weaknesses and opportunities, from the perception of the people in charge of this work. The survey included: a) an assessment of environmental management at the institution; (b) feasibility of the implementation; (c) constraints and solutions; and e) training needs. The survey was applied to 190 officials in 95 institutions; 38.3% of respondents believed that the work in their institution was good, with differences appearing among institution categories (Kruskal Wallis, H=16.6, p=0.0001); the decentralized public institutional sector was perceived more favorably in this regard. Respondents pointed out that the most easily implemented actions were those that involved changes of attitude and lower budgetary investment. The main constraints were: a) institutional officials see environmental issues as secondary (or without importance); (b) the coordination of the IEMP tasks are assigned to people who do not have time to do it; c) insufficient budgetary allocation. The need for work on training and awareness raising of officials was identified, along with the allocation of more economic resources, greater support from institutional authorities and the strengthening of the institutional Committee on the IEMP (both in terms of availability of effective labor time, as well as having specialists in environmental management that guide the actions of the committee). On issues of training, the highest level of interest was found in the following: sustainable public procurement, development of energy diagnostics, and integral waste management.
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