Designing effective environmental policy mixes in the UN Decade on ecosystem restoration

Abstract

The 2020s are starting under challenging circumstances. The impact of COVID-19 recovery plans and the realignment of geopolitics with energy provisioning will be crucial for meeting global environmental policy targets, such as those exemplified by the recently launched United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. How to build a more ecologically viable society, however, remains a contested issue. Several scholars are also highlighting the importance of complexifying environmental policy beyond individual instruments centred on the limiting paradigm of economic growth. Drawing on these considerations, we make a case for Environmental Policy Mixes (EPMs), which can better accommodate a diversity of institutional arrangements, contextual power dynamics, and a multiplicity of environmental targets. In this paper, we first present a database of 146 environmental policy instruments (provided in the annexe) that we collected through a survey of the literature. Second, we develop an EPM framework based on a set of 14 criteria that we then test with a selected group of experts in the field, both academics and business practitioners, through structured interviews and card sorting. Following, we present an adjusted final version of the framework and conclude with two illustrative examples of how to apply it. The first one is a case study of the environmental trade-offs in a natural UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the other investigates how to align COVID-19 stimulus packages with the objectives of the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. The decade ahead is going to be critical for reaching global environmental targets. The EPM framework can facilitate policy discussions and guide decision-makers in tackling the environmental policy challenges of the 2020s and beyond.