ABSTRACT
Environmental policy in what was the Federal Republic of Germany dates back to the late nineteenth century. In the 1970s and 1980s the Federal Republic relied predominantly on regulatory instruments such as the establishment of emission standards. In common with the Netherlands, Germany is trying to establish the long-term goal of creating a sustainable economy as the heart of its environmental policy. However, relatively little systematic thought has been devoted to identifying the best mechanisms for achieving the ambitious goals of the framework waste legislation on which German efforts are currently based. A genuine shift towards a sustainable economy implies fundamental changes throughout the economy and the industrial structure. Japan is in the process of creating a national framework for sustainable development. This will be overlaid on a long tradition of flexible agreements between local industries and regulators. In both of these cases, innovation is explicitly recognized as an important means of meeting the environmental objectives with the minimum pain.
