The Green Party and the Future of Diesel--A Crossroads in Germany 2000
Around the year 2000, Germany was one of the frontrunners in Europe in terms of environmental policy. 1998 saw the Greens join the coalition government with the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and Joschka Fischer enter the cabinet as Foreign Minister and Deputy Chancellor, placing environmental issues at the center of national policy. As a result, the introduction of renewable energy and stricter regulations on automobile emissions increased, and companies were increasingly forced to respond.
Against this backdrop, DaimlerChrysler (now Mercedes-Benz Group), a major automobile manufacturer, has announced a new diesel engine that can significantly suppress particulate matter (PM) in order to change the impression of diesel vehicles, which have been regarded as "symbols of black smoke. Although conventional emission control measures had focused on NOx (nitrogen oxides), the health effects of PM (respiratory and cardiac diseases) began to be clearly recognized around this time, and regulations were being tightened throughout the EU.
In the southern German state of Baden-Württemberg, the state government established a new subsidy program to support companies in investing in energy conservation and introducing recycling technology. This was in response to green policies at the federal level, and was also a strategy to increase the competitiveness of the local economy through cooperation between industry and government in environmental response.
This shift in policy and business behavior showed the emergence of the Green Party as a "practical policy maker" rather than a mere "opposition force," and had an indirect influence on the formation of environmental policy in other EU countries and Japan. The innovations in diesel technology and the supportive policies of the government were the harbingers of the "clean diesel" boom and environmentally conscious corporate management that began in the 2000s.
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