The legal environment is defined by the "pattern of laws, law making activity, and litigation that can affect the success of an enterprise. This can involve legal considerations of patents, copyrights, trademarks, and other intellectual property, anti-trust consideration, trade protectionism, product liability, environmental liability, and employment law and litigation" (ALBRECHT 2006).
Adapted from GILLESPIE (2011)
Some different categories of relevant laws for your environmental scanning may include:
- Consumer laws; these are designed to protect customers against unfair practices such as misleading descriptions of the product.
- Competition laws; these are aimed at protecting small firms against bullying by larger firms and ensuring customers are not exploited by firms with monopoly power.
- Employment laws; these cover areas such as redundancy, dismissal, working hours and minimum wages. They aim to protect employees against the abuse of power by managers.
- Health and safety legislation; these laws are aimed at ensuring the workplace is as safe as is reasonably practical. They cover issues such as training, reporting accidents and the appropriate provision of safety equipment (see water sanitation and health).
The legal environment can greatly affect the behaviour of businesses, for example by changes in the minimum wage, or by introducing greater requirements for firms to recycle. Legal changes can affect a firm's costs (e.g. if new systems and procedures have to be developed) and demand (e.g. if the law affects the likelihood of customers buying the good or using the service). Keeping up to date with the legal environment can help you to take advantage of opportunities introduced by changing laws, for example by providing businesses with recylcing services to decrease the costs of complying with changing requirements.
The legal environment can also have a large impact on the potential scope of your start-up. For instance, if you have determined that your system has a great potential to for reuse of wastewater and nutrients in agriculture, you need to make sure what regulations need to be met in order to satisfy health codes or other laws protecting the health of employees and consumers (see water sanitation and health). As such, an early understanding of the legal environment can increase your ability to identify opportunities and avoid conflicts later on.
Chapter 2. The Environmental Scan
Foundations of Economics
This document provides information on PESTEL analysis, directing readers to the key factors for each step scanning the external environment.
GILLESPIE, A. (2011): Foundations of Economics. Additional chapter on Business Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press URL [Accessed: 06.01.2013]Doing Environmental Scanning
This guide provides you with an overview of doing environmental scanning in your organisation. The aim is to allow you to build an understanding of the environmental scanning process and what is involved.
CONWAY, M. (2009): Doing Environmental Scanning. An Overview Guide. Hotham Hill, Australia: Thinking Futures URL [Accessed: 22.08.2012]Environmental scanning
This web article contains a thorough list of references regarding environmental scanning, as well as concepts and theories developed in the last decades. It also contains an interesting analysis of the external environment of Higher Education, which could be used for those planning starting up a business in the training sector of water and sanitation.
MORRISON, J.L. (1992): Environmental scanning. In: WHITELY, M.A. ; PORTER, J.D. ; FENSKE, R.H. (1992): A primer for new institutional researchers. Tallahassee, Florida: 86-99. URL [Accessed: 22.08.2012]Foundations of Economics
This document provides information on PESTEL analysis, directing readers to the key factors for each step scanning the external environment.
GILLESPIE, A. (2011): Foundations of Economics. Additional chapter on Business Strategy. Oxford: Oxford University Press URL [Accessed: 06.01.2013]Water Supply and Sanitation Policy. White Paper
This white paper is helpful to get an idea on how policies in the sanitation and water management sector can look like.
DWAF (1994): Water Supply and Sanitation Policy. White Paper. Cape Town: Department of Water Affairs and Forestry URL [Accessed: 08.09.2010]Guidelines for the safe use of wastewater excreta and greywater. Volume I. Policy and Regulatory Aspects
Volume I of the Guidelines for the Safe Use of Wastewater, Excreta and Greywater focuses on policy, regulation and institutional arrangements. Accordingly, its intended readership is made up of policy-makers and those with regulatory responsibilities. It provides guidance on policy formulation, harmonisation and mainstreaming, on regulatory mechanisms and on establishing institutional links between the various interested sectors and parties. It also presents a synthesis of the key issues from Volumes II, III, and IV and the index for all four volumes as well as a glossary of terms used in all four volumes is presented in Annex 1.
WHO (2006): Guidelines for the safe use of wastewater excreta and greywater. Volume I. Policy and Regulatory Aspects. Geneva: World Health Organisation URL [Accessed: 10.04.2019]http://www.thinkingfutures.net
This site presents valuable tools on how to carry out an environmental scanning in an effective manner. Furthermore, it offers resources to redesign the strategy of a company by changing the way of thinking about the future.
http://www.jiscinfonet.ac.uk
This online infoKit presents a wealth of tools for the implementation of effective strategic planning and managing of information, including environmental scanning.
http://horizon.unc.edu
This is a web page that details techniques and considerations that should be taken into account for environmental scanning, as well as a list of resources where more information about environmental scanning can be found.
WASH Sustainability Index Tool
The WASH Sustainability Index Tool, developed for the USAID-Rotary International H2O Collaboration, is a tool to assess sustainability of WASH programs. The tool considers the sustainability of institutional, management, financial, technical and environmental factors.