Is Integrated Planning Any More Than the Sum of Its Parts?

Abstract

Policy integration is currently cresting a wave of interest, with new legal frameworks, programs, and processes emerging. Does integrated sustainability planning, to take one key motivator of this interest in integration, offer more than environmental planning, climate change planning, or other sectoral moves? This article reviews planning research and practice in integration in the context of diverse aspirations for sustainability. Normative claims, central to environmental policy integration, are seldom distinguished in theory or tested in practice. Applying a normative framework to sustainability policy integration in current practice, we find evidence of risks to applying each and contradictions within the set.