A target group approach in flemish environmental policy: Establishing new government-industry relations?

Abstract

This chapter analyses a specific change in Flemish environmental policy: the development of a target group policy. As specific as this case might be, it is one of the many experiments we witness in recent environmental policies throughout Europe. Target group policy is paralleled indeed by a wide variety of new policy approaches aiming at more integrated and more interactive environmental policy making, as other chapters in this volume illustrate. Despite their differences, these experiments basically reflect the quest for a more effective policy on the one hand, while illustrating gradually changing relations between state, market and civil society on the other. As such they are said to represent new styles and practices of governance. The empirical question arises, however, whether and to what extent these new practices actually represent a new environmental policy and under what conditions they institutionalise as new forms of governance. We restrict to new government-industry relations in environmental policies here. Since the late 1980s we witness the emergence of different voluntary approaches in this area: covenants, public-private partnerships and other voluntary agreements between state agencies and industrial branches' representatives, both at national and European level (Carraro and Lévêque, 1999; EEA, 1997; Glasbergen, 1998; Mol et al., 2000; OECD, 1999; OECD, 2003). These new policy approaches have been developed, often in combination with more traditional instruments, to take into account concerns of target groups. A specific example are target group policies, as developed in many EU countries, in particular in the Netherlands and at European level from the 1990s onwards (Driessen and Glasbergen, 2002). Target group policies, firstly, imply the elaboration of environmental policies for specific target groups such as industry, agriculture and consumers. Governmental agencies and branches of industry negotiate on feasible goals for emission reductions or, more pro-actively, for reductions in the use of resources. The subsequent agreements often result in covenants dealing with issues on products and processes, and setting a commonly agreed timetable. At first one might consider this as yet a further step in the differentiation and specification of environmental policy. From a strategic perspective target group policies this can be regarded as the preliminary outcome of the perpetual quest for more effective environmental policies. The implementation of these target policies, however, is explicitly a common responsibility of government and industry representatives. Hence, from an institutional perspective, target group policies also represent new practices of policy making, introducing new interrelations between government and industry, anticipating new institutional patterns. As such, target group policies refer to new modes of governance. In the 1990s the Flemish government announced a so-called 'target group policy' in environmental policy. It was said to aim at policy integration and at target groups' participation, and echoed the quest and ambitions evoked above. A project team was set up to explore the opportunities, and to launch a pilot programme in which governmental agencies and representatives from two industrial sectors are involved. This chapter describes this approach and project, firstly in order to assess whether it indeed represents the so-called shift from government to governance and, secondly, whether it will institutionalise as such. We assess whether target group policies tend to supersede traditional policies, or whether, to the contrary, traditional policies tend to restrain target group policies. To answer these questions we focus on the goals and ambitions of this target group policy, on its actual development and on its chances to trigger real policy change. The first section sets out our perspective and conceptual framework. Section two describes the development of Flemish target group policy. Section three then analyses target group policy as a newly emerging arrangement and looks for explanations for its (lack of) triggering a real policy change in Flemish environmental policies. In the final section some conclusions are drawn. © 2006 Springer.