This paper is building on the WasteForce project deliverable ‘EU and Global Policy Impact Analysis Methodology’, which is led by the University of Limerick in cooperation with the United Nations University.
The need to assess impacts of new environmental policies
Impact assessment is a part of the policy implementation cycle, which can support the design and implementation of effective policies at a minimum cost. It can be instrumental in understanding policy options available to tackle a particular issue before devising a policy and in analysing the performance of already implemented policy instruments with respect to the desired goals.
When it comes to environmental policies, demonstrating the worth and merit of any regulation is even more important. The knowledge gathered from the evaluation of existing policies can help improve the quality of new environmental policies. This paper analyses policy impacts and their assessments related to the transboundary movement of waste.
E-waste and plastic waste
E-waste and plastic waste fractions are used as cases in order to study three associated policies and their impact assessments. Learnings from the analysis are summarized and measures for strengthening the impact assessment approaches are recommended based on the evidence from recent developments in the transboundary movement of waste fractions. Impact assessments of waste management and shipment policies could benefit from a more comprehensive but issue-oriented approach that looks
beyond the short-term economic savings.
New: Methodology to Analyse EU and Global Impacts on Waste Management of New Policies
