This paper compares how forest ecosystem service–related policies are integrated in different national European forest governance contexts. Efforts to achieve policy integration at the EU and national levels are often described in terms of limited success. Our analysis of forest, energy/bioeconomy, climate, and conservation policies suggests that notions of progress or failure merit careful assessment. Combining theories of policy integration (PI), environmental policy integration (EPI), and policy coherence, we argue that integration outcomes depend on the combined effects of the degree and nature of PI, EPI, and multilevel coherence in the context of the prevailing forest governance system. The nature of the interdependencies, specifically anticipated synergies, and the scope of FES-related climate objectives, are crucial. Realizing the range of FES-related objectives entails safeguarding objectives not synergistically aligned with economic aims. Failures to safeguard biodiversity and regulating and cultural ecosystem services in the process of integration may have far-reaching consequences.

In this paper, we develop a framework for understanding the different spheres of authority of chiefs aiming to widen the perspectives on how government-chief interactions affect the governance process. The framework is applied in our analysis of interviews with government actors involved in area protection in the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (GLTFCA). Our results illustrate the variety of approaches and perceptions towards governance with chiefs that exist amongst government actors within the same governance system. Although government actors perceive chiefs in the GLTFCA as a parallel system, chiefs can act as a rival, mediator, adviser, or partner to the government; thus, both enable or hamper government governance.  The informal governance arrangements found in the data between government actors and chiefs moreover underscores the importance of qualitative case studies of hybrid governance systems.

The chemical stabilization, or immobilization, of trace elements (metals and metalloids; TE) in contaminated soil has been studied for decades. A vast number of scientific publications are available on the method performance in laboratory settings, reporting that the application of various soil amendments to contaminated soil reduces TE mobility, bioavailability and toxicity. The most commonly used soil amendments include organic matter, iron oxides, phosphates, ashes, and lately biochar, alone or in combination with each other and/or lime. Most of the implemented field studies show a certain degree of improvement in soil and/or vegetation status following amendment. Regardless the positive performance of the technique in the laboratory, field validations and demonstrations remain scarce. The establishment of a field experiment often involves permits from authorities and agreements with site owners, both of which are considerably more time-consuming than laboratory tests. Due to conservative institutional structures, public authorities have been slow to adopt alternative remediation technologies, especially when the total TE concentration in soil remains the same and all of the associated risks are not yet convincingly described. For this reason, researchers should also focus on enhancing public knowledge of alternative remediation techniques so that future projects which aim to demonstrate the effectiveness of in situ immobilization techniques under natural conditions will be supported.

Has the Swedish Climate Policy Framework – including the new Swedish Climate Act – adopted in June 2017, been conducive to advancing climate mitigation, and if so, to what extent and in which aspects? Although Sweden is often described as a frontrunner in climate work, several evaluations prior to the adoption of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act concluded that Swedish climate policy has suffered from both implementation and monitoring deficits, as well as from the fact that climate goals and strategies were non-legally binding. Taken together, such deficits make the stable, long-term prioritizing of climate mitigation over other sector policies increasingly difficult, thus limiting the possibilities to reach future targets. This article focuses on three dimensions of climate policy integration – assessing policy processes, outputs and outcomes – with the aim to analyse political developments and policy outcomes in Sweden after the implementation of the Climate Policy Framework and the Climate Act. The results of a comprehensive set of interviews with policy experts and high-level decision-makers show that the framework is believed to have had important effects, mainly in terms of changing both policy language, cross-sector coordination, and increasing the prioritization of the climate issue. Thus the study (1) contributes to a better theoretical and empirical understanding of Climate Change Acts as instruments for climate policy integration; (2) paves the way for future comparative studies; and (3) presents important practical lessons for policy makers on the effects of legal mechanisms to achieve climate mitigation.

This paper explores the relationship between different types of multi-level governance systems and policy coherence (i.e., uniformity of goals and rules) through a study of the governance systems for water and large carnivores in Sweden. The study objects represent multi-level governance systems for contested natural resources in the same national context, though in different policy areas and with substantial differences in institutional arrangements. We define the characteristics of each governance system through an institutional analysis of official records and compare their perceived ability to promote coherence through a statistical analysis of survey data. Our empirical results both support and problematize common ideas about how different institutional features relate to policy coherence in multi-level governance. The results clearly indicate that multi-level governance systems are challenged by conflicting goals and rules, both within and across governance systems, and that the capacity to address these difficulties is generally perceived as wanting in both types of systems. The results tentatively suggest that clashes with other governance systems are more prominent in polycentric and ecologically based systems, while internal goal and rule conflicts are more prevalent in centralized and more traditionally organized systems.

The findings contribute to our understanding of the quandaries associated with the design of new governance systems. The study also contributes important insights into what features to focus on in attempts to mitigate the downsides of different institutional arrangements in multi-level governance systems.  

How do different multi-level governance models influence the adaptive capacity of environmental management? This paper examines the connection between different types of governance models, distinguished by diverse institutional features, and elements of adaptive capacity. The task is undertaken through a comparative study of two differently organized management systems within the same national context: Swedish water and large carnivore management. The systems’ governance models are defined through an institutional analysis of polycentric features, logics of design and knowledge arrangements. Assessments of adaptive capacity are based on survey data describing the involved actors' perceptions of the knowledge base, use of an experimental approach and the presence of learning. The empirical results suggest that institutional features influence some, but not all, elements of adaptive capacity. The results lend support to the idea that polycentric governance models, based on an ecological rationale, sustain participation in knowledge mobilization, support the use of an experimental approach and promote learning to a larger extent than more centralized and hierarchical governance models do; while there is no connection between governance model and the perceived reliability of knowledge base. The study contributes to environmental governance research, policy and practice by evaluating the adaptive capacity of current water and wildlife management systems in Sweden and by increasing our knowledge about how different governance models influence the adaptive capacity in environmental management.

Contemporary processes of environmental policymaking in general span over several territorial tiers. This also holds for the EU Water Framework Directive system of environmental quality standards (EQS), which are part of a complex multi-level institutional landscape, embracing both EU, national and sub-national level. Recent evaluations show that many EU member states, including Sweden, have not reached the ecological goals for water in 2015. Departing from theories on policy coherence and multi-level governance, this paper therefore analyses Swedish water governance as a case to further our understanding of policy implementation in complex governance structures: how does policy coherence (or the lack thereof) affect policy implementation in complex governance structures? To answer this question, the paper maps out the formal structure of the water governance system, focusing on power directions within the system, analyses policy coherence in Swedish water governance through mapping out policy conflicts between the EQS for water and other goals/regulations and explore how they are handled by national and sub-national water bureaucrats. The study concludes that without clear central guidance, ‘good ecological status’ for Swedish water will be difficult to achieve since incoherent policies makes policy implementation inefficient due to constant power struggles between different authorities, and since environmental goals are often overridden by economic and other societal goals. Further research is needed in order to explore if similar policy conflicts between water quality and other objectives occur in other EU member states and how bureaucrats handle such conflicts in different institutional settings. This study of the Swedish case indicates that the role of the state as a navigator and rudder-holder is important in order to improve policy implementation in complex governance structures – otherwise; bureaucrats risk being lost in an incoherent archipelago of ecological, social and economic goals.

A central principle within UN and EU policy is environmental policyintegration (EPI), aiming at integrating environmental aspirations, targetsand requirements into sector policy in order to promote sustainabledevelopment. The focus of this study is EPI in bioenergy policy. Bioenergy isa renewable energy source of increasing importance in the EU and Swedishenergy mix. At the same time, it is debated how environmentally friendlybioenergy really is. Furthermore, bioenergy can be considered both a multisectorand a multi-level case, since bioenergy is produced in many differentsectors and bioenergy policy is formulated and implemented on differentlevels. Therefore, EPI in bioenergy policy is here analysed over time in twosectors (energy and agriculture) and on three levels (EU, national, subnational).A cognitive, policy learning perspective on EPI is adopted, tracingEPI through looking for reframing of policy towards incorporatingenvironmental objectives in policy rhetoric and practice. Furthermore,institutional and political explanations for the development are discussed.Paper I analyses EPI in Swedish bioenergy policy within energy andagriculture. Paper II analyses institutional conditions for multi-sector EPI inSwedish bioenergy policy. Paper III analyses EPI in EU bioenergy policywithin energy and agriculture. Paper IV analyses sub-national EPI in thecase of the Biofuel Region in north Sweden. The material examined consistsof policy documents complemented by semi-structured interviews.Together, the four papers provide a more complex and holistic picture ofthe EPI process than in previous research, which mainly has focused onstudying EPI in single sectors and on single levels. The study shows thatpriorities are different on different levels; that EPI has varied over time; butthat EPI today is detectable within bioenergy policy in both studied sectorsand on all levels. Policy learning in bioenergy is found to be mainly a topdownprocess. Furthermore, policy coherence between sectors and levels;long-term goals; and concrete policy instruments are found to be importantboth for the EPI process as such and for the outcomes from this process.However, when attempting to marry different goals, such as growth, securityand sustainability, in line with the three-tiered (economic, social, ecologic)sustainable development concept, environmental aspects risks not to beprioritised when goal conflicts arise. The study proposes that future researchboth continues the analysis of multi-sector and multi-level EPI, and furtherexplores to what extent ecological sustainability is improved by EPI.

Given the planned bioenergy expansion within the EU, this paper explores EPI inEU bioenergy policy with a multi-level governance perspective. The paperexplores how EU bioenergy policy is framed; to what extent do environmentalconsiderations underpin policy decisions and to what extent are other factorssuch as supply security or cost-efficiency emphasised? Secondly, given thatimplementation of bioenergy policy within the EU depends on a multilevelgovernance (MLG) system, the paper also explores the implications of EUbioenergy policies for Member State’s ability to promote EPI in bioenergydevelopment. To this aim, the relation between European bioenergy policy andSwedish bioenergy policy is discussed. To what extent is the EU’s framing ofbioenergy parallel to the Swedish framing of the issue? And, in what way doesthis frame compliance/frame clash shape the prospects to promote EPI inSwedish bioenergy policy? Furthermore, the paper analyses to what extentrenewable energy goals are integrated into the EU:s common agricultural policy(CAP). In explicit, it explores the question; does CAP contain measures toincrease the supply of biomass from agriculture? And, if bioenergy is addressedwithin CAP, in what way is the issue framed within the agricultural sector? Arethere differences between the energy sector and agricultural sector in this sense?The paper draws some tentative conclusions on the development of EPI andpolicy coordination in EU bioenergy policy and on the implications of EU policy forEPI in Swedish bioenergy policy and provides thought for future research.

What institutional conditions seem relevant for multi-sector environmental policy integration (EPI) and its outcomes? Analysing the Swedish bioenergy policy process, which represents a positive case of multi-sector environmental policy integration, it is argued that open actor access, use of environmental knowledge, monitoring mechanisms, and both environment-sectoral and inter-sectoral policy coordination are conducive for multi-sector environmental policy integration, which is also affected by external events. To achieve outcomes from multi-sector environmental policy integration, monitoring mechanisms as well as inter-sectoral policy coordination are important. Key words: environmental policy integration; multi-sector EPI; policy coordination; institutions; bioenergy

The integration of environmental issues into sectoral policies is also known as environmental policy integration (EPI), a concept that can be described as a process of learning across frames. The article examines the role of intersectoral policy coordination for the outcomes from EPI in multisectoral issues. Through the application of thematic idea analysis, it explores the development of EPI in Swedish policies regarding agricultural bioenergy production—energy and agricultural policy—with specific focus on energy forest cultivation. Policies in both the sectors are then compared in a discussion of what role intersectoral policy coordination plays for the outcomes from EPI in multisectoral issues, exemplified by Swedish energy forest cultivation.

The integration of environmental issues into sectoral policies is also known as environmental policy integration (EPI), a concept that can be described as a process of learning across frames. The article examines the role of policy coordination in achieving sustainable outcomes as a result from EPI in a multisectoral issue. Through the application of thematic idea analysis, it explores the development of vertical EPI in Swedish policies regarding agricultural bioenergy production – energy and agricultural policy – with specific focus on energy forest cultivation. The policies in the two sectors are then compared in a discussion of the role of policy coordination for the achievement of sustainable outcomes from EPI, with regards to energy forest cultivation.

What are the sub-national implications, in policy and practice, of environmental policy integration (EPI) in EU and Swedish bioenergy policy? Focusing on the exceptional bioenergy expansion within the Biofuel Region in north Sweden, this paper discusses cross-level implications of supranational and national policy decisions on bioenergy; whether environmental perspectives are observable also in sub-national bioenergy discussions; and explores the drivers of sub-national bioenergy development in a multi-level governance setting. The study finds that higher-level EPI plays an important role for sub-national bioenergy development. The degree of sub-national EPI in bioenergy and the type of renewables invested in is to a large extent set by top-down influence from the EU and national level through agenda setting, policy goals and economic mechanisms. Local policy entrepreneurs play an important role for finding ‘win-win’-solutions that can help initiating local energy projects and ensure sub-national EPI, but environmental-economic – rather than merely economic – motives for getting involved are important to ensure long-term local commitment to renewable energy projects.

Growing concerns over emissions of green-house gases causing climate change as well as energy security concerns have spurred the interest in bioenergy production pushed by EU targets to fulfil the goal of 20 per cent renewable energy in 2020, as well as the goal of 10 per cent renewable fuels in transport by 2020. Increased bioenergy production is also seen to have political and economic benefits for rural areas and farming regions in Europe and in the developing world. There are, however, conflicting views on the potential benefits of large scale bioenergy production, and recent debates have also drawn attention to a range of environmental and socio-economic issues that may arise in this respect. One of these challenges will be that of accommodating forest uses – including wood for energy, and resulting intensification of forest management – with biodiversity protection in order to meet EU policy goals. We note that the use of biomass and biofuels spans over several economic sector policy areas, which calls for assessing and integrating environmental concerns across forest, agriculture, energy and transport sectors.In this paper, we employ frame analysis to identify the arguments for promoting bioenergy and assess the potential policy conflicts in the relevant sectors, through the analytical lens of environmental policy integration. We conclude that while there is considerable leverage of environmental arguments in favour of bioenergy in the studied economic sectors, and potential synergies with other policy goals, environmental interest groups remain sceptical to just how bioenergy is currently being promoted. There is a highly polarised debate particularly relating to biofuel production. Based on our analysis, we discuss the potential for how those issues could be reconciled drawing on the frame conflict theory, distinguishing between policy disagreements and policy controversies.

This report describes the status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, the drivers and pressures affecting them, interactions and effects on people and society, and options for governance. The main report consists of two volumes. Volume 1 The general overview (this report) and Volume 2 The geographical case studies. This study has been inspired by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services (IPBES). It departs from case studies (Volume 2, the geographical case studies) from ten geographical areas in the Nordic countries (Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden) and the autonomous areas of Faroe Islands, Greenland, and Åland. The aim was to describe status and trends of biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Nordic region, including the drivers and pressures affecting these ecosystems, the effects on people and society and options for governance. The Nordic study is structured as closely as possible to the framework for the regional assessments currently being finalized within IPBES. The report highlights environmental differences and similarities in the Nordic coastal areas, like the inhabitants´ relation to nature and the environment as well as similarities in social and policy instruments between the Nordic countries. This study provides background material for decision-making and it is shown that Nordic cooperation is of great importance for sustainable coastal management and should be strengthened in future work.

This paper addresses how the design of collaborative regimes influences markers of legitimacy in Swedish water- and large carnivore governance. Based on institutional analysis and statistical analysis of survey data, the study examines two systems with different types of collaborative designs and compares them in relation to markers of legitimacy, in terms of perceived process quality, policy agreement and policy acceptance among the involved decision-making actors and concerned organizations. The findings show how the design of collaboration influences some, but not all, explored markers of legitimacy. First, the categories of actors involved; whom they are accountable to; and the authority given to the collaborative forums, effect perceptions of influence, the possibility of reaching joint agreements and the degree of policy agreement among involved decision-makers. Second, the findings indicate that the degree of policy agreement among concerned organizations is unaffected by differences in institutional design. Third, the degree of policy acceptance among involved decision-making actors and concerned organizations was unaffected by institutional design and notably high in both systems. The results both verify and develop previous research findings and the message to policymakers is to carefully consider the design when introducing new collaborative forums, including whom to invite, in what role, and with what mandate.