National Policies for Resource Efficiency and Waste Management

Structures, impacts, and deficits

  • News 09.03.2016

The paper "National Policies for Resource Efficiency and Waste Management - Structures, impacts, and deficits" by Wuppertal Institute's Bettina Bahn-Walkowiak, Nadja von Gries and Henning Wilts explores institutional and political factors impacting on waste and resource management. It looks at the progress made to date in order to tackle the challenges enunciated by the Roadmap to a Resource Efficient Europe and identifies political, institutional and (infra)structural barriers in national systems that hinder a better performance of resource efficiency.

The empirical analysis of resource policy and waste management regimes and their characteristics in 4/10 EU Member States points to large unexploited potentials as regards innovation and particularly eco-innovation and related investments. The different institutional set-ups and target systems in the countries as well as the diversity in policy choices depicts goal conflicts and strong policy incoherencies and a general uncertainty how to approach a transformation to improved resource and waste management. Conclusions call for better coordinated policy mixes at national level and more coherent governance at EU level.

The paper was submitted to the session "Power relations and overcoming vested interests" of the 11th International Conference of the European Society for Ecological Economics (ESEE 2015) at the University of Leeds. It can be downloaded at the conference's website.


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