Deliberation on the risks of nanoscale materials: learning from the partnership between environmental NGO EDF and chemical company DuPont

ABSTRACT

While Deliberative Policy Analysis primarily focuses on the role of public agencies in deliberative practices, this paper extends the analysis of deliberative platforms to industry-civil society deliberations. More in particular, the paper examines deliberation processes that took place within a three-year bilateral partnership between a non-governmental organization, Environmental Defense Fund and a large multinational chemical company, DuPont, to develop a joint risk framework for engineered nanoscale materials. I will show that the deliberative space created by EDF and DuPont did not meet the ideal of communicative rationality, i.e. the possibility of those affected by a particular problem having the opportunity to participate in the deliberative platform and share their issues and concerns. However, the outcomes of this bilateral partnership did become part of the public sphere, i.e. the open space in society supported through a diffuse media infrastructure. As such, opportunities were created for those excluded to share concerns and raise questions. Inspired by this case study I will argue that to gain insight into problematic situations evoked by the development of newly emerging science and technology, deliberations in the public sphere are just as important as face to face deliberations in concrete, tangible spaces.

KEYWORDS:

• Deliberative governance
• emerging technologies
• industry-NGO collaboration
• nanotechnology
• Dewey

Introduction

Deliberative Policy Analysis (DPA), as a theoretical and empirical field of study, focuses on the shift from government to governance (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003), with dialogue, deliberation and negotiation among stakeholders on concrete political and societal issues as major tools of analysis (Li 2015).

In line with DPA, this paper examines a deliberative practice on a concrete political and societal issue, namely the question how to assess and regulate potential health and environmental risks of newly emerging technologies, in this case, engineered nanoscale materials. But while DPA primarily focuses on the role of public agencies in deliberative practices (Ansell 2011c; Li 2015; 2019), this paper extends analysis of deliberative platforms to industry-civil society deliberations. More in particular, the paper examines deliberation processes that took place within a three-year bilateral partnership between a non-governmental organization, Environmental Defense Fund and a large multinational chemical company, DuPont, to develop a joint risk framework for engineered nanoscale materials.

Uncertainties and unknowns regarding risk assessment and risk management of nanotechnology

Nanotechnology is a newly emerging science and technology, referring to the observation and manipulation of atoms and molecules on the nanoscale (1–100 nanometer).¹ One of its revolutionary features is that chemicals at the nanoscale produce unique properties when compared to their macroscale equivalents (Bowman 2017). Nanosilver particles, for example, have unique optical, electrical, and thermal properties. These particles are now used in various (consumer) products, ranging from biological and chemical sensors, to textiles. However, while the novel potential of nanoscale material has led to promised developments such as improved tissue engineering and more efficient and cleaner energy production, there are also concerns if existing regulations for chemicals are still sufficient, as these regulate chemical substances on the basis of its name, and not in relation to scale (Bowman 2017). As such, the development and implementation of nanomaterials in society can be framed as a complex, or wicked problem: there are very large uncertainties and unknowns in basic knowledge regarding potential risks (what is the nature of the actual risk for human health and environment, up to the question if there are any risks at all) and, as I will show below, stakeholders disagree on how to move forward, e.g. how to assess and regulate risks (see e.g. Maynard, Bowman, and Hodge 2011).

At the time that EDF and DuPont established their partnership (2006), procedures for regulating nanomaterials were still undecided. The Royal Society and the Royal Academy of Engineering, for example, produced a joint report, already in 2004, in which it urges for a more sophisticated risk assessment for nanotechnology. In 2007, a coalition of civil society organizations (CSOs) and trade unions published a joint declaration on “principles for the Oversight of Nanotechnologies and Nanomaterials” in which it urged national governmental bodies to either “pass nano-specific amendments to existing legislation or to implement a new regulatory regime for nanotechnologies” (Shelley-Egan, Bowman, and Robinson 2018, 1731). At that point, however, governments were reticent about developing or adapting regulation for nanoscale materials. They first wanted to have more definitive proof whether or not existing regulations for chemicals (e.g. in REACH and TSCA) were insufficient (Linkov et al. 2009).² In fact, as Bowman (2008) argues, the challenge for governments is: “to regulate unknown (potential) risks and balance these against the public interest, while simultaneously promoting innovation in order to ensure the successful development and commercialization of a promising technology” (Bowman 2008, 179).

EDF and industry leader DuPont believed that in the absence of top-down government regulation, industry itself should develop risk assessment methodologies in order to “reap the benefits and manage the risks of nanotechnology” (www.edf.org). To do so, they agreed, as a form of self-regulation, to develop a joint risk framework. As Reichow and Dorbeck-Jung (2013) argue, based on Senden (2004), self-regulation, in contrast to top-down governmental regulation, refers to rules of conduct that do not have a legally binding force, but which nevertheless have regulatory force for e.g. companies and public institutions in regulating particular practices.

The aim of this paper is not to review the content and validity of the risk framework (for more information see Linkov et al. 2009; Bowman 2008), nor to examine (international) stakeholder debates on the legitimacy of self-regulation as a way to contain uncertainties and unknowns pertaining to nanotechnology (for more information see Bowman (2017) and Shelley-Egan, Bowman, and Robinson 2018). Instead, the aim of this paper is to describe and interpret the deliberation processes that took place within the deliberative space that EDF and DuPont created. I claim that this is worthwhile to do so, as, for various reasons, the creation of a workable bilateral partnership between a company and NGO is not self-evident (Lister 2000).

First, a long-standing concern for NGOs is to protect themselves from co-optation by other actors such as companies. Safeguarding freedom of speech and maintaining independence is essential for NGOs in order to fulfil their self-appointed role as “watchdog for society”(Bauer and Schmitz 2012; Arts 2002). Therefore, NGOs are often ambivalent to engage in partnerships with the corporate sector because they do not want to be held co-responsible for outcomes, products, or behaviour of the companies they collaborate with (Krabbenborg 2013b). Second, when collaborating with companies, issues of secrecy and confidentiality play a role because of the commercial interests that are at stake. Again, this might create tensions with NGOs' (self-proclaimed) role as watchdog for society. Moreover, companies in their turn claim that interactions with NGOs are only possible when the technology is matured and products enter the market. Or in the words of a nano-industrialist:

To enter early- stage debates [during the R&D phase] is difficult because of the competitiveness of the market. Industrialists can only be transparent about their products after a commercial launch. The investments need to show a return, you see. (Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015, translation from Dutch by author)

Thirdly, there is asymmetry in agency and resources between companies and NGOs (Arts and van Tatenhove 2004). In the case of new technologies, NGOs come in at a later stage, with little information compared to companies developing the new technology (Rip and Robinson 2013). Companies have a head start, in the sense that they have already named and framed particular problems for which the new technology can offer solutions. They invested money and have set up alliances with other actors like other companies or governmental bodies to push a particular technological trajectory (Arts and van Tatenhove 2004). And in general, NGOs often have fewer resources (time, money, personnel) to spend compared to companies (Hendriks 2009). Fourthly, a lack of trust might also hinder a collaboration between companies and NGOs (Ansell 2011b). As Shelley-Egan (2011) and Shelley-Egan, Bowman, and Robinson (2018) noted, in the case of nanotechnology a discourse emerged within the chemical industry, in which companies differentiate between “good” and “bad” NGOs. Good NGOs know about the science involved and are considered trustworthy. For companies, “being trustworthy” implies that NGOs show commitment, meaning that they should not (at least not without notice) conduct activities with different orientations in parallel to their involvement in interactive forums with industry (Krabbenborg 2013b). NGOs may well see this differently of course.

Finally, as analyses in the field of nano governance have showed (Parandian 2012; Krabbenborg 2013b; Davies 2008, 2013), when technology developers, including industry representatives, and civil society actors such as NGOs meet, interactivity, e.g. the sharing of ideas, expectations, or concerns, and the questioning of each other on critical issues, is not self-evident. Technology developers often position themselves as insiders who know much more about the technology and its embedding in society. Actors who hesitate, articulate doubts or raise critical questions with regard to the promises the technology is expected to bring, are considered as ignorant and irrational and thus not deserving of serious consideration (Krabbenborg 2013c; see also Wynne 2001). Consequently, as shown in the field of Science and Technology Studies (STS) and science communication, educating civil society with the “right scientific information” is seen as the most appropriate form of interaction with society according to (nano)technology developers (e.g. Davies 2013; Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015; Hansen 2009).

Thus, the fact that EDF and DuPont, two actors that traditionally operate quite separately in the development of a new technology and its embedding in society, managed to create a deliberative platform during the early stages of nanotechnology in which both actors, as I will show below, could share their ideas, perspectives and concerns with the aim to co-construct a joint risk framework, is an interesting new venture that opens up a new domain in the deliberative analysis of public policy.

This paper will consider two questions: (1) to what extent did issues of secrecy, lack of trust and co-optation play a role in the partnership and which, if any, mechanisms did EDF and DuPont used to facilitate interactivity; (2) what were the effects of the partnership and the joint risk framework that the partners formulated in the wider world of nanotechnology development?

Data collection and data analysis

In order to gain insight into how EDF and DuPont managed to realize a joint partnership, I interviewed, after the partnership was formally terminated, the project leaders of both EDF and DuPont. In addition, I also organized a group interview with DuPont project members in the United States (the reports of the interviews were checked by participants for accuracy). To complement my interview data, I studied a video conference regarding the partnership, and analysed position papers developed by DuPont, other chemical companies, as well as civil society organizations, to find out whether and how they framed the partnership and the risk framework. Moreover, I interviewed spokespersons of three other chemical companies to find out how they perceived this type of bottom up collaboration with a NGO.

As collaboration between an NGO and a company in the development of newly emerging technologies is relatively new, with no routines or best practices available to rely on, one needs intellectual resources, as Ansell (2011a) already argued, for imaging how such potentially risky ventures can be imagined in a productive manner. To interpret what expired in the collaboration between EDF and DuPont I therefore used a pragmatist framework, in particular John Dewey’s joint inquiry approach (1927, 1938). Joint inquiry refers to an (ideal) form of interactive collaboration to explore and deal with real life complex, or “wicked”, problems. The idea of a joint inquiry is that those involved come together, share experiences, learn from each other and define and/or refine problems, as well as develop and experiment with tentative solutions for how to move forward. As Dewey takes real-world problems as his starting point for setting up interactive fora to facilitate reflexivity and co-evolutionary learning (i.e. learning about the mutual shaping of people and their surrounding environment), his work is, as already argued by Li and Wagenaar (2019) and Ansell (2011a), one of the foundational pillars for DPA.

An important value in joint inquiry, and in DPA in general, is communicative rationality. Communicative rationality implies, at least, that all those affected by a particular problem, should have the opportunity to participate in the deliberative platform and share their issues and concerns. Because people are situated in, and relate to, the world in different ways, they have different understandings about what the actual problem is and what should be done (Dewey 1927; Ansell 2011a; Bowman 2019). The underlying principle of a joint inquiry is that when all those affected by a problem (or their spokespersons) participate, the variety of issues and stakes can, in principle, be discovered and dealt with during the process of joint inquiry.

In this paper, I will show that the deliberative space created by EDF and DuPont did not meet the ideal of communicative rationality. In fact, DuPont and EDF chose to interact in a restricted, more or less “private” deliberative space, protected by a non-disclosure agreement. This implied that other stakeholders could not participate in the interaction. The outcomes of the partnership, however, did become part of the public sphere, that is, the open space in society supported through a diffuse media infrastructure that enables people to engage in extended deliberation (reaching across space and time) through a variety of media, such as newspapers, television, and recently also Twitter and blogs (Habermas 1989; Taylor 2002). Thus, opportunities were created for those excluded, to share concerns and raise questions. This, as I will show, led to further articulation and learning processes within the field of nanotechnology about what was at stake and how to move forward. Inspired by this case study I will argue that to gain insight into problematic situations evoked by the development of newly emerging science and technology, deliberations in the public sphere are just as important as face to face deliberations in concrete, tangible spaces.

Dewey on indeterminacy as a human condition³

For Dewey, a pragmatist, philosophy grows out and is intrinsically connected with human affairs (Ansell 2011a; Dewey 1920, XI). In contrast to, for example, the Platonic tradition with its search to find universal, foundational truths, theories within Pragmatism are seen as tools to intelligently navigate a world in flux. When practices change, theories should change as well in order to be able to guide people (Ansell 2011a). As I already noted, in developing his philosophy, Dewey was strongly influenced by the circumstances of his times. He lived in a period of rapid social, economic, demographic, political and technological change, part of the rise of urban-industrial society in the United States. Dewey noticed that these changes, for example the introduction of public transport, the daily press and the radio, destabilized the existing ways of living and associating but that citizens were unable to interpret, value and judge new developments because they inherited moral frameworks (that is, their perspectives, values, institutions and beliefs) that were rooted in the past and not adequate to grasp new (technological) realities (Krabbenborg 2013b, 2019; Dijstelbloem 2007). Dewey diagnosed that this led to “uneasy equilibriums” between the old and the new (Dewey 1920, XXXII), in which it is not clear what is at stake, for whom, what to value, which ends to pursue and how to act. One of his aims was to develop an engaged philosophy, that is, a way of thinking that is concerned with the everyday world, a world that is, in his perspective, constantly in flux.

The challenge for Dewey was to reconstruct philosophy – which he saw as a “as set of beliefs and attitudes” – in such a way that it was able to handle change, contingency, heterogeneity and unpredictability. To realize this reconstruction, Dewey turned to the scientific-empirical methodology of observation, deliberation, hypothesizing and experimenting (Dewey 1920, XXXIII; Krabbenborg 2013b). Since the late nineteenth century it had become accepted in science to see theories as fallible and thus always provisional (Dewey 1938; Hildebrand 2008). According to Dewey: “this could also be the case with regard to interpretative frameworks, with human beings also perceiving their perspectives, values, beliefs and societal institutions as provisional and temporary, and sometimes in need of revision” (Krabbenborg 2013b, 41). In order to cultivate the capacity of human beings to do so and solve real-world problems, Dewey developed his joint inquiry approach, i.e. a way to establish a deliberative space to explore indeterminate situations (see Text box 1).

Box 1.

The interactive process of a joint inquiry.

A joint inquiry consists of four successive phases. After the lived experience and recognition of an indeterminate situation, the first phase of a reflexive inquiry is to jointly define the actual problems. Problems can be articulated by participants sharing experiences, doubts and difficulties of how consequences of an act affect their daily lives and activities. As Dewey scholar Ansell (2011b) argues, “problem definition in pragmatist terms is reflexive. Participants enter the process with their own goals and perspectives, but these may be malleable and open to reframing through deliberative interaction with others” (8). What is important to note is that for Dewey, the experience of indeterminacy is a moral situation. What is at stake in a reflexive inquiry according to Dewey is “what kind of person one is to become, what sort of self is in the making, what kind of world is in the making” (Dewey 1957). This first phase of a reflexive inquiry is a creative process in the sense that it requires a process of discovery of positions, stakes, beliefs, and values of those involved that will allow participants to define a shared, or public problem. Dewey emphasizes that public problems do not exist prior to an inquiry. In judging that it is a problem, we judge how it is, we define it (Hildebrand 2008). In the second phase, participants formulate hypotheses about possible solutions to deal with the problems. Interactions take the form of forecasting, backcasting, and imagining the possible consequences of taking a particular line of action. The third phase consists of an actual rehearsal, in interaction, of how new lines of action could work out in practice. In this phase, an estimate of possible consequences is made for those who are involved. The final phase of a joint inquiry is the experimental testing or piloting (in real life) of the hypothesis that participants pointed out as the preferred solution. Dewey stresses that a solution should address as many issues as possible that were discovered during the inquiry process (Dewey 1957). Furthermore, he emphasizes that a joint inquiry should take the form of interaction and participation in the light of the unknown. What to value, how to act and which ends to pursue emerge through sharing experiences and questioning each other (see also Krabbenborg 2013c).

Interactive process of joint inquiry

Dewey describes indeterminacy as an existential experience, as people feel blocked in their daily activities because existing roles, routines, norms and values are destabilized (for instance due to the introduction of new technologies) and new ones are not yet in place. A joint inquiry is then “work of discovery” (Dewey 1957), an attempt to find out, in interaction with others, what is at stake, which ends to pursue and what to value. Rather than attempting to mould a problem into an already fixed pattern, one should inquire into the problems people experience and discover, by sharing experiences, concerns and questioning each other, what the exact nature of the problem is: What are the issues? Who is involved? What is at stake? (Keulartz et al. 2004; Krabbenborg et al. 2019).

It is important to note that for Dewey, the activity of reflexive inquiry is not just a one-off affair, but a way of being a good citizen in a democracy. In fact:

Dewey saw reflexive inquiry as a way of cultivating the intelligence of people and society to actively guide the mutual shaping of humans and their surrounding environment through the cooperative investigation of problems and the “reappraisal of common goals and values”. (Hildebrand 2008, 45, 117)

By “intelligence”, Dewey does not mean having a particular brain capacity, but instead thinks of intelligence as a social activity, that is, the capacity to be sensitive to the consequences of actions and to evaluate whether or not the consequences are in need of reflexive inquiry. (Krabbenborg 2013b, 41)

To be more precise, for Dewey, reflexive inquiry is linked to public problems. When the consequences of acts only affect those who are directly engaged in the act or transaction, it is a private affair (Dewey 1927, 13) and the involvement of outsiders is not needed. When the consequences of an act “extends beyond those directly involved, and affects the welfare of many others, the act requires a public capacity” (Dewey 1927, 13). In other words, when those who were not involved in an act are affected by it in such a way that institutions and arrangements fail to address the consequences adequately and uncertainty is experienced, then “publics” emerge. In contrast to notions of civil society or the general public, which are, at least in the governance of newly emerging sciences and technologies, seen as distinct from scientists and technology developers, a Deweyan public does not have a prior social, geographical or institutional status. Members of a Deweyan public are related because they are all affected by a particular situation they experience as requiring attention or in need of amelioration (see also Marres 2005).

Dewey scholar Brown (2009) argues that the term “public” has an active as well as passive connotation for Dewey. Those who are indirectly affected form a “passive protopublic”. The active element is that a public organizes itself, establishes a deliberative space and explores and reflects upon, via a joint inquiry, the consequences of an act in order to define problematic features, and develops new or adapted interpretative frameworks. According to Dewey, the experience of disruption forms the incentive for people to organize themselves and initiate a joint inquiry because they have an urge to solve their problems in order to continue their daily practice. The product of a joint inquiry is situated and provisional and enables people to create a more harmonious relation with the new situation at hand (see also Ansell 2011a). Its value can be measured by whether it is able to solve actual problems, that is, whether it can “effect a working connection between habits, customs, institutions, beliefs and new conditions” (Dewey 2008, 137).

The merging of deliberation and action, as proposed by Dewey in his concept of joint inquiry, also echoes in DPA with its claim that “in situations of problem complexity the boundaries between policy analysis and policy making are gradually dissolving” (Wagenaar et al. forthcoming). Public agencies increasingly call upon participation of citizens to generate legitimacy on specific policy issues and citizens express a need to have influence on policies that affect their daily life (Wagenaar et al. forthcoming). Below I will elucidate with the help of Dewey’s joint inquiry the principles and ideas that underpinned the collaboration between EDF and DuPont, as well as explicate the specific conditions the partners created to stimulate interactivity and deal with issues of secrecy, co-optation, and (lack of) trust.

Establishing a partnership

The Environmental Defense Fund, one of the largest environmental NGOs in the US, was founded in 1967 by a small group of scientists and has now more than 750.000 members. Already in 2004 it approached DuPont with the invitation to establish a partnership to develop a joint risk management methodology for identifying and assessing risk and safety issues in relation to engineered nanoscale materials. EDF is an atypical NGO: whereas for most environmental groups, direct action via protest or media performances and lobbying government agencies is the common mode of operation, EDF has a long tradition of corporate partnerships. This is linked to their belief in the power of creating economic incentives for e.g. companies to achieve environmental progress. As such, one of the aims of EDF is to find intersections between environmental and business benefits. Characteristic of the EDF business model is “finding ways that work”; this means that it is interested in results, that is, with the environmental endpoints it wants to achieve. Corporate partnerships are one way to achieve this.

When EDF approached DuPont, nanotechnology faced a policy call for anticipatory governance (European Commission 2004, 2011). Rather than waiting for societal impacts to become evident, as for example was the case with nuclear energy, government agencies in Europe, United States and Australia (Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015) now tried to stimulate “responsible research and innovation” by anticipating potential public concerns and needs in the early stages of nanotechnology development with the aim of making better informed decisions about its further development in the present. Involvement of NGOs as new dialogue partner of science and industry, is one of the forms anticipatory governance has taken in the field of nanotechnology. In fact, policy makers at the European level position NGOs as “potential sources of knowledge, know-how and innovation (…) who can contribute together with industry, science and policy, to a European knowledge-based society, one that is responsive to societal needs and concerns” (Commission of the European Communities 2001).

When DuPont received the invitation of EDF, it was not immediately obvious for them what a partnership with EDF could add to the deliberations they already had with other stakeholders in other deliberative fora such as ICON, i.e. a multi stakeholder organization that was focused on reducing potential environmental and health risks of nanotechnology (www.icon.rice.edu) (Krabbenborg 2013a).

However, the call for anticipatory governance as well as the lessons DuPont had learnt from the introduction of new technologies in the past, such as Genetically Modified Crops in agriculture, were important factors that made them accept the invitation of EDF. In a video conference about the partnership, Vice-President of DuPont and Chief Sustainability Officer Linda Fisher said:

There was insufficient interaction between industry and NGOs during biotechnology, that really plagued the acceptance of that technology (…) now we have a chance “to do it right from the beginning”.

In a joint article written for the Wall Street Journal by the CEO of DuPont and the president of EDF to introduce the partnership, the authors also made reference to a lack of early-stage risk assessment in the development and introduction of other new technologies (Krupp and Holliday 2005):

The hype surrounding nanotech drowns out the need for sound, disciplined research and commercialization guided by thoughtful regulatory standards. We’ve been here before. A new technology is heralded as the “next big thing.” Companies are created. R&D budgets expand, and investors' eyes gleam at the prospect of new markets. Then two or 10 or 20 years later, when the technology is in widespread use, other effects become evident. For example, in 1928, a new family of non-toxic chemicals, chlorofluorocarbons, was invented and became the standard for refrigerants. Only decades later did we recognize that the release of CFCs was dissolving the earth’s ozone layer.

In the same year that EDF invited DuPont to collaborate, another player in the international debate on the regulation of nanotechnology, the reinsurance company SwissRe, urged companies “to waste no time in assessing the risks and benefits”. In their report “Nanotechnology: Small matter, many unknowns” Swiss Re states that:

as a major risk carrier, the insurance industry can only responsibly support the introduction of a new technology if it can evaluate and calculate its inherent risks (…) this is why an open risk dialogue is required involving all stakeholders – industry, scientists, regulators and the insurance sector. (Retrieved from: https://www.nanowerk.com/nanotechnology/reports/reportpdf/report93.pdf)

During the interview at DuPont, the project leader referred to this report of Swiss Re and commented that for nanotechnology, there was momentum towards increasing collaborations between industry and NGOs.

Pre-project phase

According to DuPont staff, adequate knowledge about nanosciences was a prerequisite to start a partnership, and they doubted whether a non-governmental environmental group could possess such knowledge. What occurred was the establishment of a pre-project phase, or in the words of a DuPont project member, a “period of courtship”. This pre-project phase consisted of vision meetings in which both parties shared their ideas, values and perspectives on the intended partnership and what should be included in the risk framework (see also Krabbenborg 2013a). As became clear in the interviews with DuPont, this courtship period proved to be important to the eventual productivity of the deliberation because it challenged their preconceptions and offered an occasion to stimulate learning. For example, the initial preconceived notion of NGOs as uninformed dialogue partners turned out to be unfounded. As one of the DuPont project members said in an email conversation with me:

I had the initial expectation that they [EDF] would have a position/bias that was more political than “scientifically” based, (…) my opinion changed early on as I found these colleagues to be more scientific-based and their arguments more substantive – than I had originally expected.

Interaction processes

As we saw, companies believe that being transparent about their R&D trajectories is difficult because it might hinder their goal to generate profit and create commercial success. Not surprisingly, engaging in early-stage dialogues with NGOs is seen by industrialists as an obstacle to “being competitive in the market” (Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015). DuPont however, chose to grant permission to EDF to access their laboratories with the aim to (jointly) identify and assess possible health and environmental safety issues pertaining to nanoscale materials produced by DuPont. As a DuPont staff member explained, the aim of using information from actual production processes was needed in order “to have some real things to build on”.

Focusing on concrete, real world, problems is very much in the spirit of Dewey. However, whereas Dewey (implicitly) seems to advocate that joint inquiries are open, accessible to all people (or their representatives) that are implied in indeterminate situations, EDF and DuPont decided to create a restricted, more or less “private”, deliberative space. Their interaction was protected by a non-disclosure agreement, implying that other actors, at least during the first phases of what would evolve as a joint inquiry, were excluded.

To stimulate an inquiry into the development, use and disposal of engineered nanoscale materials, small project groups were established, for example, dealing with ecological concerns, workplace safety and human health concerns in which members of both DuPont and EDF participated. The aim of these groups was to stimulate mutual learning and reach a consensus about what was at stake and what should be included in the risk framework. As a DuPont project member articulated:

About the structure of the framework (…) it was more an iterative engagement of both sides. We each came in with a model at the start (…) and in the end it became a group perspective.

There was face-to-face deliberation, deliberation via email and conference calls, as well as a joint trip to a cottage owned by DuPont every now and then, where the project members of DuPont and EDF could “work and play together”. The idea behind these trips was that such an informal setting would contribute to build mutual trust, and to gain a better understanding of each other’s positions, views and values (Krabbenborg 2013a). As became clear from the interviews, for EDF it was important to pay for their own expenses, so they could not be blamed of being co-opted by DuPont.

The fact that DuPont and EDF had agreed to co-construct a joint risk framework stimulated interactivity as they had to come to agreements about what should be in the framework. DuPont staff and the project leader of EDF pointed out that there were differences of opinion between the partners on some issues, but nevertheless, as a DuPont staff member recalled:

We had a 360 degree outlook (…) we kept spinning around and everybody would look at it from their perspective.

The project leader of DuPont explained this decision as follows:

The key for our discussion was that we wanted to make the best- informed decisions. So you need all the different perspectives (…) the differences were what made the project robust and comprehensive.

For DuPont, the collaboration with EDF was more than a symbolic exercise (Krabbenborg 2013a, 2019). The nano risk framework became part of its mandatory product stewardship process, i.e. their business process for identifying, managing and minimizing the environmental, health and safety (EHS) impacts of products at every stage of a product’s life cycle. Moreover, based on the outcomes of a pilot during the partnership with EDF, DuPont decided to postpone the further development of a particular nanoscale material (that of Zero Valent Nano Sized Iron Nanoparticles [nZVI] for Environmental Remediation) as there were too many uncertainties and unknowns regarding its possible environmental risks (www.business.edf.org).

A further effect was reconsideration of their initial expectations the partners had of each other. This was particularly striking for Dupont. As a DuPont project member said:

Well personally, it gave me the understanding that there are more science-based NGOs out there, and that as a scientist, one can develop science-based partnerships. That was new to me.

This was linked to a general sense of learning about each other’s perspectives throughout the partnership. As another DuPont project member continues:

There was shared learning as we went into this (…) at the end of this exercise we understood the space (nanoscience and engineering) a whole lot better than when we started.

In fact, during the group interview, DuPont project members said that they were open to more collaborations with NGOs, with EDF, but also Greenpeace was mentioned as a possible dialogue partner, for example in relation to issues of sustainability and energy efficiency. DuPont staff did add that a requirement for such collaboration is that NGOs “leave the politics outside” and “come in objectively”. According to DuPont objectivity means that NGOs should, at least, “understand the science involved” as well as understand the precarious balance companies have to find between stimulating technological innovation, with all its inherent uncertainties and unpredictability, the responsibility that companies have to manage the environmental impacts of new technologies, and the imperative to increase shareholder value.

This comment shows that finding demarcations in what can and what cannot be discussed during a partnership was considered to be important. In this respect, the vice president of EDF also mentioned:

we had a lot of back and forth, on every part of the collaboration. It was founded by what we agreed to work on together, it wasn't like that we could all of a sudden say to DuPont: you know, we don't like the way you are testing particular chemicals or some other part of their chemical policy. Yeah, we could say that, but that would be a whole different project right, so we kept in the bounds of nanotechnology risk framework, but yeah within the bounds of this framework, we debated every single point of that

These comments of DuPont and EDF show that finding grounds for collaboration between a company and an NGO is a delicate matter. Companies have the desire to pursue their business interests and might decide that not every topic is suitable for a joint inquiry. For NGOs, differentiating between what can and cannot be discussed might perceived as a form of muzzling that evokes tensions with their right to free speech.⁴

The wider world: consultation with colleagues

While DuPont and EDF initially worked on this issue in a more or less secluded space, outside the public gaze, they dealt with the disclosure of the results of their deliberations in a sequential way. First, DuPont and EDF did reach out to the wider community via closed peer review (Krabbenborg 2013a). Both reached out confidentially to colleagues (in this case chemical companies, CSOs, labour unions and regulatory agencies) who they knew had specific expertise. Second, towards the end of the partnership, DuPont and EDF also reserved a period of time for online comments on the draft framework because they wanted to be “open to the possibility that somebody else in the world had a better idea”, as the project leader of EDF explained. During this consultation phase, DuPont and EDF received comments concerning what some thought was a rather narrow focus of the risk framework: important societal issues, such as social equity, privacy and economic development, were not addressed. DuPont and EDF noted that they considered these issues important for the broader nanotechnology dialogue, but, as they said, given their expertise, their focus was on environmental, health and safety risks (DuPont and EDF, 12). They deferred these broader societal issues to other stakeholders. In fact, the project leader of DuPont went a step further, equating responsible development of nanotechnology primarily with health, environment and safety issues:

The commitment was trying to identify a systematic and disciplined way of addressing responsible development. If that is your objective, then you are looking at risk management, risk assessment, the science.

This comment reflects a general trend in the governance of emerging technologies, namely to foreground risk and toxicity issues. Rip and Talma (1998) already argued, based on the work of Swidler (1986), that it is now, at least in Western societies, relatively easy to discuss the promises and risks of newly emerging science and technology because a cultural repertoire is in place. A repertoire functions as a toolkit and provides actors such as companies and NGOs with a historically transmitted and publicly available system of symbols, habits, myths, worldviews and exemplars from which actors can (strategically) draw certain elements to make sense of particular situations and shape their actions (Swidler 1986; Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015). Risk and toxicity issues can become a topic for deliberation quite easily, because there is, by now, such a cultural repertoire available for these issues on which actors can rely. There are examples from earlier technologies that can be mobilized. Moreover:

there are professional institutions that have mandates and responsibilities to study the toxicity of chemicals, including nanoparticles, and/or to monitor and inform citizens about health and environmental risks, and publish publicly available reports about their findings. In turn, in concrete deliberation practices, participants can use the reports as resource for their discussion. (Krabbenborg and Mulder 2015, 473)

For other societal issues related to the development of newly emerging technologies, such as the way technology shapes how we relate to the world and to each other (Boenink, Swierstra, and Stemerding 2010; Swierstra and Rip 2007), there is much less of a repertoire available for actors to use as a to rely on (Krabbenborg et al. 2019).⁵

Effects of the partnership and the risk framework in the wider world

DuPont and EDF made the final risk framework public via e.g. websites, a video conference on Youtube and via participation in several conferences. What happened was that both the framework and the partnership attracted praise on the side of industry and criticism, up to rejection, on the side of non-governmental organizations (Krabbenborg 2013a).

A former employee of chemical company Evonik/Degussa offered a nuanced perspective on how he perceived the partnership and the risk framework:

The EDF-DuPont framework struck many industrial colleagues as being obvious. It is a solid re-write of what is expected from any firm when submitting a PMN (pre-manufacturing notification, which is how one registers a chemical onto TSCA) (…) Some of us in industry would have wished to be involved, but there was no invitation to join during the deliberations. There was an opportunity to comment on the finished document (…) but I felt that commenting is a form of legitimizing rather than a genuine opportunity for input. Though I see areas for improvement and though I agree that there is not much new in the nano-risk framework, I must also accept that no one has ever put together such a detailed “how to do it right” document for the 30 years that TSCA has been around. The colleagues at EDF and DuPont did the right thing and deserve great credit from all for their contribution. (Krabbenborg 2013a)

Having an NGO as a dialogue partner during the early stages of the development of newly emerging science and technology, is still quite unusual in the chemical industry. Companies like Evonik/Degussa are receptive to early stage interactions with NGOs, but not just any NGO (Shelley-Egan 2011). EDF is considered as knowledgeable and trustworthy by members of industry. As a spokesperson for a Dutch chemical firm reflected ruefully:

We would like to have such a partnership, but in the Netherlands, NGOs are not that knowledgeable.

There are elements of a broader pattern here (Krabbenborg 2013a). As Shelley-Egan (2011) noted, a discourse is emerging within the chemical industry, in which companies differentiate between “good” and “bad” NGOs. “Good” NGOs (according to companies) know about the science involved and are trustworthy (as we saw, the DuPont staff considered “knowing the science” to be a requirement for collaboration). For companies, “being trustworthy” also implies that NGOs show commitment, meaning that they should not (at least not without notice) conduct activities with different orientations in parallel to their involvement in interaction forums with industry, as this is seen to endanger the market positon of the company (Krabbenborg 2013a). In contrast, “bad” NGOs (“bad” according to members of the industry) are those who do not make the effort to acquire adequate scientific information, but only want to hear those things that affirm their own points of view.⁶ NGOs may well see this differentiation between “good” and “bad” differently because of their (partly self – defined) mandate to function as “watchdog” for society by posing critical questions about claimed promises and by showing alternatives for the newly emerging technologies at hand.

The partnership as well as the risk framework was criticized by NGOs. In fact, by means of a position paper, addressed to the “international nanotechnology community at large”, an international coalition of more than twenty civil society organizations (CSOs) (e.g. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace, ETC group and trade unions), criticized the bilateral partnership as well as the risk framework as “fundamentally flawed” (Civil Society-Labor coalition 2007; Krabbenborg 2013a). They saw self-regulation as a tactic to delay or weaken rigorous regulation, adding that:

We strongly object to any process in which public participation in government oversight of nanotechnology policy is usurped by industry and its allies (…) we do not engage in this process out of well-grounded concerns that our participation (…) would be used to legitimize the proposed framework as starting point or ending point for discussing nanotechnology policy. What is needed is a meaningful and open discussion on societal impacts, and urgent worldwide oversight priorities for nanotechnology.

This reflects a long-standing tension about participation as resulting in the co-optation by the other side (with the “other side” referring to more powerful actors like for example management of firms). However, what we do see in this quote is that the international coalition of NGOs do state that a wider deliberative system is required to address nanotechnology and its societal impacts. This speaks to the criticism within DPA that one-off deliberative forums are insufficient to effect meaningful change and that the goal of DPA should be to increase the deliberative capacity of policy systems (Dryzek 2016; Wagenaar et al. forthcoming)

Conclusion and discussion

Chemical company DuPont and environmental organization EDF saw the deliberative platform they created as a space to deal with a matter of wider, public concern, namely fundamental uncertainty about the health and environmental problems posed to society at large by engineered nanoscale materials. Studying this partnership offered an occasion to assess whether and under what conditions a Deweyean joint inquiry between two apparently adversarial actors could be realized. The first question that this paper addressed was to what extent issues of secrecy, lack of trust and co-optation played a role in the partnership and which, if any, mechanisms EDF and DuPont used to stimulate interactivity.

In the absence of formal governmental action or policies to develop appropriate risk assessment methodologies for engineered nanoscale materials, DuPont and EDF decided to address this indeterminate situation by establishing a space for discursive exchange, a space that was restricted by a non-disclosure agreement. Initially, EDF was not considered a knowledgeable actor by the DuPont staff. “Knowledgeable” was defined by the latter as understanding of the science involved as well as grasping the balance that a company seeks to find between technological innovation, stewardship of technological risk, and shareholder value. However, interaction and mutual learning in the pre-project contributed to the DuPont staff changing their views about EDF as a knowledgeable actor. DuPont and EDF used the opportunity to discuss their values and understandings, and build upon each other’s knowledgeability to define rules and regulations for how to deal with engineered nanoscale materials.

We saw that the deliberative space created by DuPont and EDF was also shaped by delineating the topic of inquiry. The aim of both actors was to create a product, in this case a risk framework, that was robust and could be used by other stakeholders. Such a delineation might evoke several tensions. Firstly, we saw that peers of DuPont and EDF pointed towards the rather narrow focus of the risk framework as other important societal issues, such as social equity in relation to the development of nanotechnology, were not addressed. Secondly, delineating topics for discussion, in particular in combination with secrecy, can be at odds with NGOs right to freedom of speech and the core deliberative condition of being able to put all topics on the agenda.

Thirdly, we saw that the aim to develop a risk framework was already agreed on almost from the beginning. If this had not been the case, the co-creation between DuPont and EDF would probably have included more discussion and negotiation about the nature of the indeterminate situation and the exact product that had to be established (Krabbenborg 2013b). These considerations highlight that the DuPont-EDF project might be an exceptional case for industry-NGO collaboration. When taking the complexities of emerging technologies in mind, one cannot always assume that there is agreement beforehand on the product to be realized in the deliberative space. This means that there are no simple guidelines about how to establish a workable bilateral partnership between a company and a NGO in relation to newly emerging technologies.

The second question concerned: what were the effects of the partnership and the joint risk framework in the wider world? Dewey, as well as DPA, prescribes inclusiveness, i.e. the possibility for those affected by a problematic situation to participate in joint inquiries so as to gain a better understanding of the nature of the indeterminate situation. In this paper, we saw that DuPont and EDF agreed that for governing nanotechnology, a somewhat protected space, in which other actors were initially excluded, might be necessary to conduct a joint inquiry. With regard to deliberative governance, a protected space raises problems. It might allow interactions to be productive on their own terms but may limit their uptake and impact in the wider world as others who did not participate might question the legitimacy of the results.

However, having a protected space to deliberate is at this moment particularly important for companies due to intellectual property regimes and confidentiality of proprietary information. And as the collaboration between DuPont and EDF shows, a protected space does not automatically imply the exclusion of other actors. DuPont and EDF initiated for example a process of peer review and, importantly, the outcomes of their partnership became visible in the public sphere (e.g. via Youtube and a special website). As such, the partnership as well as the risk framework functioned as a point of reference in ongoing discussions by e.g. chemical companies and NGOs on how to best govern nanotechnology. So in addition to specific outcomes of joint inquiries in protected spaces, articulation and learning processes in the wider world can be evoked by outcomes of protected spaces as soon as these become part of the public sphere. In fact, the friction and tensions that were evoked by the launch of the partnership and the framework, provided insight into what is at stake and for whom. Not only with regard to nanotechnology and its pertaining societal issues, but also with regard to what are seen as legitimate roles and responsibilities of industry and NGOs in governing emerging technologies (Krabbenborg 2013a; see also Rip 1986).

As Dewey argues, it is exactly this type of continuous learning and articulation that we need in society to elucidate indeterminacies. So while face to face interactions are important for joint inquiries as emphasized by Dewey and DPA, the DuPont-EDF project showed that that the next required step is to enhance the deliberative capacity of the policy system as whole by making the outcomes of joint inquiries available to the public sphere. In that way deliberation can be extended by those who did not participate in the actual space for interaction, but who are nevertheless affected by the (potential) consequences of new technologies. Choices that influence the development and eventual embedding of newly emerging technology in society are never restricted to one particular point in time or place (Krabbenborg 2013b, 229). On the contrary, decisions are taken throughout the innovation trajectory, and dispersed across different contexts and places, such as laboratories, firms and government agencies. To be able to make better informed decisions based on the outcomes of joint inquiries, these outcomes ideally need to be visible and disseminated in the public sphere.

We can conclude that the creation of joint inquiries between chemical companies and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) is not a matter of course in the wider world. (Chemical) companies may be open to involvement with NGOs but reluctant to give them access to sensitive information. NGOs are reluctant to participate for fear of being co-opted, or have their right for free speech restricted. By engaging in a problem-driven, deliberative process the Dupont/EDF partnership experienced all these tensions, yet managed to enhance reflexivity of one’s own and each other’s position within the governance of emerging technologies. As I already stated in Krabbenborg 2013b, to have more inclusive deliberative governance of newly emerging technologies, competencies have to be developed, both on the side of companies as well as NGOs. For companies this includes willingness as well as the capacity to accept discussion of innovation trajectories, rather than seeing them as given (“take it or leave it”). With the existing governance incentives for “responsible research and innovation” and the emphasis on more dialogue and collaboration, NGOs are faced with the question of whether “to engage or not engage” with companies. They have a right not to engage, but the question of the trade-offs of such decisions has to be addressed. In fact, there is a challenge for companies and NGOs to do justice to the dynamic and indeterminate character of newly emerging technologies. Speaking with Dewey in mind, it is better that they have a measure of flexibility so as to be able to respond to changes and accept tentative approaches, rather than falling back on predefined positions and strict governance arrangements.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes on contributor

Lotte Krabbenborg, PhD, works as an assistant professor Science in Society at the Radboud University, the Netherlands. She is particularly interested in industry-civil society collaborations with regard to the development and governance of newly emerging science and technologies.

Notes

1 Newly emerging science and technology refers to the fact that the technology is to large extent still in the Research and Development (R&D) phase. Characteristic for the phenomenon of newly emerging science and technology is that it is surrounded by a halo of expectations (e.g. to improve healthcare) and concerns (e.g. about novel risks for humans and the environment). However, at the same time, there are many uncertainties and unknowns as nobody can know what forms the technology eventually will take, how it will materialize in society and what the societal impacts might be (Barben et al. 2007).

2 REACH is the European Community Regulation on chemicals and their safe use (EC 1907/2006). It deals with the Registration, Evaluation, Authorization and Restriction of Chemical Substances. TSCA is the US Toxic Substances Control Act, for which the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible

3 The analysis of Dewey in relation to emerging technologies as presented in this article, already appeared in earlier work. For more details, see my PhD thesis (2013b), Krabbenborg (2013c) and Krabbenborg et al. (2019)

4 Industry members of the German NanoKommission, for example, were angry with Friends of the Earth for giving a press conference about their report on nanotechnology in food and agriculture without informing them beforehand (Rip and Joly 2004). From the CSO side, such a concern is unnecessarily constraining and patronizing. This issue was addressed explicitly in the Dutch Sounding Board on Risks of Nanotechnology. During the first meeting, the participating CSOs raised the question of whether or not they were still allowed, as a member of the Sounding Board, to distribute brochures or start campaigns. As a response, the Chair of the Sounding Board requested members to use the Sounding Board as a space to keep each other informed, to provide feedback and to reach common standpoints where possible. He emphasized that at the same time every member of the Sounding Board should continue with their own specific mandates and responsibilities in the wider world (https://www.leefmilieu.nl/sites/www3.leefmilieu.nl/files/imported/pdf_s/klankborgroep%20nano_geagregeerd%20verslag%202008-2009.pdf) (Krabbenborg 2013b)

5 The current focus on risk and safety issues can be understood against the background of the liberal democratic constitution of Western societies where the “no harm” principle is one of the main elements (Mill 2002).

6 In the words of a spokesperson for the Dutch Cosmetics Association: “it is important that NGOs have a good understanding about why nanoparticles are used in products, not because we think it is fun, but because it serves a purpose (…) before NGOs express criticism of our products they should first come to us to inform themselves” (Interview, 2009, translation by the author). In a similar vein, a spokesperson for a Dutch chemical company argued: “NGOs should not state beforehand what is good or not good. That is the sentiment that has arisen today. There are not many balanced stories in the world of NGOs” (translation by the author).