The 1991 New Zealand Resource Management Act established an effects-based planning system intended to safeguard the biophysical resource base. The act and its subsequent practical implementation are deconstructed using an ecological modernisation framework. This demonstrates that many of the key policy instruments of the act can be accommodated within an ecological modernisation discourse. However, elements of discursive democracy introduced by the legislation have subsequently been impaired by technocorporatist legal formalism. This has prompted considerable debate about the perceived high process and compliance costs and the restricted public scrutiny of effects-based compliance in the new planning system. The reduced emphasis on socioeconomic effects within land-use development plans has impeded the promotion of sustainable spatial development strategies, frustrating attempts to deliver the ‘superindustrial ecological switchover’ sought by proponents of ecological modernisation. Recent legislation to extend the strategic powers of local government may help resolve this issue.

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Progress in the greening of UK local government has been hampered by uncertainty about the relationship between resource use and environmental protection. Ecological modernizationmay offer the most appropriateparadigm to reconcile economic, social and environmentalinterpretationsof sustainability. The transition from corporate to strategic environmental management currently being attempted by some 'green' authorities can be construed as an attempt to promote ecological modernization in the form of institutional learning. Fife Council in Scotland provides an interesting case study. Progress with corporate environmental management has become bound up with a radical devolution of decision making. Efforts to link the authority's Sustainable Development Policy to a Local Agenda 21 programme have been initiated with the piloting of sustainability indicators.

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