ENVIRONMENTAL POLICY
the Thatcher era had seen a significant reduction in the autonomy, func-
tions and power of local government, LA21 was regarded as an opportunity
tocarve out a new role for local authorities, building on their traditional
responsibilities for implementing environmental regulations. Local govern-
ments were especially attracted by the potential of LA21 to restore their
legitimacy by improving public participation and contributing to local eco-
nomic development (Mason 1999 :ch.6). In short, LA21 took off despite a
lack of support from central government. By contrast, the baseline for many
Swedish local authorities was that they already possessed sufficient auton-
omy and powers to develop innovative and far-reaching programmes for sus-
tainable development, including the use of various eco-taxes (Eckerberg and
Brundin 1999 ). Moreover, the Swedish national government provided much
more support for LA21 in terms of publicity and support networks and by
allocating financial resources specifically for LA21 projects. One critical fac-
tor common to both countries is the presence of individual politicians and
bureaucrats, or ‘firebrands’ (ibid.), dedicated to bringing sustainability onto
thelocal political agenda. In recent years interest in LA21 seems to have
ebbed in bothSweden(Rowe and Fudge 2003 )and the UK, where central
government has encouraged a shift in emphasis onto the development of
sustainable communities and regeneration (Bulkeley and Betsill 2005 : 44).
By contrast, there is evidence that after a slow start, LA21 has started to take
off inGermany(Kernetal. 2007 )and Italy (Sancassiani 2005 ).
Overall, the plethora of green plans emerging at all levels of government
reflects the widespread recognition of the need for a more integrated, strate-
gic approach to sustainable development. Most green plans have proved
unimpressive in design and execution; in particular, despite tentative efforts
toplan better integration, governments everywhere have found it difficult
togenerate sectoral environmental responsibility in core polluting sectors
such as transport, energy and agriculture. Nevertheless, lesson-drawing from
those green national plans, such as the NEPP, that have had some success,
has identified some key characteristics of ‘successful’ plans (see also J ̈anicke
and Jorgens ̈ 1998 : 48–9). In particular, as in the NEPP sectoral target sys-
temitisimportant to have effective monitoring and measurement systems
in place; otherwise it is difficult to include meaningful targets in plans
or to evaluate progress in achieving sustainable development. To this end,
many international organisations and national governments have tried to
develop robust and comprehensive sustainability indicators (Bell and Morse
1999 ; OECD 2003 ). The British government, for example, has published a
(revised) set of twenty ‘headline indicators’ backed up by a further forty-
eight core indicators to provide a select, but manageable toolkit to record
progress in achieving the targets set out in the national sustainable develop-
ment strategy (DEFRA2005b)(seeBox11.4). Ultimately, the most important
lesson is that effective planning requires strong, sustained political leader-
ship that can be institutionalised across policy sectors through legislation,
institutional reform, target-setting and monitoring of progress. One way of