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In Sweden, environmental policy is essentially carried out through a system of environmental objectives adopted by Parliament in the late 1990s. This system contains principles, objectives, interim targets, strategies, and follow-up mechanisms, which together provide a solid ground for increased efficiency and improved prioritization in environmental policies. Despite the ambitious approach of the Swedish Parliament, the system of environmental objectives suffers from certain shortcomings. Some of the objectives are imprecise and difficult to evaluate, and there are no rules or principles that may be used to solve goal conflicts and to prioritize between different objectives. As a consequence, the environmental objectives tend to differ in their degrees of operationalizability, and the priority-setting between different objectives is often unclear.

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Goals and performance targets are commonly used as tools in the policy-implementation process. In Sweden, environmental policy is operationalized through a system of environmental quality objectives that were adopted by the Swedish Riksdag in the late 1990s. The objectives describe what level of environmental quality Sweden should aim for within a generation, and are designed to guide decision making in all sectors of society. However, to guide decision making toward improved environmental quality, these objectives should satisfy a set of rationality (functionality) criteria; they should be precise, evaluable, approachable, motivating and coherent. In this paper, five Swedish environmental quality objectives are investigated through an application of the suggested criteria: (1) a balanced marine environment, flourishing coastal areas and archipelagos; (2) a magnificent mountain landscape; (3) a non-toxic environment; (4) natural acidification only; and (5) a good built environment. The aim of the paper is to bring the rationality of the objectives up for discussion, and to illustrate the range of issues and difficulties that are involved in choosing and assessing environmental policy goals.