Different Perspectives on EPI

Environmental policy integration (EPI) is a policy principle with great intuitive appeal, as described in the previous chapter. It offers a progressive and ‘commonsense’ policy approach in that environmental problems are addressed at their source and ‘win-win’ opportunities for jointly achieving environmental and sectoral objectives are maximized. The most optimistic EPI supporters view it as key to bridging the gap between traditional environmental protection policy and an ecologically sustainable society. However, if we start unpacking EPI conceptually, a range of analytical ambiguities, competing perspectives and, not least, difficult normative issues emerge. A good way to illustrate the more contentious and complicated aspects is to break down the term EPI into its three components.