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Policy Instruments

Designing pro-SD public policies

Governments have a range of instruments available at their disposal. Many of these aim to influence our economic behaviour, but have broad impacts in terms of sustainable development. These include: carrots (subsidies); sticks (emission regulations); sermons (education and voluntary instruments); and direct intervention (direct purchases, investments and the creation of markets). What have been the experiences with these various instruments from the perspective of sustainable development? IISD has undertaken work on several aspects of this topic as described below.

Contents

• Markets for Ecosystem Services
  Markets for ecosystem services (MES) are increasingly recognized as having an important role to play in the sustainable use of ecosystem services and, more recently, in reducing poverty. IISD has been researching the potential for using MES to enhance the implementation of multilateral environmental agreements.

• Regulations
  Comparisons of anticipated (before-the-fact) costs and benefits of environmental regulation with actual results achieved (ex-post) provide valuable insight to environmental regulators, policy-setters, industry and those charged with parliamentary oversight. IISD has undertaken a multi-year project to develop an ex-post guidance document that will be tested against “real world” experience.

Related IISD Research

• Standards
  Industry is being called upon to improve social and environmental performance through voluntary initiatives, including environmental management systems, codes of conduct, certification, and public reporting on environmental and social issues. All of these rely, in varying degrees, on the existence of suitable standards and, in some cases, credible verification systems. Standards have always been important to trade and market access. IISD's research identifies how countries can reduce the negative impact of sustainable development standards on market access and increase the positive impacts of these standards on corporate behaviour.

• Global Subsidies Initiative (GSI)
  IISD seeks to lay bare just what good or harm public subsidies are doing, to encourage public debate and awareness of the options that are available, and to help provide policy-makers with the tools they need to secure sustainable outcomes for our societies and our planet.

• Sustainable Public Procurement
  Governments, on average, spend 45 per cent to 65 per cent of their budgets on public procurement, which amounts to 13 per cent to 17 per cent of the GDP. If governments make a concerted effort to purchase environmentally and socially preferable products and services, their substantial buying power will drive the delivery of sustainable development policies and stimulate markets for sustainable products and services. IISD is researching public procurement governance and best practices aiming to detail blueprints for pilot sustainable public procurement (SPP) initiatives.

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