This article explores cooperation between a commercial supermarket chain and an environmental non-governmental organization linking it to consumer perception of the “The Super Animals” collectable cards promotion initiative. The case study focuses on one particular joint project involving Animal Cards that was initiated by the supermarket Albert Heijn and the World Wide Fund for Nature in The Netherlands. Based on this case, environmental non-governmental organizations’ strategic choices in the context of contesting discourses of sustainability and consumption, as well as implications for environmental education, are addressed. This article combines three strands of the literature – on sustainable consumption, on strategic cooperation between commercial companies and environmental non-governmental organizations and on environmental education. It is argued that the Animal Cards initiative presents an ambiguous case by both attempting to enhance environmental awareness and promoting consumption, opening up questions about the value of such cooperative ventures to the objectives of environmental education. It is concluded that cross-sector partnerships have the potential to lead to improvements in corporate social responsibility and environmental awareness among consumers but simultaneously pose the danger of undermining the critical stance toward consumption. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469540514556170 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/helenkopnina/
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In a thriving, densely populated and urbanized country like the Netherlands, space is at a premium. With the steady economic growth of the 1990s and the construction and expansion of homes, business parks and infrastructure, the available space and the environment are coming under increasing pressure. Major changes are also taking place on an administrative level in the Netherlands. In some cases, influential new joint ventures are formed between public, private, and social parties (Frieling 2000). The social and administrative dynamic, and the tension that this creates in relation to spatial quality requirements, is turning into a major challenge for spatial policy. Numerous advisory bodies and policymakers are therefore advocating a spatial development policy (WRR 1998) or development planning (VROM 2001, 2002). Development planning is the opposite of admittance planning and provides increased scope for the initiatives and investments of local governments and private and social parties. Instead of passively resisting activities and exhibiting too little flexibility, governments must aim at actively entering into partnerships with other governments, the business sector, and social organizations. Together, they must develop and realize interrelated, creative concepts, projects, and programs (WRR 1998; Healey 2000;Teisman 1997;VROM Council 2001). According to the Netherlands' Ministry of Housing, Spatial Planning, and the Environment (VROM 2002), development planning requires: "active intervention by means of investments made by both public and private parties. The State shall then provide policy frameworks for the investments and harmonize them with each other. This provides scope for the initiatives of lower governments, market parties, and social organizations and supports them." Innovation, future orientation, integral concepts, stakeholder planning and new ways of public private financing, and cooperation are some of the relevant characteristics ascribed to development planning. However, the above description shows that development planning may be an interesting concept but it is also very abstract and ambiguous. Moreover, the real question is how development planning works in practice and whether it actually differs from admittance planning. How can such notions as stakeholder planning, future orientation, and innovation be realized in a region? How do spatial investments, innovation, and integral concepts come about? Does development planning really result in spatial and administrative innovation, as one would expect in theory? What is clear, however, is that development planning will have to be tackled by governments and private and social parties on a regional/provincial level. Against this background, the Netherlands Institute for Spatial Research (RPB), established on 1 January 2002, asked the Delft University of Technology to design a simulation game in which the concept of development planning can be tested in a safe environment (Mayer and Veeneman 2002; Mayer et al. 2004).
