| environ. | cause for concern principle Principle connected with the precautionary principle: it means that, if there are strong reasons for expecting serious or irreversible damage to the environment following a given project, lack of full scientific certainty should not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. Critics of this approach are concerned about large commitments of resources to deal with vaguely defined problems | causa para el principio de alerta |