Per Mickwitz

A Framework for Evaluating Environmental Policy Instruments: Context and Key Concepts

The development of environmental policy evaluation has been slow, compared with many other realms, and many practices are still not well standardized. Environmental problems have some key features; for example they often have long time frames, are complex and concern geographically remote regions. Scientific knowledge is important in environmental policy but such knowledge is characterized by huge uncertainties. The key characteristics of both the problems and our knowledge of them should affect the evaluation of the policy instruments used to address them. An evaluation of Finnish wastewater permits is used as an example throughout the article. If evaluation of environmental policy is undertaken without due consideration of the specifics involved there is a great risk of identifying only minor impacts and low effectiveness. Properly conducted evaluations, however, can help us to make better decisions on both old and new environmental policy instruments.

Evaluating Policy Integration: The Case of Policies for Environmentally Friendlier Technological Innovations

The integration of certain policy objectives into other policy sectors – i.e. policy integration of such issues as gender, regional development, employment and environmental protection – is frequently requested in order to improve public policy. The article discusses the importance of evaluating policy integration as well as the perspective that such evaluations should extend to the outputs and outcomes of policies. Two examples of evaluating policy integration are provided: the integration of environmental concerns into technology policy and the integration of innovation objectives into environmental policy. The findings show that the integration of environmental concerns into technology policies could be increased, especially with respect to promoting technologies that do not have explicit environmental intentions. Similarly, innovation objectives could be further integrated into environmental policies. Evaluations of policy principles, such as policy integration, are important for policy development.

Is it as bad as it sounds or as good as it looks? Experiences of Finnish water discharge limits

Abstract The waste water discharges of Finnish industry have mainly been regulated by permits. The permits contain limits and requirements individually set for each plant, taking into account the ecological characteristics of the specific site as well as the technological and economic features of the plant. Despite great increases in production, discharges into water by the Finnish pulp and paper industry have decreased markedly in recent decades. For example, the total biochemical oxygen demand of discharges in 1997 was less than 10% of the corresponding figure for 1982. This paper examines the development of the limits included in the permits and their effects on the discharges of the entire Finnish pulp and paper industry. Statistical analyses of mill level data are combined with the results of thematic interviews. The results show that permit conditions are only one of several factors responsible for the reduced discharges. In some cases clear effects of permit limits can be identified, whereas in other cases they have had no effect. The study shows that more information can be gathered by combining quantitative and qualitative research methods than by using these methods separately.

Climate policy innovation: a sociotechnical transitions perspective

Seeking to develop a novel understanding of how climate policy innovation (CPI) emerges and spreads, we conceptualise three types of CPIs – genuinely original, diffusion based, and reframing based – and relate these to the sociotechnical transitions literature, particularly the multi-level perspective (MLP) that explains change through interaction between ‘niche’, ‘regime’, and ‘landscape’ levels. Selected climate-related transport policies in Finland, Sweden, and the UK are used to illustrate five hypotheses that connect these concepts from the MLP to particular types of CPI. ‘Original’ policy innovation may be uncommon in contexts with major sunk investments such as transport, principally because sociotechnical regimes tend to be resistant to political pressures for change originating at the same level. Nonetheless, the MLP posits that regimes are subject to influence by pressures originating at both niche and landscape levels. Given that policy reframing is relatively common, it may offer a key entry point for CPI in the short to medium term.

Development policies as a vehicle for addressing climate change

This article summarizes the findings of an international research effort, presented in this Special Issue, intended to identify the opportunities and challenges in creating institutional arrangements that could lock in, and exploit, a dynamic in which development policies alter socio-technical systems and indirectly promote various climate activities. In doing so, it also introduces and assesses intervention theory as a novel approach to analyse the link between international institutions and national policies. The conclusions are based on an analysis of Sustainable Development – Policies and Measures (SD-PAM), a precursor to National Appropriate Mitigation Action, a suggested mechanism in the current climate negotiations, built around a set of national case studies in Brazil, China and Mozambique, covering a diverse set of sectors – biofuels, bioenergy, agriculture and transportation. The article concludes that a mechanism like SD-PAM could play a vital role in promoting the changes in socio-technical systems necessary to meet the 2°C target defined as a precondition to avoid dangerous climate change. Most critically, it constitutes a means to provide recognition for national activities that are otherwise not viewed as climate policies. This could in turn generate (1) new commitments; (2) additional direct funding; (3) indirect financing in the form of tradable permits; and (4) different forms of technology transfer.

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions through development policies: a framework for analysing policy interventions

Creating incentives to promote sustainable development with climate benefits as side effects is the aim of several policy proposals in international politics. Recently, such proposals surface in the negotiations of Nationally Appropriate Mitigation Actions by developing countries (NAMAs). We label such policy instruments Sustainable Development – Policies and Measures (SD-PAMs) after a previously proposed mechanism in the negotiations. In this article an approach for analysing such policy proposals before they have been adopted is developed. The approach is based on reconstructing intervention theories of the proposal(s), highlighting the assumptions about the leverage mechanisms through which change is supposed to occur and the assumptions about the actions through which the interventions are presumed to be implemented. The use of value chains is applied to identify what aspects of a socio-technical system the policies and measures are targeting. Provided international and national institutions to register, control and support implementation, SD-PAMs are expected to provide incentive to voluntary mitigation actions and provide increased possibilities of financing or access to new technologies for implementation. SD-PAMs incentivized by the carbon credits require a too intricate institutional framework to make it effective, compared to those aiming for funding or technology transfer.

Participation and empowerment-based development of socio-cultural indicators supporting regional decision-making for eco-efficiency

Abstract This article describes a process of developing socio-cultural indicators to support local and regional decision-making for eco-efficiency. Although eco-efficiency is calculated using environmental and economic variables, decisions on local and regional levels cannot ignore the socio-cultural impacts. The indicators were developed by a participatory process that was based on involvement and empowerment of local actors. The process ensured policy relevance and meaningful indicators and advanced their future use in the decision-making.