ABSTRACT
To define 'policy' is a difficult enough task but to characterise 'environmental policy' is much more treacherous. For there is no such thing as a coherent environmental perspective on issues of public importance nor is there likely to be an environmental logic to policy-making in the fore seeable future. The US Government demonstrated this in the report Global 2000 (US Council on Environmental Quality, 1980) which reveals that the models of different federal agencies were not designed to be used together in a consistent and interactive manner. Indeed Global 2000 is being treated as a device to encourage greater collaboration among agencies with respect to an environmentally sustainable development strategy. Likewise the UK House of Lords Select Committee on the European Communities (198la) concluded that the European Commission, the executive agency for the European Community, had developed no way of ascertaining how far its sectoral policies and executive actions in areas such as regional economic develop ment, agriculture, transport and energy took into account the various wide-ranging and long term effects on the environment. The Lords' Committee argued forcefully for the preparation of an integrated environmental strategy that should penetrate all relevant policy sectors, but one senses that for the foreseeable future this is wishful thinking.
