Environmental Policy Integration in Practice: Shaping Institutions for Learning

Description

Environmental values and concerns are meant to be reflected through environmental policy, which is then integrated into mainstream economic and social policy that serves to govern society and the economy in different sectors. Yet effective environmental policy integration has proved to be very difficult in practice and it remains largely an elusive aspiration. This groundbreaking volume presents the first ever detailed examination of EPI at the national policy level, focusing on the key sectors of energy and agriculture within Sweden, a country that is widely recognized as a front runner in environmental management. The authors deconstruct EPI, look at what it means in policy formation and examine how environmental priorities are treated in relation to other political priorities. The final section of the book lays out the major findings and presents key lessons for international application, including institutional recommendations on how to enhance the potential for EPI. Most fundamentally, the book answers the questions of what works for EPI, why it works, and how it can be achieved in practice across sectors. The result is a rich and indispensable guide for all those involved in environmental and sustainable development policy issues.

Mans Nilsson is a Research Fellow at the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), Sweden, and Director of SEIi? s Policy and Institutions Programme. Katarina Eckerberg is Professor in Public Administration at the Department of Political Science, University of Umea, Sweden, and a member of the Swedish Environmental Advisory Council and the Research Council of Norway. Since 2006 she has been Deputy Director of SEI.

'This very timely and engagingly written book helps to plug a yawning gap in the existing literature by addressing the puzzle of why EPI has proved so difficult to implement even in a country like Sweden, which has traditionally championed very high environmental standards.' Dr Andrew Jordan, Philip Leverhulme Prize Fellow, University Of East Anglia, UK 'This excellent work provides detailed results from a leading-edge Swedish project on Environmental Policy Integration (EPI). The study focuses on how environmental concerns are being integrated into the energy and agricultural sectors in Sweden, and offers insightful analyses of both theoretical and practical importance. This is strategic policy research for sustainable development at its very Swedish best.' William M. Lafferty, Project Director of Prosus at the University Of Oslo, Norway