The project examined how a sector approach to environmental policy can stimulate cleaner technology in the computer and electronics sector. Using the lens of this sector provides an opportunity to look at policies to address the likely environmental problems of the next century and spur the use of innovative technology in solving them. The principal investigators also drew on their participation in the work of the Common Sense Initiative s Subcommittee on the Computer and Electronics Sector. The project assumed that a sector policy approach means focusing environmental policies on economic sectors and developing these policies with the participation of the key actors. It offers one way to move from a fragmented to a systematic approach to environmental problems at a time when environmental issues are recognized as embedded in all of society s activities.
Sectors are difficult to bound.
Electronics products are used in almost every other sector of the economy from transport to energy supply. In making them, electronics companies rely on other sectors such as chemicals. Groups affected by policy focused on the sector are not organized to participate effectively in the policymaking process. This is specially true for the fast-changing computer and electronics sector that provides components hidden in cars, appliances, and thousands of other products. One poll of the public found that three-fifths of the respondents had no opinion on whether the sector harmed or helped the environment.