One major source of uncertainty in industrial planning is due to the conflicting uses of environmental components by the proponent of an action and the various ‘actors’ who share the proponent's environment. These actors may be government agencies, health authorities, conservancy organizations, or individual citizens. As they all share the environment with the proponent of the action, there should also be a sharing of the decision-making process.

Difficulties of identifying potential actors at the non-governmental level can be reduced by undertaking a rigorous analysis of the environmental components, of the uses which they serve, of the way in which the uses may be impaired by proposed activities, and hence of which users are most likely to be concerned.

The result of such an approach, which constitutes a new style of management ‘from the outside–in’ rather than ‘from the inside–out’, is that industry must involve itself in a broader-based and more imaginative planning process than hitherto. Failure by industry to do this will result in either a progressive erosion of the freedom of decision-making (by increased government interference) or in progressive blocking of industry's plans and consequently a reduction in its ability to achieve its corporate objectives of profit–growth–security in the face of conflict over its operations, its siting proposals, and its products.

Suitable realization by managements of the interdependence of their actions with those of others should lead to the addition of a truly environmental dimension to their traditional function—even without the governmental intervention and pressure-group counteractivity which have become increasingly evident with the growth of the environmental movement in recent years.