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Although structural change in many industralized countries has increased since the early 1970s, the environmental policy aspects of this change have hardly been investigated. The more pronounced the positive environmental effects of structural change become, the more positive will be the structure-oriented options of environmental policy.Using a set of four indicators, in this study thirty-one Eastern and Western industrialized countries are being tested with regard to economic structure and environmentally significant structural change. The authors come to the conclusion that the strong correlation between economic performance and environmental pollution, unequivocal in 1970, had become much weaker by 1985. The de-linking of economic growth from material-intensive industrial production processes is particularly evident. In some cases automatic environmental benefits ('environmental gratis effects') were generated in this way.However, the development profiles of the countries investigated differ greatly. There are countries, in particular Sweden, with absolute structural improvement in the ecological sense; countries like Japan and Norway with structural improvement relative to economic growth; and countries, including most Eastern and Southern European states, featuring no structural improvement or even environmentally negative structural change.The question is being left open to what extent the modernized economic structures are accompanied by 'modernized' forms of environmental pollution.

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The ratio of words to action is weighted too heavily towards the former. UNEP Ten-Year Report, 1984 * Approved at an international meeting of environmentalists, economists and techni cians at the Aspen Institute in Berlin (West), October 13-16,1985. Environmental Sectors Environmental Damage A ir Pollution ca. 48.0 Health hazards Material damage Degradation ofvegetation Forest blight, etc. between 2.3 -5.8 more than 2.3 more than 1.0 between 5.5 and 8.8 Water Pollution far more than 17.6 Damage to rivers and lakes Damage to the North Sea and Baltic Sea Contamination of ground water, etc. more than 14.3 far more than 0 3 more than 3.0 Soil Contamination far more than 5.2 Costs of Chernobyl disaster Rehabilitation of 'yesterday's waste' Costs of preserving biotopes and species Other sod contamination, etc. far more than 2.4 more than 1.7 more than 1.0 far more than 0.1 Noise more than 32.7 Degradation of residential amenities Productivity losses 'Noise rents', etc. more than 29.3 more than 3.0 more than 0.4 Grand total of damage more than 103.5 Source: Wicke.

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