Environmental innovation
Terry A’Hearn is the new Chief Executive of the Northern Ireland Environment Agency. He talks to Owen McQuade about his first impressions of Northern Ireland and compares environmental regulation here with his native Australia.
Asked for his initial impressions of Northern Ireland, Terry A’Hearn firstly mentions its people. “It has lots of talented people both within NIEA and in other organisations. The people are incredibly friendly and welcoming, which is a tremendous strength of Northern Ireland,” he comments.
He comes to the post after 17 years of experience with the Environmental Protection Agency in the Australian state of Victoria. A’Hearn is also “obviously struck” by the economic differences between the province and the other places where he has worked i.e. a “much higher public sector component” and a very large number of smaller businesses.
“When I regulated in Australia, we had huge programmes for SMEs through the relevant chambers of commerce but most of the companies we regulated were major subsidiaries of multi-nationals such as Toyota and Dow Chemical,” he reflects. “There are several of these large companies here but Northern Ireland is basically an SME economy.”
Moving on to environmental protection, A’Hearn says that the big issues are the same the world over: “In the twentieth century, the environment and economy clashed in most people’s minds, whereas in the twenty-first century, they have to come together for a successful society. That is the challenge for this century: to take the cliché of bringing economic and environmental objectives together.”
As regards some of the challenges in Northern Ireland, A’Hearn contrasts the variety of environmental legislation here with the single Environmental Protection Act, which has covered the work of EPA Victoria since 1970.
Having everything under “one command” (i.e. built heritage, natural heritage, environmental protection and policy) is a great asset “but like most places the silos are too strong”. He adds: “We would get a lot more for Northern Ireland if we could integrate these silos. For example, if you are a business dealing with the environment, I think it would be easier for you to understand your compliance requirements if we could be more integrated in the way we do things. That is not just a challenge for Northern Ireland but for most jurisdictions.”
Regulatory innovation
On his arrival at NIEA, A’Hearn says that he was very pleased at the amount of work that had already been done on the Better Regulation agenda: “Not just the amount but the quality of the work and the way in which businesses and environmental groups had been involved.”
Better Regulation is one of his top priorities and the NIEA will be looking at ‘21st Century Regulatory Innovation’. The concept is based on four principles, which will be put out for discussion.
“If you are fully compliant, you are the best,” he says firstly. “You will find regulation cheap, quick and easy.”
A’Hearn adds: “If you are occasionally non-compliant, you are the average. You will find it effective.” Many local SMEs do not have an environmental management team and are busy with their core business activities. In these cases, the agency will need to provide “a lot of assistance to help them understand what compliance is but if they get the assistance and don’t meet the standards, then down the track there will be enforcement.”
Organisations which “deliberately and regularly break environmental laws” are in the worst category: “They should find regulation painful and expensive. I don’t think that is a huge proportion of organisations in Northern Ireland but it is something we need to deal with.”
A final group are “even beyond the best” and want to go beyond the current standards. “They see the economic opportunity, for example, in decarbonising their business,” A’Hearn states. “I would call them the visionaries. We need to provide support and help for those who want to drive real innovation.”
Towards a single permit
This is a risk-based approach and he wants to be “very aggressive in how much we achieve” given the environment’s importance to the economy. “I want to set very high aspirations because if the aim is to have a prosperous Northern Ireland, then you need a mindset change. Environmental excellence should be seen as a business opportunity not as a business problem.”
As for the practical implementation of this approach, the NIEA is exploring whether to introduce a single permit system. At present, different businesses will need various types of permits in terms of environmental protection e.g. for waste, emissions or habitat protection.
“We have to explore this with the people we regulate and our lawyers, and how it fits with EU directives,” he elaborates. “We are not sure if we will get to the ultimate nirvana of everything in a single permit but that is our aim and I’m pushing very hard. I know there will be difficulties and challenges but if you are a business, the ideal for all regulatory compliances should be in one document. If you were designing this from scratch, you would have one document.”
Securing universal inspection powers is another priority. Businesses currently receive a range of inspections as NIEA authorises its officers under different acts. For example, someone is authorised to visit and look at air pollution and a different officer to look at habitat protection. A’Hearn envisages staff who can cover all inspections, which would reduce the administrative burden.
“You might get half the number of inspections from half the number of people,” he says. “It will require NIEA staff working together. For example, an inspector might have just enough knowledge of habitat legislation to know to involve a colleague who is more expert.”
Enforcement
Whilst A’Hearn enthuses about support and driving innovation in the business sector, he does not shy away from enforcement.
“We will also look at tightening of sanctions for those at the bottom. We are looking to see if there are any gaps in enforcement laws,” he remarks. “However, it is more important to get the resources into this area and to look at the skills and abilities of staff.” A’Hearn is “really pleased” with the environmental crime unit that he has inherited, describing its staff as “an impressive group of people.” He explains: “There has been some clever recruitment with former police officers, people with intelligence gathering skills and with financial analysis skills for tracking money.” 4
On the support side of the equation, he mentions a number of initiatives with business in which NIEA is involved. The agency has worked with the Construction Industry Federation on developing environmental management systems for its members, and has carried out similar work with the Arena organisation and the Quarry Products Association. “That is what a modern environmental regulator should do. You provide people with that type of support,” he adds.
Culturally, he wants to people to perceive the agency as an organisation where “things happen quickly” and which “understands us and where we come from,” is grounded in the community that it services, is “outcomes- not process-focused” and offers “an integrated single service.”
He uses the analogy of the banking sector, where 30 years ago you might have had several different types of account and now you have usually one account with all banking services in one. His final aspect is perhaps the most important: “An agency that understands that the environment is a driver of economic prosperity and social well-being.”
Change management
A’Hearn acknowledges that while many good things are going on, major change is still needed: “Like any environment agency we have to change for the 21st century.” Rather than trying to change everything immediately, which would be “reckless and wouldn’t work,” he says that he plans to introduce change through ‘innovation trials’ or pilots.
These will involve two or more of NIEA’s five divisions (which will help with integration) and two or more external organisations. The participants will need to be able to generate lessons for “transformational reform not incremental reform.” The ideas for the trials will come from stakeholders, NGOs, businesses and other organisations.
One initial idea is to look at the NIEA’s involvement in the planning process with perhaps a single point of contact for dealing with the agency’s input into a business’s planning application. Another example he gives is the introduction of the ecosystem services approach in farming.
When asked is there anything he did in when he was with the EPA in Victoria that he will do here, he notes that “everything is different here (culture, economy etc.) so it is difficult to lift something and place it somewhere else but I will obviously draw on my experience there.”
One thing he does mention is that Victoria has had an integrated permitting system since 1984, which was introduced by a Belfast man, the late Brian Robinson, who was CEO of the Victoria EPA for 15 years and a mentor to A’Hearn: “a genius of a man and I don’t know if I can achieve here what he did in Victoria.”
In pushing forward the concept of integrated permitting A’Hearn led the work to introduce a Bill in 2007 for corporate licensing with only one permit per company with multiple sites. One of the first corporate permits was for a water company with 26 locations, and that example illustrates the direction of travel that A’Hearn wants to take in Northern Ireland. The existing 224 pages of permits were replaced by one permit of three pages, detailing only outcomes.
Profile: Terry A’Hearn
A native of Melbourne, Terry A’Hearn studied economics and accounting at university. He previously worked for the Environment Protection Authority in Victoria for seventeen years in a range of executive and senior management roles. For the past two years, he has been based in London working for the international environmental consultancy WSP Environment and Energy.
Terry has completed the London Business School’s Senior Executive Programme.
As regards interests, Terry is a Stoke City supporter in the English Premiership: “I think I am the only one from the southern hemisphere and it’s because when I was a kid watching the 1970 FA Cup Final, in black and white, I picked the team in the stripes; although I later thought I should have picked the other team, Arsenal.”
Other interests include reading biographies and autobiographies as he “likes to see how other people approach things.” A keen traveller, he finds “Northern Ireland such an amazing place and I am struck by how much natural beauty and cultural interest there is in such a small area.”
