What is Policy Instruments for Environmental Protection?  

Policy Instruments for Environmental Protection link policy development and decision making to policy implementation to protect the environment and promote sustainable development. Economic growth brings great risk to the environment and often puts increased pressure on environmental resources. But it is the responsibility of the policymakers to ensure that the risk caused to the environment through developmental projects is kept in check. Environmental protection is central to sustainable development. They can be both beneficial and equitable. Environment protection policies can be used to deter environmentally damaging activities. They also improve social equity and raise revenue.  

Brief History of Policy-Making for Environmental Protection 

Public policies for Environment protection have a history dating back to the ancient Greek and Harappan civilizations. The earliest sophisticated sewer systems were found in the city-states of Mohenjo-Daro. Greeks designed laws to govern forest harvesting some 2300 years ago and some European feudal societies established hunting preserves that limited game and timber harvesting to royalty to avoid overexploitation in 1000 BCE. The increased effects of industrialization and urbanization in the 19th and 20th century threatened human health, Government developed additional rules and regulations for urban hygiene, sanitation, as well as protecting natural resources like natural landscapes and wildlife such as the creation of Yellowstone natural park as the world’s first protected forests in 1872.   

With the ever-expanding development, people became aware of the effects of increased pollution and its subsequent effects on the environment, the dependent ecology, and human life. The emergence of Minamata disease in Japan in 1956 caused by mercury leaks in nearby companies brought to light the chronic consequences of pollution in the 20th century. Following the incident, Governments prohibited the use of hazardous substances and prescribed maximum emission levels to maintain environmental air quality. Various regulatory policies were introduced to regulate air and water pollution, toxic waste management, and other environmental damages caused by growing industries in the modern world. Expanding development also resulted in global environmental concerns like climate change and endangering biodiversity. Nation-states also set up environmental ministries with the view to institutionalizing environmental regulation.  

What are the different Instruments used to Control Environmental Damage?  

Policy-makers often use various methods to curtail and limit potential damage to the environment. The tools used to control environmental damage are levying emission taxes for environmental damages, giving credit rights to companies for reduced emissions, or promoting performance biodiversity, bonds, and guarantees for waste management or rehabilitation. Policy-makers can also devise instruments like capping tradable quota for the consumption of forests, fisheries, to manage depleting natural resources.  

Broadly there are three main types of instruments for formulating environmental policy; Regulatory, Technological, and Economic. 

1. Regulatory Tools: Regulatory policy entails administrative and governmental regulation of human interaction with the environment through policy intervention. This type of policy intervention is also known as the command-and-control principle. This takes shape in various political institutions, policies, and market mechanisms that have been influenced by various social, cultural, and technological conditions. Regulatory tools usually set standards for admissible pollution levels or administer bans and permits for developmental projects. Various nations approach regulatory policies differently. In liberal or socialist nations where the state is understood as an extension of the community, environmental regulation is regarded as a state activity. Whereas, a conservative or libertarian perspective suggests a minimum intervention of the Government in the private agencies' access to the environment or opts for restrictive environmental control. 

2. Technological Tools: Studies suggest that technological changes have been advanced with some stringent regulatory policies. Regulation has compelled innovators to create clean technology. Clean technology or cleantech are technological innovations aimed at reducing environmental damage, it contributes through significant energy-efficient inventions and promotes the sustainable use of resources and indulges in other environmental protection activities.  

3. Economic Tools: Over the last two decades economists have suggested that organizations discharging pollutants in the environment should be made to pay for the damage. The polluter, as well as the user, are liable to pay for the environmentally damaging activities. Economic tools for environmental protection offer an alternative to traditional environmental conservation methods like direct regulation. Economic tools for environmental protection encompass issuing levies for negative externalities of development or offering incentives for pollution reduction. National authorities promote economic costs to internalize environmental costs and to apply the polluter pays incentive in the most efficient manner. Some of the other economic instruments are removal of distortionary subsidies, secure property rights, pollution taxes, user charges, tradeable emission permits, and refundable deposits aim to correct these failures, reinstate full-cost pricing, and bring about a realignment of resource allocation with society's objectives and interests—a necessary condition for sustainable development.  

Market-based and Voluntary Environmental Protection Tools 

Market-based Environmental tools are taxes, charges levies, tradeable permit schemes, deposit and refund schemes, subsidies, etc. These instruments can be used to encourage producers and consumers to change their behavior and promote the adoption of more efficient methods of utilizing natural resources. This method also provides the consumers and producers autonomy to decide how they wish to implement or produce environmentally beneficial outcomes thus preventing environmental degradation. 

Voluntary measures are bilateral agreements signed between governments and private firms, where the firms make voluntary commitments to set up environmental management systems, publishing environmental reports. This tool encourages the producer to change behavior to seek environmentally beneficial models. This could be accomplished through knowledge, training, persuasion, etc.  

Context and Application 

Students who are looking to delve into the field of public and regulatory policy framing can find this subject of relevance. Or individuals interested in developing sustainable developmental models may find it important to study already existing measures and instruments that equip them with the knowledge of the methods that are institutionalized to constrain environmental damage. Students looking to apply to Universities in the school of public policy, regulatory policy, sustainable development, economics, law, and governance may find this information applicable.  

Related Concepts 

• Sustainable development: Sustainable developments implies that the needs of humans be fulfilled without the exploitation of natural resources and compromising the abilities of future generations to meet their own needs.  
• Policy Design and Intervention: Policy design is an effort to efficiently develop effective policies that influence human behavior concerning their surroundings. Public policy comprises complex policy goals and policy means. These policies are designed by in-depth knowledge, experience, and reason to develop policies that are likely to affect their desired goals of the policies’ context.