trends and future of sustainable development - TransEco

5.2.3. Subsidiarity: Level of implementationAs the WDF came into effect on 12 December 2010, how Member States will apply the waste hierarchy isstill to be determined. However, in addition to the waste hierarchy having achieved the status of a‘priority order’ 1 , a number of articles emphasise its importance as a guiding waste managementprinciple. Namely, Articles 28(1) and 29(1) require both waste management plans and waste preventionprogrammes, respectively, to be established in accordance with the waste hierarchy. Additionally, theprinciple of subsidiarity is also a concern when applying the waste hierarchy. Applying the wastehierarchy though waste management plans, coupled with European case law 2 , would require the wastehierarchy to be applied at the administrative level in which the waste management plans apply.Although the goal of many Member State waste management strategies has been to place emphasison the waste management actives closer to the top of the waste hierarchy 3 , there has been a very broadinterpretation and implementation of the waste hierarchy in various member states (Lazarevic et al.2010). The new legal status of applying the waste hierarchy as a priority order may, indeed, influence thelandscape of European waste management, especially condidering that the hierarchy should beimplemented (or LCT used to show justification for the departureof waste streams) at the administrativelevel. This may have an influence on planning decsions for competent autorities. It is at this level inwhich industial and territorial ecology transition path experiments should be facilitated.6. Discussion and ConclusionThis framework highlights the use of LCT in three main areas: (1) as a test for the legitimacy of the wastehierarchy principle management, (2) as an eco-design tool for the production of niche SRM supplychains, and (3) as an element which aids in the coordination of actors in the development of nicheinnovations along a technological trajectory which ascends the levels of the waste hierarchy.Reflecting on transition management, LCT appears to be a potential ‘transition element’ in thetransition to sustainable waste management, “elements at each of the three levels (regime, niche,landscape) 4 that could link up to create novelties as a potential prelude to a transition" (Elzen et al.2002, 16-17). These transition elements not only concern technologies, but can include concepts andnew forms of embedding technologies and concepts in society. The LCT concept acts as a transitionelement in the sense that: (1) using LCA as an analytical tool in the eco-design of niche SRM supplychains helps in the establishment of a number of niche innovations where recycling is the preferredtechnological trajectory, and (2) using LCM to aid the coordination of actors may assist in movingtechnologies, technology selection environments or niche products (such as new SRMs or newapplications of SRMs) from the niche to the regime (main-stream) level.1See Lazarevic et al. (2010) for detail on the evolution of the salience of the waste hiarchy in European waste policy2Such as Inter-Environnement Wallonie ASBL v Région wallonne (1997) - Case C-129/963For example, the England and Wales 1995 waste strategy ‘Making Waste Work’ (Department of the Environment1995) places the waste hierarchy as a key objective, yet relatively slow progress has been made in achieving this goalduring the past 15 years.4The three levels of the multi-level perspective. A niche based model developed as a framework for understandingsustainability transitions which provides an overall view of the dynamics of change in socio-technical systems.226