In spite of the growing influence of agent-based models and technologies, the event-based architectural style is still prevalent in the design of large-scale distributed applications. In this paper we discuss the role of environment in both EBS and MAS, and show how it could be used as a starting point for reconciling agent-based and event-based abstractions and techniques within a conceptually-coherent framework that could work as the foundation of a principled discipline for the engineering of complex software systems.