Over the 1990s, signs of disillusionment and some scepticism about the favourable impact of environmental protection on employment arose. As a consequence, policy measures slowly put more importance on local level "bottom up" approaches in contrast to macroeconomic "top down" measures and increasingly emphasised market based incentive mechanisms.
This growing decentralisation of administrative responsibilities to the regional and local levels gave rise to the establishment of a variety of networks and links between government agencies, non-governmental organisations and businesses. Environmental policy is no longer implemented solely by environmental regulators but achieved by the active collaboration of various branches and levels of government, business, social partners and the public at large.
Launching various programmes emphasising subsidiarity, partnership and cooperation, the European Union aims to promote economic growth, employment and sustainable development at the same time. EU programmes try to combine policy instruments with complementary top-down and bottom up initiatives. In that way, the tax system is reoriented to favour the environment and employment, high environmental standards are established and environmental legislation is implemented. Simultaneously, Local Agenda 21 projects are supported and structural expenditure increasingly depends on the environmental dimension of projects.
There exists a powerful interest in sustainable development, environmental protection and employment in the private and public sector and non-governmental organisations. As a result, numerous projects concerned with sustainable development and social exclusion have been carried out. Taking into account 125 case studies, the features and experience of such territorial initiatives across the EU have been analysed.
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