Abstract
Production and consumption patterns in both industrialised and developing countries are continuing to cause increases in waste production and environmental impacts and current regulatory controls are failing in achieving wholesale material change in the nature of products and the way in which they are used. Therefore, other mechanisms must be sought to promote more sustainable product systems with regulation as the primary driver. Building legislation on a life cycle approach as part of a circular economy is radical and novel given that most environmental impacts are currently regulated on a vertical basis where legislation is linked to the process rather than the product. This thesis argues that it is necessary to establish an effective regulatory approach (a codex for the law relating to things - a codex rerum) both to ensure integration of environmental questions into every aspect of product development and to achieve harmonisation and standardisation leading to an efficient and effective approach to regulation. Regulation needs to be primary with other instruments available to complement it and it needs to start with government policy and a government determination to achieve a framework in which environmental measures are seen as an integral and indispensable part of the economy in order to advance technological development and generate a thriving market for such developments. The ultimate concern is to achieve a system which is entirely harmonised with the needs of the environment; where an effective synthesis of economic, social and environmental factors is reflected in the means and manner of production, product life management and the behavioural aspects of consumption. This thesis proposes a fundamentally different legislative approach which addresses all phases of the life cycle from all dimensions - integrating process and product controls - and which would enable and encourage innovation, particularly in response to environmental needs.