Negotiated environmental agreements in promoting material efficiency in industry – first steps in Finland

The aim of this article is to analyse the challenges and opportunities in applying a sector specific negotiated agreement for promoting waste prevention and material efficiency in Finnish industry. The study was conducted mainly through structured interviews targeted at the main stakeholders. By using an existing agreement on energy efficiency as the initial model, a concept for a material efficiency agreement was developed in an iterative process by balancing the expectations and doubts expressed in the stakeholders' views.As a result, the proposed concept represents a platform of dialog between the relevant Ministries and industrial organisations for setting sector specific targets for material efficiency, waste recycling and waste prevention. The targets could also include some qualitative issues concerning material efficiency in the value chain and cover several actors in the life cycle of targeted industrial products. A vision of the interaction between the negotiated agreement and other policy instruments is presented.