Given the growing interest among drinking water companies in the customer ‘beyond the meter’, generic accounts of the ‘average user’ no longer suffice. Yet, segmentation on the basis of specific characteristics or behaviour seems to offer a limited explanatory value. Hence, there is an increasing need for more detailed empirical knowledge of the potential for, and significance of, customer segmentation on the basis of subjective views and preferences. To this end, this paper not only explores different customer perspectives on drinking water, but also quantifies their prevalence and distribution, at a deep analytical level, in the Netherlands. The paper draws on empirical data collected from both a Q-study, encompassing a focus group and more than 30 interviews, and two large-scale surveys with a 3-year interval. We conclude that four customer perspectives on drinking water can be distinguished: (1) ‘aware & committed’; (2) ‘down to earth & confident’; (3) ‘egalitarian & solidary’; and (4) ‘quality & health concerned’. The modern customer segmentation approach in this paper offers deeper insights into the satisfaction, interests, concerns, and sociodemographic characteristics of customers related to these perspectives, which can aid companies in their quest to become more customer-oriented and responsive to different customer needs.

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True to its mission, the second issue in volume two of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL) delves into the many and varied ways in which environmental governance is evolving beyond the state. The articles in this issue explore topics as diverse as: accountability in interpreting European Union (EU) framework norms; the role of third party actors in combatting transnational environmental crime; the rationales for socially responsible investing; the possibilities and pitfalls of using market-based tools to improve biodiversity conservation; and the need to develop a grundnorm premised on notions of planetary boundaries for our system of international environmental law. Yet, despite the range of topics and the depth of each of the individual articles, together they reveal an increasingly dominant set of questions in transnational environmental law. These questions concern the role that the market and market-based mechanisms can and should play in environmental protection and the varied ways in which non-state actors, whether in conjunction with or outside the parameters of the state, influence efforts to further environmental conservation and sustainability efforts. Secondary questions that arise within the context of exploring the influence of markets and non-state actors on environmental protection centre on questions of legitimacy and accountability. All of these inquires, however, are framed by two larger background questions: what is the underlying goal of international environmental law and concomitant systems of transnational environmental governance, and how can we go about creating governance systems that are more unified in their understanding of the baseline objectives and thus more symbiotic in their implementation? By engaging with questions about international environmental norms, the evolution of regional legal systems, and more overtly transnational governance challenges, this issue reminds us of the value of transnational environmental law as a framing mechanism for exploring the ways in which traditional and novel systems for environmental protection emerge, evolve, and intersect. In a world increasingly characterized by globalization and global environmental problems such as climate change, these intersections have become both more frequent and more intense, making it all the more important to find ways to conceptualize and respond to these challenges. The articles in this issue, in their individual and collective forms,

Climate change has been a prime arena for the development of transnational environmental law. Because climate change involves global systems with complex local linkages, the governance regime mixes the local and the global. National governments have taken action unilaterally and have been joined by non-state actors, which include subnational governments, corporations, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs). 1 Subnational governments have also entered into cooperation agreements with each other and with foreign nations. 2 Thus, climate change law has broken through the traditional boundaries of international law, requiring a shift to the new paradigm of transnational law. Moreover, because of the ubiquitous impacts of climate change, climate law intersects with many other legal regimes. Climate change is caused by the emission of greenhouse gases (GHGs), primarily from manufacturing and the energy sector, which are also two major causes of air and water pollution. Methods of addressing climate change are almost guaranteed to address air pollution issues by reducing reliance on combustion processes and the use of oil refineries, prime sources of pollution. Extraction, processing, and transportation of fossil fuels are implicated in a host of environmental problems from land disturbance to water pollution, all subject to regulation of various kinds. Other carbon emissions result from land-use change, particularly deforestation, and implicate that branch of environmental law. All of these activities are subject to their own legal regimes. Adaptation to climate change will involve yet further legal regimes. Thus, the climate issue involves an enormous range of human activities, most of which are subject to their own, often fragmented and complex legal regimes. Scholars are only beginning to map this evolving and complex landscape. In the light of the distinctive qualities of climate change and its relation to law, it is not surprising that this journal has been a particularly welcoming venue for new ideas surrounding climate change law. 3 As the Introduction to the first issue of Transnational Environmental Law (TEL)

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