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Sustainable Development and Environmental Reform
However, the reform plan should develop new and effective methodologies
for enforcing these regulations. One of the major contributors to the current
level of environmental degradation is lack of regulations or the poor enforce-
ment of regulations.

Economic reform
Environmental and economic policies should be integrated and incorporated
within the economic reform plan to achieve the environmental goals at the
lowest cost and to determine the effects of other policy measures on the envi-
ronment. Moreover, concepts from environmental economics should be
adopted to conduct economic analyses of policies, analyze problems related to
environment and natural resource management, perform cost/benefit analysis,
set criteria for the evaluation of projects and public policies, understand eco-
nomic structures of industries from the standpoints of efficiency, activity, etc.

Social and cultural reform
The fuel for environmental reform is awareness and interaction as discussed
before. Members of society should interact and cooperate together to achieve
environmental reform; similarly, developed and developing countries should
cooperate with one another to eliminate environmental degradation in the
world. Joint programs and research projects should be initiated to develop
more environmentally friendly technologies and innovative techniques for
resource and waste management. The exchange of knowledge and resources
will strengthen the bond between different societies and promote social and
cultural reform. Environmental reform is realized by promoting the concept
of sustainable development as explained above.
Although the developing countries are progressing and there is rising
economic growth, there is little attention given to sustainable development;
hence environmental degradation is also rising. The recent preliminary
study by the World Bank and METAP on cost assessment of environmental
degradation in Middle East countries in 2004 revealed that pollution levels
have not decreased since 1999; however, the final figures have not yet been
released (Sarraf et al, 2004).

4.6 Environmental Reform Proposed Structure
A proposed structure that highlights the elements of environmental reform
that should be adopted to be able to comply with environmental regulations
is presented in Figure 4.4. The hierarchy of the elements in the proposed
reform structure is regulations, environmental impact assessment (EIA),
environmental management systems (EMS), cleaner production (CP), indus-
trial ecology (IE), and compliance with regulations. Each element is succeeded