Stephen Young - The Emergence of Ecological Modernisation: Integrating the Environment and the Economy?

Integrating the Environment and the Economy?

Edited By
Stephen C. Young

First published 200
by Routledge
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Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada
by Routledge
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Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group

Transferred to Digital Printing 2006

Editorial material and selection 2000 Stephen C. Young
Individual chapters 2000 the contributors

Typeset in Baskerville by Deerpark Publishing Services Ltd.

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Young, Stephen C.
The emergence of ecological modernisation: integrating the
environment and the economy? / Stephen C. Young.
p.cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-415-14173-7 (alk. paper)
1. Sustainable development-European Union countries-Case studies. 2.
Environmental economics-European Union Countries-Case studies. I. Title.

HC240.9.E5Y68 200
333.7-dc21 00-057635

ISBN 0-415-14173-7

STEPHEN C. YOUNG

BENOT RIHOUX

PETER RAWCLIFFE

ANNICA KRONSELL

MIKAEL SKOU ANDERSEN

MARTIN JNICKE, HARALD MNCH AND MANFRED BINDER

DETLEF JAHN

NEIL CARTER AND PHILIP LOWE

CHARLES LEES

PETER CHRISTOFF

ROBYN ECKERSLEY

Mikael Skou Andersen is a Research Professor in the Policy Analysis Department of the National Environment Research Institute in Denmark.

Manfred Binder is a Research Fellow at the Environmental Policy Research Unit at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin.

Neil Carter is a Senior Lecturer in Politics at York University, UK, and joint editor of Environmental Politics.

Peter Christoff is a Lecturer in Geography at Melbourne University, Australia.

Robyn Eckersley is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Political and Social Inquiry at Monash University, Australia.

Detlef Jahn is Professor of Comparative Politics at the Ernst-Moritz-Arndt University of Griefswald, Germany.

Martin Jnicke is a Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin and Director of its Environmental Policy Research Unit (Forschungsstelle fr Umweltpolitik, FFU).

Annica Kronsell is a Senior Research Fellow in the Department of Political Science at Lund University, Sweden.

Charles Lees is a Lecturer in International Relations and Politics at the University of Sussex, UK; and co-editor of the Manchester University Press Series Issues in German Politics.

Philip Lowe is Professor of Rural Economy and Director of the Centre for Rural Economy at the University of Newcastle-upon-Tyne, UK.

Harald Mnch is a Research Fellow at the Environmental Policy Research Unit at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at the Free University of Berlin.

Peter Rawcliffe completed his PhD at the University of East Anglia before moving to work at Scottish Natural Heritage, UK.

Benot Rihoux is a Lecturer in Politics at the Catholic University of Louvain, Belgium.

Stephen C. Young is a Senior Lecturer in Government at the University of Manchester, UK, and joint editor of Environmental Politics.

During the late 1980s and the 1990s, the concept of ecological modernisation emerged into the policy-making arena in the industrialised democracies. It represents an attempt to reconceptualise the relationship between the environment on the one hand, and economic development on the other. In the 1970s environmental protection was seen within industry and within government as a burden, as creating a choice jobs and growth or environmental protection. But during the late 1980s and early 1990s, some leading industrialists and some policymakers at the national level and within supranational organisations like the EU and the OECD began to argue that it was possible to reconceptualise the relationship between the environment and economic development. They suggested that a new approach to regulation, and modernising industry along ecological lines in response to the environmental challenge, would create an opportunity, a springboard to a different kind of economic growth. The ensuing capital investment projects, policy initiatives and associated debates brought into focus a beguiling idea that ecological modernisation offered a way of greening contemporary capitalism so it would be possible to have economic growth that was benign in environmental terms.

This book concentrates on the early years of the 1980s and the start of the 1990s in order to analyse the emergence of ecological modernisation and to set out its main features. These are discussed in the Introduction which draws not just from the general literature, but from the detail of the individual chapters. uses four models to analyse the normative and methodological assumptions embedded in different approaches to integrating economic development and environmental protection.