This book stems from a four-year experience of a Training Programme addressing members of several Chinese governmental Institutions which, given the moment of extremely intense and fast development of their country, consider the issues of environment and sustainable growth among the foremost priorities. In particular, they expressed the need and will to develop policy and mana- ment tools that could lead to a strategy of sustainable growth from an economic, social and environmental point of view. The Programme turned out to be a success (it involved, up to June 2007, more than 2000 trainees from almost all the Provinces of China) precisely because the forces that answered those needs are extremely diverse as to include the academia, national and local governments, public institutions, private companies and international agencies. Following this feature, the book's contributors have been selected among more than 300 professors, researchers, policy makers, and entrepreneurs involved in the Training activities, thus offering different approaches to the key questions of environmental management.

This book presents the new EU approach to environmental management and its attempt to place it in the perspective of sustainable development. China and other large and fast growing economies are putting increasing pressures on global environment, but they are also looking at the European experience with great interest. To present critically this experience can help those countries avoid the mistakes made by developed countries in dealing with the relation between economic growth and environmental protection, and to improve the institutions and tools for better environmental governance.

The variety of issues covered and the wide approach used in this book make it a useful tool for readers who want to place themselves in this perspective, although starting from different backgrounds and levels of knowledge on environmental and sustainability sciences.