There's an old(ish) tech saying "Never buy version 1.0 of anything." The thinking is that the first version of anything hasn't been 'battle hardened' by use and is usually in need of immediate upgrade to make it work as expected.
I'm reminded of this when I hear discussions about changes to new environmental laws - the Carbon Reduction Commitment, the Feed-in Tariff, the Green Deal etc. Most of these descend rapidly into rants about the stupidity of politicians who just don't understand what it's like etc, etc.
As long as I've been in this line of work I've heard similar complaints. I remember a company who a decade ago invested in a waste electronic/electrical equipment (WEEE) recycling facility to get first mover advantage when the WEEE Directive came in. The Government of the day decided the industry as a whole "wasn't ready" and delayed implementation for a year. Frustrating for the company - who had done what the Government wanted - but a year or so before, new legislation on the disposal of ozone depleting substances had led to an embarrassing 'fridge mountain' as there was no capacity to process them, so the risk of delay was there.
One of the most interesting points made at last week's sustainability mastermind group was (I paraphrase) "markets change, legislation changes, that's the way of the world, get over it." I found this a really refreshing point of view - after all we are (largely) talking about for-profit businesses and the first rule of a business is that no-one owes you a living. We are used to working in uncertain markets, so we should be able to handle uncertain policy frameworks.
This isn't to play down the frustration of those affected by Government prevarication, but railing against the world won't help your business. Much better to prepare up front - identify the risk(s), assess potential scenarios and impacts and make the necessary arrangements to manage that risk. Trying to build a whole business model on the back of a forthcoming piece of legislation without considering potential changes, delays and even last minute cancelation is simply naive.
Unintended consequences, unforeseen loopholes, unexpected events, media campaigns, skittish politicians, changes in Governments - there is a whole raft of reasons why laws change, good and bad. But they change - get used to it.
