‘Environmental policy’ has been defined as ‘a set of principles and intentions used to guide decision-making about human management of environmental capital and environmental services’. Although it draws on concepts from environmental philosophy and environmental politics (and from many other scientific and social-science disciplines), environmental policy is distinctive in its problem-solving orientation.

To meet the need for an authoritative reference work to make sense of the subject’s vast literature and the continuing explosion in research output, this new Routledge Major Work brings together in four volumes the canonical and best cutting-edge scholarship from the subdiscipline.

Volume 1 explores ‘the predicament of humankind’ by gathering vital research on the key concepts underlying environmental policy. It collects work about the atmosphere, the philosophy of science and technology, as well as writing from the fields of environmental philosophy and politics. The second volume covers the topics of environmentalism, sustainable development, political ecology, the policy-making process, and ecological modernization.

Volume 3 assembles the most important and influential thinking on environmental policy instruments, and indicators and on ‘managing the global commons’, while the scholarship assembled in the final volume covers writings at the regional, national, local, and institutional levels of environmental policy. It incorporates work on environmental management standards, environmental education, and the relationship between environmental policy and the quality of life in urban and rural communities.

With a comprehensive index and an introduction newly written by the editor which places the materials in their historical and intellectual context, this collection is destined to become a vital reference resource for all students and scholars of environmental policy.