SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN THE EUROPEAN UNION’S ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY

Atte Paukkeri

013454566
A CONCEPTUAL WALKTHROUGH OF EUROPEAN UNION SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT
STRATEGY

SUSTAINABLE development, according to the usual and traditional definition, refers to

development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of
future generations to meet their own needs. In more basic terms, this means our growth
actions today cannot risk or weaken the growth prospects of future generations. It is
designed as an umbrella policy with the goal of tying together short-term and long-term
actions and objectives and considering social, economic and environmental factors as a
function of time. Its ideal trends comprise consumption and production patterns that

 protect the environment,

 conserve natural resources,
 shrink income differences and
 alleviate poverty.1

The European Union itself holds its Sustainable Development Strategy (SDS) today as a
practical extension of its seven key challenges, defined as such until 2010:

1. Climate change and clean energy

2. Sustainable transport
3. Sustainable consumption and production
4. Conservation and management of natural resources
5. Public Health
6. Social inclusion, demography and migration
7. Global poverty and sustainable development challenges.2

Most of these objectives are very environmentally-weighted.

As stated, the European Union’s SDS is quite general in nature. This means its
implementation can be less direct and pinpoint than other more precise elements of the
European Union’s environmental policy, such as chemical, waste or energy policy. It is
intended to serve more as a lynchpin for all of the European Union’s actions. The
European Union itself states that “the EU SDS wants to be a strategy for the whole
EU”2. A key ingredient in this objective being fulfilled is the percolation of its
propositions to all levels of EU society – from governmental bodies to business, NGO’s
and normal citizens. Their knowledge of the European Union’s sustainable development
efforts by itself is not enough – responsive activation from each of these parties is
required, according to the EU. With this goal in mind, the European Union has piloted a
program allowing peer review of new sustainable development strategies, creating a
public forum for interaction regarding the subject.2

The EU underlines education, research and public finance as key factors in harboring
more sustainable production and consumption patterns. Every two years, starting in
2007, the Commission has produced a progress report on the state of the current policy
– stressing the importance of effective follow-up and monitoring through a governance
body. The biannual report acts as a backbone for discussions in the European Council
regarding future steps in sustainable development actions.

The EU uses a set of indicators to monitor the progress of initiatives set forth in the
sustainable development strategy. Out of over 100 indicators, eleven have been chosen
to represent headline indicators, in that these most indicate the EU’s progress towards
stated objectives:
 Table 1. Sustainable Development Indicators (SDIs) used to monitor EU SDS progress. 6

Theme Headline indicator

Socioeconomic development Real GDP per capita, growth rate and totals

Sustainable consumption and

Resource Productivity
production

Social inclusion Population at-risk-of-poverty or exclusion

Demographic changes Employment rate of older workers

Public health Healthy life years and life expectancy at birth, by gender

Greenhouse gas emissions

Climate change and energy
Share of renewables in gross final energy consumption

Sustainable transport Energy consumption of transport relative to GDP

Common bird index

Natural resources
Fish catches taken from stocks outside safe biological limits
Official Development Assistance as share of gross national
Global partnership
income

Good governance No headline indicator

A TIMELINE FROM PAST TO CURRENT EUROPEAN UNION SDS POLICY

THE whole of the European Union’s environmental policy comes from very humble
beginnings. The EU’s first steps towards the integration of environmental factors of any
kind into the then very economically-minded EU were taken in 1972. Then, in
Stockholm, the UN’s ‘Conference on the Human Environment’ conference brought to
light environmental issues. Ironically, this response was for purely economical reasons:
after the UN conference in 1972, some European Economic Community member states
decided to enact their own environmental legislature. The EEC saw this as a problem
which might cause trade distortion, as some member states would have different legal
transaction costs than others. In response, uniform European Union environmental law
began being rolled out. Technically, the legality of the new EU environmental policy
wasn’t cemented until 1987 with the Single European Act, in which was included a
‘Title VII (Environment)’.3

From there onwards, the European Union and the European Parliament’s Committee on
the Environment have grown to be world leaders in their right regarding issues of
climate change and environmental regulation.3

Sustainable development earned its own chapter in EU legislature at the Gothenburg

Summit in 2001, when EU leaders rolled out the first EU-wide sustainable development
strategy. The 2001 SDS comprised two parts:

A: A more contemporary outline of methods and objectives directed at

tackling unsustainable trends in the EU

B: A prospective outline, concerning a new angle to policy-making where

economic, social and environmental factors aren’t considered mutually
exclusive, but mutually supportive.2
The European Union reinforced the implementation and monitoring of these
propositions with the introduction of an Impact Assessment, to be submitted by the
Commission for each policy proposal. Impact Assessment is a tool used to evaluate the
repercussions of proposed initiatives in terms of their economic, social and
environmental impacts. It is a series of steps which prepares evidence for politicians and
decision-makers. The Impact Assessment takes advantage of Commission-wide
expertise and receives input from stakeholders to produce a overlook of initiatives as
horizontal as possible. The EU’s official stance is that “the most effective way of
improving the quality of new policy proposals is by making those people who are
responsible for policy development also responsible for assessing the im0pact of what
they propose”.4 The new Sustainable Development Strategy included the environment
as a perspective of the Lisbon Strategy of economic and social renewal.2

The Gothenburg Treaty was complemented by an array of smaller shifts towards a more
cohesive and concrete sustainable development policy.

A review of the Sustainable Development Strategy was started in 2005 by the European
Commission. The review comprised an assessment of progress made since 2001 and
proposed future directional changes in legislature. The review found several
unsustainable trends that had not improved – but had in fact worsened – since 2001:
climate change, threats to public health, increasing poverty and social exclusion,
depletion of natural resources and loss of biodiversity).1

Later in 2005, the European Union announced explicitly that “the renewed Lisbon
agenda is an essential component of the over-arching objective of sustainable
development”. At the end of 2005, the European Commission produced its review, ‘A
Platform for Action’. The review presented a new list of six key factors:1

 Climate change
 Health
 Social exclusion
 Sustainable transport
 Natural resources
  Global poverty

, and presented approaches to each of these problems. The review led to the acceptance
of a new sustainable development strategy, adopted in June 2006, by Heads of State and
Governments of the EU.2

In 2007, the first progress report on the Sustainable Development Strategy was adopted
by the European Commission. The report concluded that despite good policy
development in the core problems of the SDS, the effects of these developments had not
yet manifested as concrete action. The European Council stated in 2007: “The
Commission is invited to present a roadmap together with its next Progress Report in
June 2009 on the SDS setting out the remaining actions to be implemented with highest
priority.”2

The 2009 Review of the EU SDS marks the latest milestone in the policy’s
development. Nothing extremely surprising or drastically different from the previous is
contained in the review – it states that the EU has successfully integrated sustainable
development into a broad array of its policies, and taken a marked role in combating
climate change and the institution of a low-carbon economy. However, the
unsustainable trends still found in 2007 continued to linger, and the review calls for
‘intensified efforts’ on that front. The review prospects on future developments of the
European Union SDS, and how it relates to the pre-existent Lisbon strategy. The review
highlights that future policy focus may shift to target more specifically a low-carbon
and low-input economy, and calls for a more precise definition of priority actions in
future reviews.

SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT IN FINNISH NATIONAL LEGISLATURE

The Finnish Government has set out guidelines for sustainable development policy-
making since 1990. Strategies and programs concerning sustainable development have
been compiled, since the 1992 Rio conference, in an array of areas of government. The
Government’s Program for Sustainable Development was accepted in 1998, and its
implementation schedule was stretched until the 2002 Johannesburg conference. The
national sustainable development strategy was accepted in June of 2006 and finalized in
December of that same year. It is similar to the EU’s SDS in its over-arching and
holistic nature, with a goal horizon set to 25 years future.5

From a Finnish point of view, the most pressing issues and trends in sustainable
development relate to climate change, adaptation to the rapid changes in the global
market, and the change in demographic structure. Globally, Finland’s main focus points
are climate change, global poverty and inequality, and population growth.5 In general,
the qualities of the Finnish national SDS are very similar to the EU-wide SDS.
Finland’s biannual review of the national SDS is even tied to the EU’s follow-up
monitoring process, which is also biannual. Finland’s Committee for Sustainable
Development reports on the finds of the review to the Government using a set of
indicators not dissimilar to those used by the EU in their assessments. The Finnish
Ministry for the Environment underlines the importance of local legislation, i.e.
counties, in progressing sustainable development, saying that many of the goals of
sustainable development are solved at the local level. Decision-making at the regional
level plays a key role in creating an environment auspicious for progressing sustainable
development.7 The Association of Finnish Local and Regional Authorities states that
300 of Finland’s 448 counties have compiled or are in the process of compiling their
own Local Agenda 21, as outlined in Rio 1992.7 The AFLRA is a major proponent of
pushing sustainable development into the programs and planning processes of local
governments.

CRITICISMS, EVALUATION AND PROGNOSIS FOR THE EU SDS

Some criticisms of the whole of the European Union’s Environmental Policy include
the basis on which decisions are made. There can be internal conflict: while
Environment and Development Directorates back a certain environmental policy
forward, they can be countered by the Trade Directorate General who is pushing for a
more economically-weighted decision.3 These conflicts, of course, trickle down to affect
EU SDS-related issues.

Despite the European Union’s efforts to put sustainable development at the bottom of
the decision-making pyramid, there have been concerns that economic competitiveness
via globalisation pressures has a greater influence. Varied statements by commissioners
regarding the balance between competitiveness, economic growth, and the environment
merely underline the lack of unity concerning the priority agenda of the EU.2

Another criticism relates to the holistic nature of the SDS, with some saying it reaches
too far over the whole of the EU project portfolio, making effective monitoring and
relevant focus difficult. A related criticism raises concern for governance of the very
cross-sectional and horizontal sustainable development issue – how can a suitable and
effective governing body be created, and who will it comprise?2

Major overlaps and, on the other hand, deficits have been identified between national
sustainable development strategies and the EU SDS. There is no obligation for member
states to even have a national SDS, and even for countries that do (such as Finland), it is
essentially unclear how they are linked to the EU’s own SDS.2

Before these criticisms are addressed fully, it can be said that the EU SDS program will
not reach its full efficacy and potential at any level. It cannot be denied that forward
progress has been made, and the sustainable development program plays a large role in
the entity of the EU’s environmental policy, which has established itself as a top figure
in addressing global environmental issues.
BIBLIOGRAPHY AND REFERENCES

All sites accessed 16.12.2012

1 Sustainable Development: EU Strategy

<http://www.euractiv.com/en/climate-environment/sustainable-
development-eu-strategy/article-117544>

2 Sustainable Development

<http://www.ec.europa.eu/environment/eussd/>

3 The Development of European Union Environmental Policy

<http://www.suite101.com/content/the-development-of-european-union-
environmental-policy-a227600>

4 Impact Assessment

<http://www.ec.europa.eu/governance/impact/index_en.html>

5 Kansallinen kestävän kehityksen strategia

<http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?contentid=50538>

6 Indicators

<http://epp.eurostat.ec.europa.eu/portal/page/portal/sdi/indicators/>

7 Paikallinen kestävä kehitys

<http://www.ymparisto.fi/default.asp?node=4405&lan=fi>