For several years a subsidy scheme for Product-based Environmental Care (Productgericht Milieuzorg, PMZ) has been operated by the Dutch environment ministry VROM. The scheme is managed by the Netherlands Agency for Energy and the Environment NOVEM and is designed to provide an incentive for product-based, sectoral environmental policy. The need was felt to monitor the scheme’s effectiveness and as a preliminary step CE was commissioned to examine how a monitoring system to this end might best be designed to match the requirements of the parties involved.
It was concluded that such a system should be as far as possible in line with existing monitoring systematics. Although, in principle, it should measure the environmental improvements accruing from the subsidy scheme, this was deemed unfeasible. Derived objectives should therefore be adopted, such as PMZ ‘name recognition’ and improvement thereof. The sub-aims and indicators to be monitored are an issue that is still under debate.
Owing in part to staff rescheduling, product policy is currently being recalibrated at VROM and further development of this monitoring system has therefore been postponed.