The core area of environmental law also includes higher ranking environmental norms (for example, international environmental law, the relevant provisions of EU law, Article 20a of the Basic Law (Germany’s constitution)), cross-cutting legislation (in Germany: Environmental Impact Assessment Act, Environmental Information Act, Environmental Appeals Act, Environmental Damage Act), and environmental criminal law.

Environmental protection provisions are increasingly being integrated into the law governing specific sectors (for example, energy, agriculture, mining, building or planning) which does not have environmental protection as its original regulatory purpose. The ⁠UBA⁠ develops proposals for environmental protection provisions in these fields of law.

In particular the overarching fields of law climate protection and resource conservation law embrace classical environmental law as well as numerous legal domains and individual laws which while not forming part of environmental law can nevertheless do their bit to protect the environment. Resource conservation and climate protection are the overarching goals which allow these heterogeneous regulations to be systematically combined into, respectively, a resource conservation law and a climate protection law. By establishing the Federal Climate Change Act, overarching protection goals and procedures will be regulated in a coherent way.

Above the specific legislative and standard setting work there is the basic question of better environmental regulation and better implementation of environmental law.