Preface

• Pages: 5-7
• Author: Michael P. Vandenbergh,Sarah E. Light,James Salzman

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PREFACE

The field of environmental law and policy is evolving and

growing in importance as climate change, toxics, biodiversity,

environmental justice, and other topics become increasingly central

to public debates, classrooms, and careers. All three co-authors

learned environmental law as a subfield of administrative law, with

the central focus on the adoption of environmental statutes by

Congress and their implementation through the courts and executive

branch at the state and federal levels. We continue to believe that

government has a critical—and in some cases the only—role to play

in achieving national and international environmental goals.

But when working in government, in private practice, and in the

academy, we have repeatedly encountered forms of environmental

governance that do not fit within the traditional government-focused

conception of environmental law. For each of us, our experiences

taught us that many of the important forms of environmental

protection were occurring outside of the standard government-

focused model. These other forms of governance were not always

successful, but they were a central, and largely overlooked, aspect of

the daily practice of how to address environmental challenges. In

short, in an era of partisan gridlock in Congress, when new federal

pollution control statutes are difficult to adopt and the Supreme

Court has narrowed agencies’ ability to adapt their existing statutory

authorities to new problems, the public environmental law model is

especially incomplete. It does not explain what lawyers, managers,

and advocates have actually been doing to address climate change

and many other important environmental problems.

This book reflects our view that understanding environmental

law and policy today requires a focus on governance, not just

government, and an expanded view of the available actors, actions,

and conceptual frameworks needed to address environmental

challenges. Consider that a private certification standard addresses

the sustainable harvesting of 20% of the fish caught for human

consumption around the world. Environmental, social, and

governance (ESG) investing has become a widely adopted and hotly

contested approach. Environmental supply chain contracting

requirements are used by 80% of the largest companies in seven of

the major global sectors. More than 300 of the largest companies in

the world have committed to using 100% renewable power. Private

conservation organizations in the United States have protected an

area the size of Utah from development. Environmental lawyers,

business managers, and advocates are heavily engaged in each of

these private environmental governance (PEG) initiatives. Put