A framework for evaluating policy integration under the Green Deal: a case study on climate change and air pollution

The European Green Deal (EGD) sets new standards for policy integration. Its broad and interconnected agenda demands tightly integrated environmental policies – internally and with other sectors – plus collaboration with local stakeholders, meaning also vertical integration. Checking progress thereof requires a framework for evaluating policy integration broad enough to be applicable to all implicated actors and sectors, yet sufficiently reliable and practical to generate comparable results across multiple analyses. One assessment alone cannot examine all the EGD’s dimensions. We review existing frameworks and, generally finding lacking breadth or practicality, construct our own, which amalgamates previous insights without compromising ease-of-use or reliability. Inspired by processual integration theories, it describes five levels of integration across key aspects of the policy cycle: Overarching commitments and institutions for integration, decision-making processes, policy outputs, and behavioural plus environmental outcomes. For each, two indicators determine the integration level. We test practicality and versatility by using the framework to compare integration between climate and air pollution policies in Italy and Finland. Both cases show mismatches between levels of integration in institutions and those in policy outputs, demonstrating the need for comprehensive evaluation. We furthermore argue for the framework’s practicality for evaluations within other governance levels and policy areas.