How does industry respond to waste policy instruments—Finnish experiences

This multiple-case study, which combined diverse data collection methods, evaluated the impacts of waste policy instruments on 14 mainly large Finnish industrial companies in the 1990s. The management response to waste policy in the firms appeared to be small and most of the interviewees felt that the primary pressure to upgrade environmental performance came from their customers. The waste policy instruments were not considered to have contributed to waste prevention in the case companies. In contrast, the recovery and safe final disposal of wastes had developed favourably. In order to promote the source reduction of waste, the scope of policy should be drastically shifted from waste management to society’s overall cycles of materials and products.