The Cost Of Environmental Management At Sweetwater City, FL

The Cost of Environmental Management at Sweetwater City, FL

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Introduction

Sweetwater city is a growing city in Miami-Dade County, located in Florida. It has a population of about 13,499 people. Therefore, it needs appropriately environmental management to ensure that it becomes environmentally sustainable. According to Coglianese & Nash (2016), the cost of environmental management has been a new challenge in the field of accounting and economics. States and countries around the world require efficient to the ecological accounting system to manage to maximize the welfare of humankind and the implementation of various policies to address environmental problems. The environmental cost is applied different, and governments have used the term to implement multiple strategies to address the effect of the various activities. In Sweetwater City, Florida, there are several companies and other human activities, which impact the environment and therefore, the cost of environmental management is the total expenses, which would be spent by the state to address the environmental degradation or other environmental issues to keep the ecological clean. This pap, therefore, the cost of legal and voluntary actions, cost of going green, and cost of proposed cap and trade regulations.

Cost of Legal and Voluntary Actions

The legal and voluntary actions are specific regulations which can curb environmental degradation. The voluntary activities involved several measures taken by the government, nongovernmental organization, and business leaders within a state. In making Sweetwater City clean waste collections and disposal must be implemented appropriately. The city of Sweetwater, therefore, provides solid waste collection to the residents and the business community within the town. For efficient collection which is being practiced, Sweetwater had to enact several legal actions to anchor the process. Sweetwater City had adopted the collection and disposal act, which established a solid waste collection and disposal system applied by the city to ensure that proper disposal is practiced. The City of Sweetwater also created a committee to implement the recycling of solid materials. The committee was established in 1991, and up to date, it is still active and performing several duties to ensure that environmental issues are addressed. It has assured that there are efficient collection and recycling of solid waste materials, which has led to much reduction of the volume of the solid waste across the city.

Sweetwater city, in conjunction with Metro Dade County, has implemented solid waste disposal and recovery management plan to ensure that there is a reduction of waste in the city. The implementation policy is part of voluntary action being performed by stakeholders to safeguard the environment from degradation. Under the recovery plan, Sweetwater city and Metro Dade agreed on the proposed agreement to support each other on the management of the solid waste within the city. The city agreed to support Metro Dade County to increased its process of garbage from that 67% to 95% within ten years CITATION Kat14 \l 1033 (Southworth, 2014). The City also established a regulation to define the process of rehabilitation of the drainage system. The 2012 act includes the management of stormwater sewer system, and also to process of control of the environment to reduce the amount of pollutant, which affects the water surface. These strategies are some of the methods, which Sweetwater City has utilized within the last ten years to ensure that the environment is protected from degradation.

Cost of Going Green

Going green is an elaborate process which has been implemented by several cities. It includes a complete implementation of the eco-friendly practice. Though there is a cost involved in the process of going green, the perception of it being expensive is untrue. According to Lyon & Maxwell (2017), the most expensive cost involved in going green is the change of lifestyle, which many people have objected, and therefore, it makes the process very expensive. Going green means that the entire system has to change, and thus, in the last few years, Sweetwater has implemented several measures to shift to green. The city promotes recycling of recycling waste, use of solar panel as alternative energy to power homes across the city. These process should, therefore, be anchored and continues to promote as the best way to protect the environment from degradation. The use of fossil fuels generates a lot of gases, which pollutes the atmosphere leading to environmental degradation.

The implementation of wind, solar, and other types of green energy would be the best decision to address the problem of water and air pollution, which has been a problem in Sweetwater City. It is costly to have effective implementation of green energy because the state or the city would be required to install solar streetlights and ban the use of coal and other nonrenewable energy. But in the long term, the result of such decision will be much productive, and therefore, it would be necessary for the city to budget for efficient implementation of green energy and the usage of energy saver bulbs throughout the city. It is, therefore, essential to replace the use of fossil fuel with solar and wind power. The cost is expensive when we look at the investment nature, which is required, but such investment is likely to give a high return on investment (ROI) in the future. It is, therefore, essential to look at the cost of going green as an investment for the future.

Cost of Proposed Cap and Trade Regulations

The bottom line of the cap is to reduce the dependency on one source of energy and spread the risk in the market. It is designed to reduce the pollution of the environment. The proposed cap and trade regulations, therefore, meant to limit the usage of nonrenewable energy so that the industrial sector can adopt the utilization of green energy. It is pointed out by Metzger (2008), that the act restricts the operations of companies and therefore, effects the production and therefore, affects the profitability of companies. Though the proposed cap and regulations are expensive, it ensures that companies set amount of greenhouse gases are emitted, and consequently, it provides adequate management of environmental pollution. This helps in addressing the problem of environmental degradation. The cap and trade regulation ensures that companies do not emit gases and therefore, affect the operations of production of companies. Though it reduces the turnout in various sectors, the proposed cap and regulation by Sweetwater city is essential, and in the long run, it would improve the safety of the environment and therefore, create a better place for business. In Sweetwater City, industries are urged to adopt the green energy system and the usage of petroleum energy and other non-renewable energy is also limited to reduce the effect of the environment.

In conclusion, the cost of environmental management is generally expensive due to investment the city is expected to make to allow smooth adaptation of various regulations. There is a high cost of implementation of proposed cap and trade restrictions, loss of going green and legal and voluntary actions. For the implementation of the three strategies, Sweetwater City must put a lot of investment including infrastructure, regulations, and by-laws, and partnership to strengthen the operations of the city so that it can realize its goals. It is, therefore, important to state that the cost of environmental management is expensive, but it has a good return of investment after a while.

References

BIBLIOGRAPHY Coglianese, C., & Nash, J. (2016). Motivating Without Mandates: The Role of Voluntary Programs in Environmental Governance. Faculty Scholarship. Paper, 1647, 2-38.

Lyon, T. P., & Maxwell, J. W. (2017). “Voluntary” Approaches to Environmental Regulation: A Survey. https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/b967/4498943b1307c96de2417234eed9310f8f5f.pdf, 2-34.

Metzger, E. (2008). Bottom Line on Cap-and-Trade. https://www.wri.org/publication/bottom-line-cap-and-trade, 2-31.

Southworth, K. (2014). Corporate voluntary action: A valuable but incomplete solution to climate change and energy security challenge. Journal of policy and society, 2-35.