The National Environmental Objectives (NEOs) adopted by Swedish Parliament in 2001 and proclaimining that major environmental problems should be solved within a generation are often portrayed as good practice of a concrete yet visionary sustainability strategy. In this paper we summarize one and a half decade of the NEOs' experience for the international audience. The NEO5 were based on an eclectic mixture of conceptual reasoning, most importantly the Management by Objectives concept and the notion of a policy deriving its authority and legitimacy from scientifically established 'natural laws and limits'. The 16 NEO5 fall into two groups. The first group is a positive reformulation of existing environmental problems based on well established scientific evidence. While they have scientific authority and can be operationalized and enforced through standards they are hardly visionary, strategic or capable of responding to emerging threats. The second group contains utopian landscape goals which are more visionary but also more difficult to operationalize, especially for local authorities which play major part in the implementation of the NEO5 in Sweden. We argue that the system that mixes these two sets of goals based on two different paradigms of sustainable development inherits the weaknesses of both and the strengths of neither. The NEO system lacks the hierarchical and scientific authority potentially possible for scientific goals and at the same time fails to provide for learning, mobilisation and consensus-building power of utopian landscape goals. It has been too fuzzy to be implemented in a top down way and yet too rigid to enable bottom-up action. A more effective approach would be to separate these two sustainability governance approaches into complementary but distinct systems. (C) 2015 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

This article analyses legal aspects of the Swedish wind power development, theoreticallybased on how different types of knowledge are represented in legal contexts, mainly inthe courts. A sample of appealed wind power permits is analysed, a handful of relevantinformants are interviewedincluding two judges in the Land and Environment Courtand the appeal courtand the legal setting is analysed. Of key interest here is theinterplay between expert and lay statements in the court cases, which here is related tothe concepts of calculating and communicative rationalities that are developed in theplanning literature. The results indicate that the juridificationwhich takes place as apermit issue is appealed in the judiciary systemsupports the calculating rationalitymore than the communicative, and that the plaintiffs often attempt to adapt in how theyshape their argumentation.

At national policy level in Sweden, the importance of development of wind power is emphasized. However, the actual implementation is highly dependent on local permit giving for windmills. The legislation governing the permit giving has been revised in an attempt to make the local processes faster and to shift the permit process towards a more regional environmental process as opposed to a more plan-based municipal process. By tradition in Sweden, the local, municipal level has had a strong mandate in land use planning which is often referred to as the “the municipal planning monopoly”, which means that there is a tension whenever a legal proposal seeks to diminish this “plan monopoly”. The legal investigation suggesting changes in the law on permit-giving stressed the need for strengthening the regional assessment, which led to a compromise called the “municipal veto-right”, where the regional environmental permit needs a formal approval from the municipality for the permit process to continue. This study investigates both the legal development of the so-called veto-right as well as what it empirically has led to, and how it is perceived by the industry as well as concerned parties. For this reason, a sample of 30 regional permit cases has been collected, and a limited number of interviews have been conducted with judges in appeal courts and regional handling officers assessing turbine applications. The results indicate that the industry sees the “veto” as leading to problematic uncertainty in the process at regional level and, therefore, prefer to keep the applications at a level that entitles them to use the municipal permit system which is determined by height and number of turbines. This is a consequence directly opposite to what the legal commission aimed for when revising the legal system.

Enligt miljöbalkens bestämmelser om miljöbedömning och miljökonsekvensbedömning ska man vid planeringen ta fram olika alternativ som är förenliga med syftet med planen, programmet eller projektet. Genom att utarbeta och analysera olika alternativ ska beslutsfattarna kunna finna det alternativ som sammantaget är det bästa ur olika aspekter inklusive miljö. I denna rapport beskrivs resultaten av en pilotstudie om hantering av alternativ i miljöbedömning av planer och program och miljökonsekvensbedömning av projekt. Utgångspunkten är erfarenheter att detta på flera sätt inte tycks fungera så som det är tänkt utifrån EU-direktiv och svensk lagstiftning. Pilotstudien har genomförts i fem olika moment: • Internationell litteraturstudie • Granskning av miljökonsekvensbeskrivningar mot en fast granskningsmall • Intervjuer, utifrån en frågelista för semistrukturerade intervjuer, av svenska utförare som arbetar med MKB och MB • Diskussioner med svenska praktiker och med forskare i andra länder. • En workshop anordnad av Naturvårdsverket i samarbete med projektet. Ansvariga för studien är professor Tuija Hilding-Rydevik, SLU (projektledare) och professor Lars Emmelin, BTH Forskningsprogrammet MiSt Programmet "Miljöstrategiska verktyg", MiSt, är ett tvärvetenskapligt forskningsprogram finansierat av Naturvårdsverket. Programmet leds från Blekinge Tekniska Högskola. I programmet studeras verktyg som kan underlätta miljöbedömning i strategiskt beslutsfattande på olika nivåer, från nationell till lokal. Förståelsen och basen för utveckling av verktyg och rekommendationer om verktyg i olika planerings- och beslutsprocesser baseras på empirisk forskning på fall inom flera sektorer. Målen för MiSt-programmet: • Kritisk undersökning av verktygens funktion • Teoribaserad förståelse av deras verkan • Utveckling av råd om effektiv användning av verktyg och kombinationer av verktyg Programchef: professor Lars Emmelin, Fysisk planering, BTH. Biträdande programchef: professor Tuija Hilding-Rydevik, MKB-Centrum SLU.

The central role of impact assessment instruments globally in policy integration initiatives has been cemented in recent years. Associated with this trend, but also reflecting political emphasis on greater accountability in certain policy sectors and a renewed focus on economic competitiveness in Western countries, demand has increased for evidence that these instruments are effective (however defined). Resurgent interest in evaluation has not, however, been accompanied by the conceptual developments required to redress longstanding theoretical problems associated with such activities. In order to sharpen effectiveness evaluation theory for impact assessment instruments this article critically examines the neglected issue of their political constitution. Analytical examples are used to concretely explore the nature and significance of the politicisation of impact assessment. It is argued that raising awareness about the political character of impact assessment instruments, in itself, is a vital step in advancing effectiveness evaluation theory. Broader theoretical lessons on the framing of evaluation research are also drawn from the political analysis. We conclude that, at least within the contemporary research context, learning derived from analysing the meaning and implications of plural interpretations of effectiveness represents the most constructive strategy for advancing impact assessment and policy integration theory.

A wide range of methods exists for on-site visitor monitoring in parks and recreation areas. Self-registration methods have proven to be popular because of their low cost and relative ease of administration, but little is known about the extent to which the data collected from self-registration boxes are representative of the population of visitors, and the degree that bias exists as a result of non-compliance. This article examines these concerns based on research at Fulufjaumlllet National Park in Sweden. On-site registration card and follow-up mail survey data from a sample of visitors who did not voluntarily register were compared with the same kind of data for visitors who did register voluntarily. In total, 10 registration card items and 284 mail survey items were tested for variations between compliant and non-compliant visitors. Of these, one third of the card items, 12% and 3% of the survey items for Swedish and German visitors, respectively, yielded statistically significant differences. Implications for management and suggestions for further research are discussed.

Outdoor recreation areas are exposed to several causes of conflict. Many interests, along with different types of recreation activities, are competing in the same area. In these areas, conflicts are handled by spatial planning and by the separation in space of different functions. One source of conflict is noise. The lack of noise-free areas in the Swedish coastal areas has become an amenity problem. Does this make noise an important problem to consider in planning? An assumption is that the sound environment is relevant for the visitors’ experience; spending time in nature is associated with peace and quiet, where one should not be disturbed. In this study, it will be investigated how silence and noise actually are considered in the Swedish municipal planning. “Silence” is one of the amenity categories reported in the Swedish tourism data base. Is there a discrepancy between the existing municipal planning and the visitors’ opinions, attitudes and experiences? Furthermore, there will be an analysis of how silence and noise could be handled in spatial planning. One possible method is zoning. By excluding certain outdoor recreation activities from some areas, zoning may handle, or at least reduce, the problem of conflicts. The biosphere reserve concept (where zoning is an important part) will for that reason be discussed as a potential tool. A case study of the Blekinge archipelago, Sweden is the foundation of the study, which data consist of planning documents and questionnaire surveys considering outdoor recreation and nature tourism.