Introduction

During the 1990s, ecological modernisation attracted increasing attention. In the industrialised democracies, it began to dominate as a way of approaching environmental policy. During the 1980s, many big companies began to adapt their approach to medium and long-term planning in the light of the developing debates about environmental issues. Discussions about ecological modernisation usually focus around clean technology and the elimination of polluting emissions to air and water from manufacturing plants. Ecological modernisation is adopted in a prescriptive way to refer to a programme of environmental and economic policies designed to tackle the range of ecological problems facing governments in the industrialised democracies at the end of the twentieth century. Implicit in the features of ecological modernisation discussed so far is a stronger, more central role for science and technology. Ecological modernisation has created new opportunities for private sector influence on policy-making. The chapter also presents an overview of the key concepts discussed in this book.