In Sweden, landfills are excavated on a relatively modest scale (mainly for the purpose of decontamination, to increase landfill capacity or to free up land for other uses). Lately however, aspirations for excavations aimed at recovering energy and materials have increased and an important goal according to the Mineral Strategy of Sweden is to increase the recycling rate of metals and minerals and reduce the amount of waste. The incidence of certain (critical) metals and minerals, including REE and phosphorus, is moreover assumed to be relatively large in Swedish landfills, and the interest in excavating landfills is therefore expected to increase. The legal situation as regards excavation of landfills in general and of mining waste in particular, is however unclear, not least regarding permit requirement according to the Swedish Environmental Code. Even though landfill recycling may entail numerous negative environmental effects, e.g., acidic and metallic leachate, release of gases, and destabilization of land the regulation of the activity is not clear. The aim of this paper is to describe and problematize the legal situation as regards landfill excavation in Sweden against the backdrop of, on the one hand, a potential increase in the demand for recycled metals and minerals, and on the other hand comprehensive requirements for a non-toxic and healthy environment.

Drawing a line between what constitutes a potentially hazardous waste and what is instead a possible resource is complicated. A case in point is the use of sewage sludge, whose use not least in agriculture, has long been subject of debate. In Sweden, the issue has been investigated for possible legislative changes four times in the past decades. The latest of these investigations propose to introduce either a total or a partial ban on agricultural use of sewage sludge. In this paper, the legality of these proposals is analyzed with particular focus on their compatibility with the precautionary principle and the EU principle of free movement of goods and services, using a traditional legal method. The analysis indicates that a partial ban may well be considered proportionate to the risks that the use entails for human health and the environment, whilst a total ban would likely be found in breach of EU law, despite the scope for Member States to take stricter measures than prescribed by secondary legislation.

The paper analyzes the prerequisites for a regulatory-driven transition toward radically lower air and water pollution in industry. This is achieved in the empirical context of the Swedish mining and metals industry, and by investigating the environmental licensing processes during two regulatory systems. The paper derives an analytical framework that explores under what circumstances such licensing processes can result in radical emissions reductions without seriously jeopardizing the competitiveness of the industry. Archived material covering six environmental licensing processes, three during each system, is used to illustrate the various design and implementation issues. The results suggest that regulatory-driven green transitions benefit from trust-based bargaining procedures in which companies are involved in repeated interactions with regulatory authorities, and which extended probation periods permit tests of novel abatement technologies (including innovation). The findings also illustrate the importance of abstaining from simplified normative notions about policy instrument choice (e.g. taxes versus standards).

It is believed that most of the production problems in modern mining industry could be solved solely by applying technical tools such as better machinery, more accurate models or more advanced technology. Geometallurgy was initially introduced as a tool aimed to improve production performance by integrating geological and process information into a predictive model. However, the actual benefits of geometallurgy cannot be achieved without considering actors involved and strategic decisions made by the management in addition. The purpose of this paper is to introduce a framework of decision-making in which technical and managerial aspects of the geometallurgy are fully integrated. This framework is aimed to be used for improving predictability of the geometallurgical programmes.

This paper studies how fisheries services are classified in the World Trade Organization (WTO) framework for trade in services and discusses the potential impact of unclear classifications. The WTO plays a key role in regulation and assessment in the area of trade in services, mainly due to the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS), which contains the only set of multilateral rules managing such trade internationally. The purpose of GATS is to create a credible and reliable system of international trade rules that ensures fair treatment of all participants. Through negotiations, individual countries establish commitments to provide market access and limiting national treatment in various service sectors. During such negotiations, the classification of services is a prerequisite to ensure unambiguous and comparable commitments. However, the classification list used by the WTO, namely the W/120, is based on, and corresponds to, old versions of other classification lists, leading to unclear classifications. This lack of clarity in sectoral classifications makes policy analysis unnecessarily difficult and creates a risk that trade agreements may be interpreted differently by different parties.

The EU Water Framework Directive (WFD) prescribes environmental objectives and an adaptive water governance system. This article analyses the Swedish implementation of the WFD through a review of high-profile Swedish court cases regarding the application of the WFD environmental objectives in individual authorisation processes for water operations. The selection of court cases represents both the time before and after the Court of Justice of the European Union’s Weser case in 2015. The results indicate an inertial tendency in the legal application of the WFD environmental objectives in Swedish courts, including a reluctance to fully apply EU law as interpreted by the CJEU. The overall conclusion is that traditional legal certainty aspects often trump flexibility and a high level of environmental protection as desired in the adaptive water governance system of the WFD. This raises questions about judicial preconceptions and the procedural autonomy of the Member States vis-à-vis the ‘effet utile’ of EU law through judicial implementation.

This article explores and analyzes the nexus between climate change, environmental threats, and cyber-threats in a multi-regulatory contextual sustainable global approach with Sweden as an example. Research and collection of material have been conducted with the precise aim to draw a parallel between environmental regulations and the cyberspace and cybersecurity systems. Many aspects of the cyber-security system are not known and are highly fragmented. Selected points of the study of the Swedish cyber strategy are being developed in parallel to the environmental regime in order to better understand how to improve the effectiveness of the cyber complex regime from a contextual perspective. One way to better understand the cybersecurity system is to make an interdisciplinary study of how best to coordinate these systems, thus making both cyber law and policy more effective. This leads to bringing evidence on how to take inspiration from a regime system (environmental law or, more concretely, the environmental liability framework) and using it as source of inspiration to understand and shape the formation of another system in another area, namely cybersecurity. The method of this ongoing research consists of choosing and applying key aspects of environmental law (such as concepts and principles) and comparing them with comparable selected cybersecurity key aspects, which are selected because they present strong similarities with their “equivalent” focal points pertaining to the environmental system. When conducting this comparison, multi-level governance is applied too, which means analysis of the sources of law and policy existing at Global/Regional/National (local) levels in order to understand the interactions between different levels. The analytical task of the research consists of choosing some focal points from the environmental liability system that are very similar and comparable to those of the cyber regime.

Mineral resources are a considerable basis of wealth of the northern regions of Fennoscandia. However, there are striking differences between how this wealth has been distributed in different countries: in many regions of the world, plentiful natural resources have led to conflicts and impoverishment rather than local development. This chapter aims to explain the historical development of the mining industry in northern Fennoscandia and its changing institutional frameworks from a historical perspective. The main questions are: How was the mining industry in the region established, and why? How did it change over the course of this period, and why? What path dependencies linger on in the present, and how do they influence perceptions of the future? What are the differences and similarities between Sweden, Norway, Finland and northwestern Russia, and why? The chapter will cover an extensive time frame, starting in the 1600s but with a focus on 1880–present and a perspective on the future.

Rural land-use planning should handle land-use interests, such as nature-based tourism, biodiversity preservation and industrial resource extraction, on an appropriate level of scale. Management for multifunctionality represents an option in factually multifunctional landscapes. The Swedish policy of national interests, as applied in the context of the three northernmost municipalities’ statutory comprehensive plan-making, provides an attempt in this direction. Based on mapping and practitioner interviews, the study reveals that the vague ‘practical’ implications of the omnipresent land-use designations under the policy complicate the task of local-level spatial planning. Integrated consideration of multiple uses (or use options), implicated by policy principles, was found to fall back into case-by-case assessments. Land-use designation can be worked into a tool for the governance of multifunctional landscapes when care is taken to manage the aspects outlined in the study, among others interagency orchestration and explicit regulation of co-existence.

I den här studien analyserar vi hur miljöprövningen kan utformas för att driva på miljöarbetet vid etableringen av stora kunskapsintensiva investeringar (SKI), utan att äventyra konkurrenskraften. Frågan är central eftersom miljöprövningen ofta är ett viktigt ramvillkor vid SKI. Studien visar att en planerad lokalisering, tydliga riktlinjer för miljöprövning av nya verksamheter och bättre förutsättningar för en kontinuerlig miljöanpassning är viktiga faktorer. Studien utgår från tidigare forskning och egna fallstudier av tre SKI-relaterade verksamheter: Facebooks datacenter i Luleå, Northvolts batterifabrik i Skellefteå och Preems raffinaderi i Lysekil.

Flooding is the most common of all natural disasters and accounts for large numbers of casualties and a high amount of economic damage worldwide. To be ‘flood resilient’, countries should have sufficient capacity to resist, the capacity to absorb and recover, and the capacity to transform and adapt. Based on international comparative research, we conclude that six key governance strategies will enhance ‘flood resilience’ and will secure the necessary capacities. These strategies pertain to: (i) the diversification of flood risk management approaches; (ii) the alignment of flood risk management approaches to overcome fragmentation; (iii) the involvement, cooperation, and alignment of both public and private actors in flood risk management; (iv) the presence of adequate formal rules that balance legal certainty and flexibility; (v) the assurance of sufficient financial and other types of resources; (vi) the adoption of normative principles that adequately deal with distributional effects. These governance strategies appear to be relevant across different physical and institutional contexts. The findings may also hold valuable lessons for the governance of climate adaptation more generally.

International trade and climate change have increased the movement potential for invasive alien species (IAS), including invasive pests and pathogens (IPPs), to the point where biological invasions are considered one of the major threats to biodiversity. However, practical implementation of plant health with regard to IAS and IPPs is difficult: regulative responsibilities are commonly spread across different authorities, and resources on the ground are often limited. Based on a legislative and literature review and semi-structured qualitative interviews (N = 7), the present study examines the possibilities and potential risks of monitoring and detection of forest invasive species in Sweden, with a particular focus on forest plant nurseries. The study thus adds practical implementation aspects concerning possibilities to limit the spread of invasive species in the plant trade.

Legitimacy has received comparatively less attention than societal resilience in the context of flooding, thus methods for assessing and monitoring the legitimacy of flood risk governance arrangements are noticeably lacking. This study attempts to address this gap by assessing the legitimacy of flood risk governance arrangements in six European countries through cross-disciplinary and comparative research methods. On the basis of this assessment, recommendations to enhance the legitimacy of flood risk governance in Europe are presented.

Two systems working in parallel have contributed to implementation difficulties in Swedish water governance. While the old system is designed to be predictable and stable over time, the new system is intended to be transparent and holistic, guided by the principles of Integrated Water Resource Management. The paper disentangles the challenges in Swedish water governance and proposes a blueprint for future research. The proposed research project is unique in the sense that it explores the imbalances between the new and the old water governance systems from a multi-disciplinary perspective, elaborating upon the clashes between the traditional, nationally based regulatory system and the new holistic water governance system from legal, political and economic perspectives.

National and international efforts to manage forest biosecurity create tension between opposing sources of ecological and economic irreversibility. Phytosanitary policies designed to protect national borders from biological invasions incur sunk costs deriving from economic and political irreversibilities that incentivizes wait-and-see decision-making. However, the potential for irreversible ecological and economic damages resulting from failed phytosanitary policies argues for precautionary measures, creating sunk benefits while increasing the risk of over-investment in phytosanitary security. Here, we describe the inherent tension between these sources of irreversibility in economic terms, relate these forces to type I and type II errors, and use this framework to review national and international efforts to protect forests from biological invasions. Available historical evidence suggests that wait-and-see phytosanitary decision-making has dominated the adoption of precautionary measures in most regions and that willingness to under-regulate may sometimes be orders of magnitude greater than willingness to over-regulate. Reducing scientific uncertainty about threats to biosecurity may help mitigate the tendency to under-regulate, and phytosanitary security measures with relatively modest sunk costs could help protect forests as scientific learning advances. A fuller accounting of the costs associated with type II errors, particularly regarding the suite of non-market ecosystem services at risk, would help decision-makers better understand the trade-offs between the sunk costs of policies and long-term economic losses to stakeholders.

This study reviews how the issue of ash dieback has been placed on the political agenda in the UK, a country where the disease has affected one of the largest national extents, thus representing a particularly severe case. Comparisons are made between how the scientific community framed the ash dieback threat and the resulting response strategy and how both the media and the British government framed the problem. Representing one example of media framing, the study analyses one British newspaper’s coverage of the disease and the response strategies (the Daily Telegraph). The analysis highlights a gap between the biologically rooted perspective and the perspective of policymakers, where policy must manoeuvre between disparate viewpoints and needs. Crucially, none of Pautasso et al.’s (Biol Conserv 158:37–49, 2013) five plant-science-based solutions were explicitly adopted by the British Government in their response strategy to ash dieback disease. The same is true of the biological control recommendations offered by Kirisits et al. (J Agric Ext Rural Dev 4(9):230–235, 2012). Instead, the government adopted a broader, more comprehensive approach than that recommended by plant scientists. The present analysis thus provides an example of a holistic perspective on the multiple competing factors that policymakers must navigate in their attempts to delineate action. It highlights instances in which proposed biological responses were rendered less applicable by a failure to understand the agenda-setting process and the policy-making arena. The present findings suggest that an improved understanding of the factors influencing agenda setting and policy action is essential to arriving at a more effective and integrated understanding of responses to biological threats.

Rapporten analyserar hur begreppet samhällsnytta hanteras i tillståndsprövningen av vindkraft. Lagstiftningen ger ett visst utrymme att beakta vindkraftens betydelse för den lokala/regionala ekonomin. Förutom att vindkraften påverkar samhällsekonomin genom att bidra till elproduktionen påverkar utbyggnaden även lokal eller regional ekonomi och sysselsättning samt andra näringar. Hur stora effekterna blir på sysselsättning och inkomster på lokal/regional nivå, beror bland annat på på det lokala utbudet av de tjänster och den kompetens som efterfrågas.

Såväl positiva som negativa externa effekter uppstår vid utbyggnad av vindkraft, men det finns ett tydligare utrymme i lagstiftningen att beakta vindkraftens negativa effekter, än att ta hänsyn till de positiva effekterna. För att säkerställa att även vindkraftens positiva miljöeffekter ges utrymme i lagstiftningen föreslår författarna att regelverket ändras, så att en bedömning av den miljömässiga nyttan av vindkraften - och andra liknande verksamheter – måste göras i prövningen av tillstånd. Detta skulle öka såväl transparensen och rättssäkerheten i besluten som den vägledande kapaciteten.

Participation in decision-making has successively developed into a guiding principle at both EU and national level. However, diverse perspectives exist on what the role of different interests in participative processes should be, and the legal rules regarding participation varies between different sectors; from clearly defined to virtually non-existent requirements. This may have adverse effects on the legitimacy of decisions and decision-making. This paper reviews the role of participation in the planning process in relation to natural resource development in Sweden, as guided by EU and international law. Based on the notion of effective participation, the study illustrates the potential clashes that may result from different conceptions of participation, for instance, at various levels of governance, as well as from disparate principles for implementation in different sectors.

Society is faced with a range of contemporary threats to everyday life, from natural and technological hazards to accidents and terrorism. These are embodied within integrated emergency management arrangements that are designed to enhance preparedness and response to such incidents, and in turn facilitate a prompt recovery. Such arrangements must be inherently dynamic and evolve as new threats emerge or as existing threats change. An example of the latter is the changing nature of flooding, which is projected to increase in both frequency and severity with climate change. Recognizing this evolving threat, we focus on the evaluation of the effectiveness of domestic Flood Emergency Management Systems (FEMS) as components of integrated emergency management arrangements. Despite the extensive body of literature that documents success conditions of so-called effective emergency management more broadly, there have been only a few attempts to construct a comprehensive evaluation framework to support objective assessment and cross-country comparison. Addressing this gap, we formulate an evaluation framework specifically tailored to the study of FEMS in Europe, which is then provisionally applied to the study of FEMS in England (UK), France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Important differences are observed in how FEMS have evolved in relation to differing contextual backgrounds (political, cultural, administrative, and socio-economic) and exposures to flood hazard. From this provisional assessment, a number of opportunities for, and constraints to, enhancing the effectiveness of FEMS in Europe are discerned. The evaluation framework thus serves as an important stepping stone for further indepth inquiry, and as a valuable tool for future comparative study.

Extreme events such as pest outbreaks is one of the issues that may become more pronounced with climate change, placing potentially unprecedented requirements on policy systems to manage and develop responses to these, including potential changes in legislation. This study reviews the way in agenda-setting and framing of policy solutions was developed for the issue of bark beetle pest outbreaks following major outbreaks in Sweden and Canada. The study concludes that the larger events in Canada have resulted in a longer policy window, with a higher focus on developing responses on multiple levels, while the issue in Sweden has led to more specialized response, with the policy window closing after instrumental revisions of legislation. While such responses may be appropriate at the present, they place into consideration development of responses to potentially larger events in the context of climate change.

Mainstreaming adaptation to climate change in forest-relevant policy can be as a “most difficult” case, relevant for asking the question to extent to which adaptation can at all be mainstreamed in complex multi-level governance systems. This study examines the case of to what extent EU and national (exemplified by Swedish) legal and policy frameworks are able to integrate with each other in ways that may support climate change adaptation in forests. To move as close to the real life situation of mainstreaming challenges as possible, the study focuses on not only one area of mainstreaming or integration, but on the three broad policy areas: (a) adaptation per se; (b) forest biodiversity and habitat protection with respect to invasive species; and (c) water protection in relation to forest use. The study concludes that conflicts between international legal principles such as precaution and free trade, as well as distribution of competences at EU and national level, results in a great discrepancy in terms of opportunities for a nation to effectively act independently as well as for effectively integrating adaptation aims in the connected EU-national systems.

Whereas existing literature on the interactions among law, adaptive governance, and resilience in the water sector often focuses on quality or supply issues, this paper addresses adaptation in national water laws in relation to increasing flood risks. In particular, this paper analyzes the extent to which legal rules governing flood defense infrastructure in a selection of European countries (England, France, Sweden, and The Netherlands) allow for response and adaptation to change and uncertainty. Although there is evidence that the legal rules on the development of new infrastructure require that changing conditions be considered, the adaptation of existing infrastructure is a more complicated matter. Liability rules fail to adequately address damages resulting from causes external to the action or inaction of owners and managers, in particular extreme events. A trend toward clearer, and in some cases, increased public powers to ensure the safety of flood defense infrastructure is observed. The paper concludes that legal rules should ensure not only that decisions to build flood defenses are based on holistic and future-oriented assessments, but also that this is reflected in the implementation and operation of these structures.

Flood mitigation is a strategy that is growing in importance across Europe. This growth corresponds with an increasing emphasis on the need to learn to live with floods and make space for water. Flood mitigation measures aim at reducing the likelihood and magnitude of flooding and complement flood defenses. They are being put in place through the implementation of actions that accommodate (rather than resist) water, such as natural flood management or adapted housing. The strategy has gained momentum over the past 20. years in an effort to improve the sustainability of flood risk management (FRM) and facilitate the diversification of FRM in the pursuit of societal resilience to flooding. Simultaneously, it is increasingly argued that adaptive forms of governance are best placed to address the uncertainty and complexity associated with social-ecological systems responding to environmental challenges, such as flooding. However, there have been few attempts to examine the extent to which current flood risk governance, and flood mitigation specifically, reflect these aspired forms of adaptive governance. Drawing from EU research into flood risk governance, conducted within the STAR-FLOOD project, we examine the governance of flood mitigation in six European countries: Belgium, England, France, the Netherlands, Poland, and Sweden. Using in-depth policy and legal analysis, as well as interviews with key actors, the governance and implementation of flood mitigation in these countries is evaluated from the normative viewpoint of whether, and to what extent, it can be characterized as adaptive governance. We identify five criteria of adaptive governance based on a comprehensive literature review and apply these to each country to determine the “distance” between current governance arrangements and adaptive governance. In conclusion, the flood mitigation strategy provides various opportunities for actors to further pursue forms of adaptive governance. The extent to which the mitigation strategy is capable of doing so varies across countries, however, and its role in stimulating adaptive governance was found to be strongest in Belgium and

Invasive alien species constitute an increasing risk to forestry, as indeed to natural systems in general. This study reviews the legislative framework governing invasive species in the EU and Sweden, drawing upon both a legal analysis and interviews with main national level agencies responsible for implementing this framework. The study concludes that EU and Sweden are limited in how well they can act on invasive species, in particular because of the weak interpretation of the precautionary principle in the World TradeOrganisation and Sanitary and Phytosanitary agreements. In the Swedish case, this interpretation also conflicts with the stronger interpretation of the precautionary principle under the Swedish Environmental Code, which could in itself provide for stronger possibilities to act on invasive species.

Intensifying global trade will result in increased numbers of plant pest and pathogen species inadvertently being transported along with cargo. This paper examines current mechanisms for prevention and management of potential introductions of forest insect pests and pathogens in the European Union (EU). Current European legislation has not been found sufficient in preventing invasion, establishment and spread of pest and pathogen species within the EU. Costs associated with future invasions are difficult to estimate but past invasions have led to negative economic impacts in the invaded country. The challenge is combining free trade and free movement of products (within the EU) with protection against invasive pests and pathogens. Public awareness may mobilise the public for prevention and detection of potential invasions and, simultaneously, increase support for eradication and control measures. We recommend focus on commodities in addition to pathways, an approach within the EU using a centralised response unit and, critically, to engage the general public in the battle against establishment and spread of these harmful pests and pathogens.

Whereas there is evidence that mixed-species approaches to production forestry in general can provide positive outcomes relative to monocultures, it is less clear to what extent multiple benefits can be derived from specific mixed-species alternatives. To provide such insights requires evaluations of an encompassing suite of ecosystem services, biodiversity, and forest management considerations provided by specific mixtures and monocultures within a region. Here, we conduct such an assessment in Sweden by contrasting even-aged Norway spruce (Picea abies)-dominated stands, with mixed-species stands of spruce and birch (Betula pendula or B. pubescens), or spruce and Scots pine (Pinus sylvestris). By synthesizing the available evidence, we identify positive outcomes from mixtures including increased biodiversity, water quality, esthetic and recreational values, as well as reduced stand vulnerability to pest and pathogen damage. However, some uncertainties and risks were projected to increase, highlighting the importance of conducting comprehensive interdisciplinary evaluations when assessing the pros and cons of mixtures.

This paper investigates to what extent and under what circumstances environmental regulation can be designed and implemented to jointly achieve positive environmental outcomes and sustained competitive strength in the mining industry. First the paper provides a conceptual analysis of the impacts of environmental regulations on mining competitiveness, including a discussion of how the environmental-competitiveness trade-off can be affected by various regulatory design and implementation strategies. Methodologically we distinguish between the flexibility, predictability and stringency of the regulations, and in a second step these analytical concepts are illustrated in the empirical context of the environmental permitting processes in Finland, Sweden and Russia. An important result is that in these countries there has been a lack of timeliness and predictability in the environmental regulations (e.g., uncertainty about the interpretation of the legislation, delays due to appeals etc.). These problems can in part be addressed by, for instance: (a) allocating more resources to the regulatory authorities; (b) establishing more consensus-based regulatory interactions between the mining industry and the authorities; and (c) introducing more standardized procedures and road maps for environmental impact assessments, permit applications and not the least for how to interpret specific legal rules in the context of mining.

The regulatory framework for mining operations is complex; the licensing process in particular typically involves several laws and a number of permits. This paper assumes that the regulatory framework is strongly influenced by the institutional framework of which it is part, and that it suffers from an institutional path dependence that may decrease the efficiency of the system as well as act barrier to the implementation of necessary environmental requirements. The paper provides: 1) a legal analysis of the regulatory framework governing mining operations in Sweden, Finland and Russia; and 2) a comparative analysis of the scope of the environmental assessment within the licensing process in the examined countries. The result of the analysis of the regulatory frameworks shows great similarity between the Swedish and the Finnish systems, both in terms of the overall structure and the implementation of substantive environmental rules. The Russian system differs in this respect, with more declarative rules and seemingly less substantive assessments. The results also indicate that the regulatory frameworks in all three countries show signs of institutional path dependence, but in very different degrees. Though Russia has indeed implemented major changes in the formal structure, very little has changed in practice. The Swedish regulatory framework for mining shows a deficient systematics and conflicting objectives, despite the implementation of a comprehensive environmental legislation. The recently reformed Finnish system seems to have a more holistic approach.

Sustainable mining is an objective as well as a tool for balancing economic, social, and environmental considerations. Each of these three dimensions of mining – and sustainable development – has many components, some of which were chosen for closer study in the SUMILCERE project. While there is no single component that in itself provides a definitive argument for or against sustainable mining, the research reveals some that have proven valuable in the process of balancing the different dimensions of sustainability. In the SUMILCERE project, comparative studies enabled us to identify factors such as the following, which are essential when discussing the balancing in practice of the three dimensions of sustainable mining cited above: the framework and functionality of environmental regulation to protect the environment (environmental sustainability); the competitiveness of the mining industry in light of environmental regulation and its enforcement (economic sustainability); public participation and the opportunities local communities have to influence their surroundings, as well as communities’ acceptance of projects (social sustainability) before and during operations; and the protection of Sámi cultural rights in mining projects (social and cultural sustainability).Although each of the three dimensions of sustainability leaves room for discretion in the weight assigned to it, ecological sustainability, protected by smart environmental regulation and minimum standards, sets essential boundaries that leave no room for compromises. Economic and social sustainability are possible only within these limits. Details of the analyses in the Kolarctic area and accounts of the methods used can be found in the cited SUMILCERE articles.

Industrial pollution accounts for a large proportion of global pollution, and in the European Union, an integrated pollution and prevention approach based on individual performance standards has been implemented to regulate emissions from industrial plants. Crucial for the assessment of the licensing conditions are the Best Available Technique (BAT) requirements, which should be set in accordance with the recently introduced Industrial Emissions Directive (IED). In this paper, we review and assess the licensing of industrial plants in one of the Member States, namely Sweden. Specifically, we discuss how the existing regulations (including the IED) manage to address potential trade-offs between important regulatory design issues, such as flexibility, predictability and the need to provide continuous incentives for environmental improvements. The analysis indicates that while the EU regulations provide flexibility in terms of the choice of compliance measures, in Sweden, it enters an existing regulatory framework that adds a lot of uncertainty with respect to the outcome of the licensing processes. An important challenge for the implementation of the IED is to implement performance standards that lead to continuous incentives to improve environmental performance in industrial sectors without, at the same time, adding new uncertainties. While standards ideally should be both flexible and predictable, achieving one of these criteria may often come at the expense of the other.

Protection of biodiversity under conditions of climate change is likely to place large requirements on existing frameworks for biodiversity protection at both EU and national level. While these systems are not perfectly adapted today, the inclusion of climate change concerns will require revision and addition of new issues, such as species migration corridors and buffers, as well as proactive strategies in areas that may not be protected today. Biodiversity in forest is particularly important as forest range over large areas that include also other land uses; this holds particularly true for the large forested areas in northern Europe. Illustrating complexities regarding biodiversity protection, this study reviews the applicable legal framework related to biodiversity in forests on EU and national level in Sweden, one of the countries with the largest forest areas in the EU. Mainly drawing on a policy and legal study, the paper concludes that adapting the legislative and policy system to a future with large uncertainties in terms of extent of change poses a problem for what are largely reactive systems in particular in terms of legislation.

The European Commission Water Framework Directive (WFD) aims to achieve ‘good status’ for all waters by 2015. This study reviews implementation mechanisms with regard to forestry in Sweden, a country with a large proportion of forest land, where forest practices will be important for limiting nutrient and particle runoff that impact the water status. Taking a multi-level governance perspective, this study reviews the legislative requirements at the EU level, legal and policy implementation at the Swedish level and, finally, local implementation in the forest industry. The study illustrates the national specific interpretation of the WFD as well as the way in which existing practices and measures influence WFD implementation. These include for example the Swedish practice to integrate environmental values in forestry via ‘considerations’, supported also by the use of forest certification measures (a voluntary private sector initiative through which environmental consideration is controlled by third-party auditors). The study thereby exemplifies the large role of private and overlapping authorities and jurisdictions in Swedish forest-water governance.

The Water Framework Directive (WFD) is an ambitious piece of legislation designed to protect and improve water quality throughout Europe. However, forests are only mentioned once in the WFD, and forestry is not mentioned at all, despite its potential implications for streams, rivers and lakes. Here we present a transdisciplinary commentary on the WFD and its implications for forests and forestry in Sweden. This commentary has been prepared by forestry stakeholders, biophysical and social scientists. While we were cognizant of a large body of discipline-specific research, there are very few inter- or trans-disciplinary commentaries which link academic and stakeholder perspectives on the WFD. We had originally felt that there would be little commonality in our concerns. However, we found significant areas of agreement. Our key areas of concern about the implications of the WFD for forestry in Sweden included: (i) concerns about what is meant by good ecological status and how it is assessed; (ii) a perceived lack of clarity in the legal framework; (iii) an inadequate environmental impact assessment process; and (iv) uncertainties about appropriate programs of measures for improving water quality. We were also concerned that ecosystem services provided by forests and the positive effects of forestry on water quality are inadequately recognized in the WFD.