A considerable amount of the legislation passed by the Scottish Parliament can be seen as falling within the general area of environment and sustainable development, but providing an assessment of it is not straightforward. In the first place there are difficulties over the scope of what should be covered. Not only do environmental concerns and those relating to sustainable development have a significantly different, and sometimes conflicting, focus, but the limits of both of these concepts are uncertain.

A second key element is the need to take account of the extent to which there are significant constraints on the Scottish Parliament's ability to go its own way on many issues. This arises both because some significant matters are reserved for Westminster (for example, the taxes which are a key mechanism in reducing greenhouse gas emissions) and because so much environmental policy is determined at European Union level. A consequence of the latter point is that much significant legislative activity takes the form of subordinate legislation utilising the wide powers conferred by the European Communities Act 1972, rather than requiring parliamentary legislation.

After considering these preliminary issues in more detail, this chapter will consider the role of sustainable development both within the parliamentary procedures and in the substantive content of legislation, as a pervasive issue and where specific substantive rules are imposed. The main areas where the Scottish Parliament has acted on environmental topics will then be examined, followed by consideration of the Climate Change (Scotland) Act 2009, which is a significant measure for both ideas. The chapter ends with an assessment of the Parliament’s contribution in this field.