Research On Product-Oriented Environmental Policy

The product-oriented environmental policy (POEP) is a new paradigm which focuses on the product and aims at reducing its total life cycle environmental impacts. This kind of product approach indicates a new tendency in the current environmental policy area. The purpose of this thesis is to master the basic principle of the new paradigm and discloses its theoretical significance. In order to achieve this purpose, the thesis studies the POEP from several aspects, including the background and the process of evolvement, the fundamental theory, key issues and so on. It also investigates the possibility of setting up the new paradigm in China.Past environmental policy with its process-oriented focus is usually used to deal with the problem of point source pollution. One of the important sources of pollution, the product, has received much less attention. The understanding for the multi-dimensional environmental profile of products and the distinctness of the product problem strengthen the importance of environmental policy for dealing with products. Therefore, the product gradually enters into the central area of environmental policy and becomes the new perspective of the contemporary environmental policy.The POEP focuses on products and appears to offer a new approach for the environmental protection. It introduces the holistic way that takes the whole life cycle into consideration. Beyond its potential to overcome the key challenges facing traditional approach which the environmental risk is simply shifted across the environmental media and the different stages of life cycle, a number of more positive roles for the product approach have also been identified. Firstly, it emphases on the optional use of resources and makes the improvement of the resources efficiency as one of its important tasks. Secondly, it expands the application of environmental policy to the area of consumption. Therefore, the...