A combination of initiatives by stakeholders and enabling policies by governments can result in both benefits for the environment and employment. But, in the interests of integration, environment policy can be refocused in a way that has a positive effect on employment and, similarly, employment policy can be refocused to have a positive impact on the environment. A central aim in the future shall be to turn environmental policies into opportunities for new employment. To maintain and create new employment it is necessary to have competitive European industries on the world market. Given the cost of employment such industries would not be competitive.
Competitiveness also means education, research and innovation including in the area of environment.
Europe's leading role in environmental technologies has been a major source of employment. This is very often a result of BAT requirements. It must be in our interest to export not only our technologies but also our high environmental standards to achieve an international environmental level playing field. Under a sustainable development scenario environmental policies have to be balanced against other society objectives of economic growth and social justice. It is therefore important to integrate environmental policies with other policies.