Although environmental integration in the Netherlands has been pursued in a variety of ways, the country stood out for its environmental policy integration (or green planning) efforts during the 1990s, in particular in the form of the adoption of a comprehensive environmental policy (plan), its implementation, and follow-up plans. Although Dutch governments also introduced forms of cognitive-external environmental integration, such as EIA, formally expressed a commitment to sustainable development (cognitive-internal environmental integration) and introduced an environmental clause (Article 21) in the constitution (institutional-internal integration), it is the Dutch approach to green planning that constituted the core of its environmental integration efforts.
During the 1990s, the Netherlands was widely regarded as a leader in the development of comprehensive environmental policy or green planning.[1] This gave it the status of one of the world’s environmentally progressive nations, a model from which other countries could or should learn. However, as the discussion here will demonstrate, green planning in the Netherlands, although innovative, partially successful, and in many ways still exemplary, arguably reached its limits and came to a standstill in the 2000s.
In 1989, following the publication of the first national State of the Environment report that sketched a very gloomy picture of the country’s future,[2] the Dutch government adopted the first National Environmental Policy Plan (NEPP1). The plan was remarkable in many ways. It provided not only a broad factual overview of the state of the environment, but also a rigorous scientific analysis of the drivers behind the environmental problems, making explicit the extent to which all sectors of society, including the main industries, contributed to problems. The plan put forward very ambitious objectives and specific targets for tackling these problems, focused on their immediate sources, often in the order of a 70 to 90% reduction of then-existing levels over twenty years, with the official aim of making the Netherlands a sustainable country within one generation. Moreover, it laid much of the responsibility for achieving these targets with the industries and sectors that contributed to the problems (referred to as “target groups”), based on the idea that those responsible for a problem should own and “internalise” it. Although the ultimate targets were set by the government, industries and sectors were given considerable flexibility to identify and implement the most cost-effective ways to achieve the reductions required. Yet, the government set up a system, including mandatory reporting, to goad target groups towards action and to hold them accountable for achieving interim targets. Meanwhile, it made clear that it would introduce stringent measures if progress towards the targets proved to be inadequate (“the stick behind the door”).[3]
The approach was accompanied and supported by a comprehensive monitoring and reporting system. The degree of progress was assessed and reflected upon in annual state of the environment reports produced by an independent scientific body, the Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu (RIVM). Observers were impressed by the frankness that characterised these reports,[4] which made it difficult for the government to claim success if this was not backed up by the facts. These strengths are essential elements of the capacity for cognitive-internal environmental integration, as they provide a basis for assessing where the environment is at, and for understanding how the environment works.
As the Dutch plan was very comprehensive in its coverage of the environmental problems that affected the Netherlands, identified all the major (proximate) sources of the problems based on independent scientific research and analysis, and laid much of the responsibility for addressing them at the door of those who were found to contribute to them (all the sectors), it was a remarkable example of rational-comprehensive environmental policy. It provided an overarching policy framework for environmental integration across all sectors and levels of society (policy-internal integration) and facilitated environmental integration within each sector, including all non-environmental sectors (policy-external environmental integration).
However, it can be argued that the way environmental problems were defined and analysed, with a strong focus and emphasis on pollution and its immediate sources, gave the Dutch approach a technocentric or even technocratic character. Environmental issues were largely interpreted as technological and/or managerial problems that required solutions in kind, developed mainly by experts. According to Hajer, ecological modernisation, with its belief in the possibility of solving environmental problems mainly through technological innovation, had become the dominant environmental discourse in the Netherlands.[5] Even though NEPP1 was sometimes (mistakenly) said to have been a participatory exercise it was produced with very little public input. As such, it has been referred to as a technocratic, top-down approach,[6] – be it “the best job of technical environmental planning done by any nation to date”.[7] It defined sustainability (“duurzaamheid”) mainly in biophysical terms and objectives, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as argued in Chapter 1, as it makes the concept concrete and meaningful. But it largely ignored issues associated with unsustainable levels of resource exploitation and consumption for which the Netherlands was responsible at the global level. As a small but highly industrialised country with relatively few domestic natural resources and being a high-income and high-consumption society of 17 million people, the Netherlands has a significant impact on the environment outside its borders, an impact that was not adequately accounted for in Dutch green planning, although increasingly recognised. But arguably the greatest limitation of the Plan was that it was not placed within a broader, collectively produced vision of what a “good” as well as a sustainable society (including the economy), should look like, based on collectively deliberated and determined values. Thus, it did and could not provide policy guidance for transformational change, a limitation that was recognised in the fourth iteration (NEPP4) of the plan.
Yet, one of its strengths was that it acknowledged that, to address environmental problems effectively, all the groups that contributed to the problems must carry responsibility for addressing them, even though it allowed flexibility in the ways groups chose to achieve the set targets. As no group or industry was singled out and everyone was expected to “do their bit”, the approach was widely perceived to be fair, even by the industries involved. The express goal was the internalisation (“verinnerlijking”) of environmental concerns and responsibilities by all the main groups in society. Hence, the plan recognised the need to involve all the main stakeholders in its implementation. As such, it provided a sound basis for policy-external environmental integration across all the main sectors.
What distinguished Dutch green planning from the efforts in many other countries was that it was not a one-shot exercise. It was set up as an ongoing process involving regular updates, with four-yearly reviews being made a statutory requirement. In 1990, the plan was amended to include new CO2 emission targets and some additional measures (NEPP-Plus). Further reviews were published in 1994 (NEPP2), 1998 (NEPP3), and 2001 (NEPP4). The reviews left most of the initial plan (NEPP1), and the targets contained therein, intact. NEPP2 and 3 focused foremost on implementation issues. Over time, however, it became apparent that the implementation of the plan was very challenging, and that many of the targets (including interim targets) would not be achieved. Although at times, the government allocated additional funding to address some of the sticky problems, this appeared not to be sufficient.
In many ways, NEPP4 marked a major step towards recognising the broader and deeper nature of the environmental challenge. It recognised that many of the problems were systemic and that achieving the objectives of NEPP1 would require more fundamental change, among other, in production systems and consumption patterns, institutions, including the role of government, and social attitudes. It also identified the emergence of potentially new and very serious problems (notably associated with biotechnology, nanotechnology, and robotics) – touching upon the question of how society could and should gain control over the development of science and technology – and looked at the issues in a global context, recognising the interdependence of the Netherlands with the rest of the world. To advance this systemic change, NEPP4 pointed out the need for the development of a transition policy to bring about the technological, economic, socio-cultural, and institutional change that is required to move towards a sustainable future. Altogether, the report makes fascinating reading, which is unusual for government publications.[8]
However, ironically, the publication of NEPP4 also signalled the demise of the Dutch green planning effort. Arguably, with the publication of NEPP4, the government took the view that the approach that had been followed during the 1990s had run its course and had addressed and reduced the most pressing problems to manageable levels. The remarkable change in the interpretation of the environmental challenge expressed in NEPP4 was never adopted by the government. Rather, it was used to justify a major shift in the role and responsibility of the government. The government that came to power in 2002 significantly lowered its environmental ambitions, while delegating much of the responsibility for environmental policy to the business sector.[9] Although the government did not formally relinquish all responsibility, in practice, it abandoned the previously strong commitment toward policy integration (both internal and external), allowing businesses to set their own “realistic” environmental objectives. Misleadingly, this change in approach was presented as being more democratic—a move away from a top-down approach and shifting responsibility to society. The government abandoned green planning and even the idea that it is important to have an overarching vision of the environmental challenge, as reflected in the fact that after NEPP4 no other green plan was produced. The end of Dutch green planning was also noted by the OECD which, in its 2015 review of the Netherlands’ environmental performance, stated that “Although the Netherlands was a pioneer in the elaboration of long-term comprehensive visions for environmental policy and planning as early as the 1980s, an effective long-term vision has been lacking over the review period.”[10]
In practice, from the early 2000s, environmental concerns were put on the back burner, even to the point that the main responsibility for environmental matters was delegated to a state secretary (not in Cabinet) instead of to a government minister. Although, in 2007, an environment minister was again appointed, government commitment to environmental interests arguably reached a new low when, in 2010, the environment ministry was dismantled, and its responsibilities scattered over other government departments with predominantly development-related mandates. Hence, the state’s capacity for institutional-internal environmental integration was significantly weakened. Many environmental targets were relaxed, postponed, or even abandoned altogether. In 2010, the government openly admitted that it no longer wished to play the role of environmental leader and that it would adjust Dutch environmental norms and ambitions to those set by the EU, which it already found difficult to comply with.[11]
Overall, we can conclude that, during the 1990s, Dutch environmental integration efforts were most pronounced and strongest in the policy-internal area, backed up by excellent capacity in the cognitive-internal field (knowledge basis; environmental monitoring and reporting). These efforts were also well supported institutionally (formal green planning requirement; key role of environment ministry) and made the Netherlands a leader in these areas. They also provided a promising basis for policy-external and institutional-external environmental integration, although efforts in these areas were never strong. NEPP4 signalled a possible move towards a broadening and deepening of the interpretation of the environmental challenge, hinting at the need for transformational change and the greening of non-environmental cognitive frameworks. However, from 2002 onwards, government commitment to environmental integration declined to the point that in virtually all areas environmental capacity was weakened or even dismantled.
This assessment of the environmental integration efforts of the Netherlands concurs only partially with most other assessments of the environmental (policy) performance of the country, as mentioned above, which consistently rank it near the top.[12] However, it should be noted that some of these assessments were based on information dating from before the significant change in government policy in 2002 and that more recently, in the words of the OECD, the Dutch government has “reined in ambitions for environmental policy objectives”. Yet, the country still faces serious environmental issues, in particular in the areas of biodiversity protection (with 95% of habitat types and 75% of species being threatened), climate change, diffuse sources of pollution, and water management. By 2015, in many respects, the environmental performance of the Netherlands was not better than the OECD average, leaving no ground for a claim to environmental leadership.[13] The table below summarises the Dutch environmental integration efforts.
Environmental Integration – The Netherlands
| Domain Dimension | Cognitive domain | Policy domain | Institutional domain |
| Internal dimension | Excellent cognitive capacity, but narrow (technocratic) interpretation and mainly domestically focused | Strong green planning effort between 1989 – 2001; then demise | Weak overall environmental capacity within the government system (Environment Ministry) |
| External dimension | EIA, but no greening of economic framework; no greening of science and technology | Official commitment, but de facto left to the business sector | Dismantling of institutional capacity to advance greening of non-environmental institutions |
With the demise of green planning, the Netherlands also relinquished its status of an environmental leader in environmental integration, and arguably even became an environmental laggard. Given the rather impressive and promising moves towards environmental integration undertaken in the Netherlands between 1989 and 2001, this development is not only highly disappointing but also indicative of the political frailty of such efforts and the formidable obstacles to environmental integration.
Nonetheless, despite its limitations, the Dutch approach to green planning remains worthy of note and still offers valuable lessons for future efforts towards environmental policy integration if the fundamental obstacles to it can be overcome or eliminated.
References
[1] Johnson, Huey D. (1995, 2008, 3rd ed.), Green Plans: Blueprint for a Sustainable Earth. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press; Bennett, Graham (1997), “The Dutch Environmental Policy Plan”, in M. Jänicke, et al. (eds.), Nationale Umweltpläne in Ausgewählten Industrieländern, 73-85; Van der Straaten, Jan (1992), “The Dutch National Environmental Policy Plan: To Choose or to Lose”, Environmental Politics, Vol.1, No.1, 45-71; Jänicke, Martin and Helge Jörgens (1998), “National Environmental Policy Planning in OECD Countries: Preliminary Lessons from Cross-National Comparisons”, Environmental Politics, Vol.7, No.2, 27-54. Environmental Politics, Vol.7, No.2, pp.27-54.
[2] Langeweg, F. (ed.) (1988), Zorgen Voor Morgen (Concern for Tomorrow). Bilthoven Netherlands: Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid and Milieugygiene (RIVM).
[3] Winsemius, Pieter (1998), Interview, 20 May.
[4] Johnson, Huey D., Green Plans: Blueprint for a Sustainable Earth.
[5] Hajer, Maarten A. (1993), The Politics of Environmental Discourse: A Study of the Acid Rain Controversy in Great Britain and the Netherlands. PhD thesis. Oxford: University of Oxford, Trinity, Faculty of Social Studies.
[6] Bennett, Graham, “The Dutch Environmental Policy Plan”, 81.
[7] Johnson, Huey D., Green Plans: Blueprint for a Sustainable Earth, 45.
[8] Ministerie voor Volkshuisvesting, Ministerie voor Volkshuisvesting, Ruimtelijke Ordening and Milieu (VROM) (2001), Een Wereld En Een Wil. Nationaal Milieubeleidsplan 4. The Hague: VROM.
[9] Hoogervorst, N. J. P. and F. J. Dietz (2015), Ambities in Het Nederlandse Milieubeleid: Toen En Nu Den Haag: Planbureau voor de Leefomgeving.
[10] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (2015), OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: The Netherlands Paris: OECD, 25.
[11] Hoogervorst, N. J. P. and F. J. Dietz, Ambities in Het Nederlandse Milieubeleid: Toen En Nu, 19-20.
[12] Jahn, Detlef (1998), “Environmental Performance and Policy Regimes: Explaining Variations in 18 OECD-Countries”, Policy Sciences, Vol.31, No.2, 107-131; Liefferink, Duncan, et al. (2009), “Leaders and Laggards in Environmental Policy: A Quantitative Analysis of Domestic Policy Outputs”, Journal of European Public Policy, Vol.16, No.5, 677-700; Scruggs, Lyle (2003), Sustaining Abundance: Environmental Performance in Western Democracies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
[13] Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, OECD Environmental Performance Reviews: The Netherlands, 6,17,65-69,99.
Humanity on Trial 