Key issues

1. ◗ How should the principles of sustainable development change the way governments work?

2. ◗ How might administrative methods improve the integration of environmental considerations throughout government?

3. ◗ What is green planning?

4. ◗ How democratic is environmental policymaking?

5. ◗ Can institutional reforms overcome the political and economic obstacles to greener government?

In the final two chapters the focus moves down to the nation state where most environmental policy is made and implemented: Chapter 11 is concerned with the way governments build environmental considerations into the policymaking process and Chapter 12 examines the policy instruments that governments use to implement policy. An underlying theme is the emergence of ‘environmental governance’, in which governments increasingly work collaboratively with other actors, including business, NGOs and individual citizens, to achieve sustainable development.

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 rethink the way they perceive the world so that environmental considerations are integrated across government and penetrate routine policymaking processes within every sector.