Eco-efficiency: building a government strategy

Concepts such as eco-efficiency and Factor Four are gaining ground in environmental policy circles internationally where they are being used to justify a growing armoury of policies - including eco-taxation and "producer responsibility" for products. The emerging ideas bring with them a renewed focus on resource consumption, and point to a future in which resource efficiency might rank alongside labour productivity as fundamentals of any business strategy. But if eco-efficiency signals a shift away from pollution control as the focus of environmental policy, will it also lead to deregulation?