Environmental policy issues typically span across different policy sectors. For example, flood risk management and spatial planning are fundamentally linked in the idea of providing water space. Similarly, water and energy are linked as water-related management can account to 8-12% of the total national primary energy consumption; and the equivalent of 7-15% of the total freshwater consumption can be used to produce the energy utilized in a given country. Environmental issues are often interdependent across policy sectors, such that causes or effects of issues interact with issues of other policy sectors. Due to these interdependencies, scholars advocate for cross-sectoral policy integration. A growing body of literature therefore deals with policy integration, which should increase synergies, learning opportunities, and coordination across policy sectors. Policy integration should also avoid policies with contradicting goals, and, more generally, negative spillover effects from one sector to another, thus resulting in synergetic, effective and legitimate policy solutions.

In this course, students will meet this integration perspective regarding sustainability problems, policy instruments, policy implementation, the importance of the governance context and the effects of SDGs on one another. The course is for all students that want to enlarge their insight into the possibilities to stimulate a sustainable society with high environmental quality. This course is not just for PA students but is also often chosen as an elective course for other master programmes from the UT and for ATLAS students.