On
June 19, 2007, environmental policy in the European Union took center stage at a workshop organized by the Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) at the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
The workshop brought together representatives of academia, business, civil society, and international organizations for a discussion of new forms of governance and regulation in the European Union and their promise for meeting environmental challenges within an atmosphere of tight government budgets and competitive business practices.
Practitioners and policymakers from the
United States closed the day with a roundtable panel that summarized the lessons of the European experience and called for application of innovative techniques in the
U.S. context.
The workshop formed part of the annual conference of the
Multi-State Working Group (MSWG) on Environmental Performance, a group that aims to promote collaborative approaches to environmental protection, sustainability, and social responsibility.
A key theme of the workshop was innovation and collaboration involving all sectors of society. Jonathan Zeitlin, a professor at the University of Wisconsin and Director of WAGE and EUCE, highlighted the diversity of workshop attendees in his welcome address and sounded an optimistic note on the possibilities for transnational learning that could arise from this exchange of ideas and experiences. Ingmar von Homeyer, a Senior Fellow at Ecologic, a Berlin-based think tank devoted to environmental research and policy analysis, provided a firm foundation for the topic of the day with an introductory overview of four past and present systems of environmental regulation in the European Union: the environmental regime, the internal market regime, the integration regime, and the sustainability regime. Joanne Scott of University College London laid out the core principles underlying innovative EU environmental regulation, including flexibility, proceduralization, experiential learning, and networked collaborative norm elaboration.
With these concepts as a base, the workshop considered four case studies of successful environmental regulation and governance. Peter Kessler, a former Water Director for the German state of Hessen, discussed the Water Framework Directive, a piece of EU legislation requiring substantial improvements in the quality of inland and coastal waters by 2015 through integrated river basin management. Martin Bigg of the U.K. Environment Agency followed with a presentation of the implementation of the Integrated Pollution Prevention and Control (IPPC) Directive, a project that has resulted in waste reductions, improvements in environmental recovery, and increased recycling throughout England and Wales. The third case study concerned the Integrated Product Policy (IPP) Initiative; Klaus Kgler of the European Commission Directorate-General for Environmental Affairs emphasized the innovative focus on the complete life cycle of a product—including production, use, and recycling—encompassed in the initiative. Another European Commission representative, Robert Donkers, followed Kgler with a discussion of the Registration, Evaluation, and Authorisation of Chemicals (REACH) regulation, which replaced a fragmented and inefficient set of regulations with a new and comprehensive system designed to place greater responsibility on the chemical industry for ensuring the safety of its products. Following the case study presentations, Raymond Van Ermen of European Partners for the Environment and Martina Bianchini of The Dow Chemical Company underlined the role of civil society and business in promoting sustainable development and highlighted ways in which public authorities and private business have met the challenge of environmental protection within the EU context.
The workshop closed with an engaging roundtable panel of individuals involved in environmental regulation and governance in the
United States.
Moderator Graham Wilson of the
University of
Wisconsin challenged panelists to identify the lessons of the workshop for the
United States.
Ave M. Bie of the law firm Quarles & Brady noted the importance of holistic approaches to environmental protection that recognize the transboundary nature of climatic challenges.
Rick Otis of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency focused on the importance of political and economic systems in determining the scope and methods of environmental governance.
Finally, Jeffrey Muffat, Manager of Environmental Regulatory Affairs at 3M, reiterated innovation and flexibility as a key component of successful regulatory strategies that give incentives to industry and stimulate compliance.
The
UW-Madison Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) organized this workshop in conjunction with the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Performances annual conference entitled International Dialogue on Ecological Policy.
The workshop was co-sponsored by the LaFollette School of Public Affairs and the
Governance Research Circle with support from the Division of International Studies, the International Institute, and Global Studies.
On June 19th the UW-Madison Center for World Affairs and the Global Economy (WAGE) and the European Union Center of Excellence (EUCE) received joint recognition for teaching, research, and outreach activities in support of innovative systems of environmental governance at the annual workshop of the Multi-State Working Group (MSWG) on Environmental Performance. Professor Jonathan Zeitlin, WAGE and EUCE Director, accepted the International Innovation Award from Scott Hassett, the Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources, and Jeff Smoller, MSWG President.
We invite you to visit the Innovative Environmental Governance and Regulation web page where you can access audio recordings and PowerPoint presentations for each speaker. You can also learn more about our speakers and find links to important related resources applicable to environmental protection.
