Municipal environmental advisory groups: Form, function and effectiveness

Traditional forms of public participation have been criticized for not allowing for a fair representation of the public interest in environmental policy-making. As a result, there has been a renewed effort to use forms of participation that overcome these deficiencies and provide a less confrontational and more cooperative mechanism by which to involve the public in environmental policy and decisionmaking. Among these mechanisms are advisory bodies established to provide advice on environmental policy and channel input into the policy community.;Municipal governments are increasingly establishing Environmental Advisory Groups (EAGs) for assistance. These EAGs are usually composed of a group of people appointed by the municipal council to provide a mechanism for public comment and input into the environmental policy-making process. Little is understood about EAGs in terms of form, function and effectiveness in the broader policy community. In addition, despite extensive experience with public participation evaluation, there is no consensus in the literature on how best to assess the effectiveness of public participation processes. The objectives of the thesis are to address these deficiencies by contributing substantial knowledge of the form, function and effectiveness of municipal EAGs and by contributing the current state-of-the-art in public participation evaluation.;The thesis sets forward an original evaluative framework for EAGs which includes a conceptual municipal environmental policy community model and adapts the Context-Process-Outcome evaluative approach to the study of EAGs in a policy community setting. Using a comparative case-study approach, the Guelph Environmental Advisory Committee and the London Advisory Committee on the Environment are analyzed according to the evaluative framework.;The thesis identifies the role of EAGs in municipal environmental policy communities, assesses the effectiveness of EAGs as public participation mechanisms, and determines what factors contribute to an effective EAG. In addition, the utility of the research design and evaluative framework as a new approach to public participation evaluation is assessed.