Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- PART I THEORY: THINKING ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART II PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
- PART III ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: ACHIEVING A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
- 7 THE ENVIRONMENT AS A POLICY PROBLEM
- 8 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ECOLOGICAL MODERNISATION
- 9 INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
- 10 GREENING GOVERNMENT
- 11 POLICY INSTRUMENTS AND IMPLEMENTATION
- 12 CONCLUSION
- References
- Index
10 - GREENING GOVERNMENT
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Figures
- Tables
- Boxes
- Acknowledgements
- Abbreviations
- Glossary
- 1 INTRODUCTION
- PART I THEORY: THINKING ABOUT THE ENVIRONMENT
- PART II PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS: GETTING FROM HERE TO THERE
- PART III ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY: ACHIEVING A SUSTAINABLE SOCIETY
- 7 THE ENVIRONMENT AS A POLICY PROBLEM
- 8 SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT AND ECOLOGICAL MODERNISATION
- 9 INTERNATIONAL ENVIRONMENTAL POLITICS
- 10 GREENING GOVERNMENT
- 11 POLICY INSTRUMENTS AND IMPLEMENTATION
- 12 CONCLUSION
- References
- Index
Summary
KEY ISSUES
How would the principles of sustainable development change the way governments work?
How might administrative methods improve the integration of environmental considerations throughout government?
What is green planning?
How democratic is environmental policy-making?
Can institutional reforms overcome the political and economic obstacles to greener government?
Governments' general response to the speed and scale of global changes has been a reluctance to recognize sufficiently the need to change themselves … Those responsible for managing natural resources and protecting the environment are institutionally separated from those responsible for managing the economy. The real world of interlocking economic and ecological systems will not change; the policies and institutions concerned must.
[The Brundtland Report] (WCED 1987: 9)In the final two chapters the focus moves down to the national and sub-national levels of government where most environmental policy is made and implemented: Chapter 10 is concerned with the way governments build environmental considerations into the policy-making process and Chapter 11 examines the policy instruments that governments use to implement policy.
Sustainable development, even in its weaker forms, has major implications for the way government works. Environmental governance means that institutions, administrative procedures and decision-making processes all need to be overhauled. Policy elites have to re-think the way they perceive the world so that environmental considerations are integrated across government and penetrate routine policy-making processes within every sector. In short, to achieve the environmental policy integration necessary for sustainable development, government must first transform itself.
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- Information
- The Politics of the EnvironmentIdeas, Activism, Policy, pp. 256 - 283Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2001