There has been a considerable amount of guidance material and some initiatives to ‘roll out’ mainstreaming. However, much of the guidance on environmental mainstreaming to date is ‘supply-push’ rather than ‘demand-pull’ (or at least ‘real-world-tested’). It tends to be cooked up around the ‘policy’ table – the result of intellectual or professional debate, the need to develop common principles or lists of desiderata, and corporate posturing on environment. If it is the product of experience, it is usually based on identified failures and promotes ambitious actions to the contrary, rather than (perhaps modest) actions which are based on actual success. Inherent complexity and over-ambitious scope in guidance material is undesirable, as it results in the outsider – often the donor, or other sponsor of the guidance – being too much ‘in charge’. Consequently, it does not effectively ‘sell’ mainstreaming to those in charge of planning and budgets. This is exacerbated by ‘environmental mainstreaming’ being perceived by some people as a vague term for different and changing (or sometimes unspecified) intentions, as discussed at section 1.3.

An added problem is that, all too often, much more effort is placed on developing guidance and toolkits than on ‘rolling them out’, e.g. providing training and ongoing support over a period of several years at least, so that people are truly able to use the (simple) tools effectively.

Mainstreaming is traditionally top-down, not bottom-up. But it is often top-down from a weak power base – a response from some groups who are marginalized from the centre of power but paradoxically are often still proximate to it (such as environment officials in aid agencies or treasuries). It is pushed by those cut out of mainstream policy, with no funds, but still environmentally ‘pure’ credentials. Too often it is manifest in an approach which asserts ‘think like me’ or pushes large guidance documents. There is a need to shift to an approach which asks ‘what do you think about this issue?’, or ‘what can I do for you –to help you better achieve your goals and tasks?’, or which offers simple principles that people can respond to in their own circumstances.

Being vague and top-down makes ‘mainstreaming’ both hugely ambiguous and a real turn-off to those who are the ‘targets’ of mainstreaming. There are also ambiguities in perception – concerning:

• objectivity, e.g. is the environment a technical affair or a political/values affair?
• the confusing universe of ‘environment’, e.g. are environmental assets or hazards or limits being promoted?
• scope, e.g. is it aiming to change things at the margins (i.e. enter the mainstream) or change things fundamentally (change the mainstream), the key example being working with or against the current growth paradigm.

Mainstreaming is not often properly reported. On the one hand, it can be over-reported – where all ‘environmental’ activities are counted as mainstreaming, or assumed to contribute to mainstreaming, even if there is no clear link to the two key mainstreaming targets of policy decisions or institutional change. On the other hand, it can be under-reported, where only one activity or initiative is assumed to be contributing.²

Lack of awareness of environmental mainstreaming approaches. Some country surveys (e.g. South Africa) highlighted a lack of awareness of environmental mainstreaming approaches/tools. Interviewees were aware of only a few environmental mainstreaming approaches, most notably EIA [link to EIA tool profile]. Perhaps this is unsurprising since EIA is the only environmental tool for which specific legislation exists and institutions responsible for its application are in place (in almost all countries). In Ghana, it is reported that there are no well-defined approaches to mainstreaming and, therefore, it is difficult to decide which approach or tool to apply in a given situation (EPA, 2008) [link to references]. In Chile, there are some isolated mainstreaming activities, and mainstreaming tools are “confined basically to the requirements of the obligatory EIA system” (RIDES, 2008) [link to references]. Paradoxically, whilst EIA emerged from the surveys as the most cited and recommended approach for mainstreaming, it was also the most criticised – perceived as an undesirable tool because it is seen to slow down development.

A problem arises where knowledge of approaches to environmental mainstreaming is limited to a small group of advocates. Interviews in Kenya with professionals in the Ministry of Finance, the private sector, and some research organisations revealed that outside of those working for environmental organisations, people do not have a deep awareness of the tools that the country survey focused on (PEI, 2008a). This suggests that more needs to be done to raise awareness about mainstreaming approaches and tools.