Environmental law is undergoing a fundamental shift. Where it once set peripheral limits on harmful activity, it is now being called upon to actively steer societies through long-term ecological transformation, reshaping energy systems, land use, and entire economic sectors. Environmental Law in Transformation offers a systematic examination of this emerging legal paradigm and the governance challenges it raises.
Drawing on the European Green Deal and landmark legislation such as the EU Climate Law and the Nature Restoration Law, this volume investigates how environmental law is evolving into a formative instrument of change. Leading German scholars explore the foundational tensions of transformative governance: how law can commit to long-term goals under deep uncertainty; how the precautionary principle can be reconciled with the need to promote sustainable innovation; and how planning-oriented legal frameworks can legitimately bind not only the executive and private actors, but the legislature itself.
Covering planetary boundaries and constitutional law, legal drivers for green innovation, multifunctional land use, and knowledge obligations in environmental quality management, the volume offers both critical analysis and forward-looking reform proposals.
An essential reading for legal scholars, environmental practitioners, and policymakers navigating the ecological transformation of the 21st century. This is an open access book. 

Prof. Dr. Moritz Reese is Head of the Department of Environmental and Planning Law at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ and Professor of European Environmental Law at the Faculty of Law of Leipzig University. His research focuses on European and national environmental law, particularly water law, circular economy law, climate adaptation, nature conservation, and sustainable urban and infrastructure planning; he also serves as Chair of the European Environmental Law Forum (EELF) and co-editor of leading environmental law journals.
PD Dr. Till Markus, LL.M., is Deputy Head of the Department of Environmental and Planning Law at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research - UFZ and a Privatdozent at the Faculty of Law of the University of Bremen. His research and teaching focus on international, European, and comparative environmental law, with particular emphasis on climate, energy, marine and biodiversity law, as well as legal theory.
Dr. Romina Schaller is a Postdoctoral Researcher in the Department of Environmental and Planning Law at the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, where she also coordinates the Competence Network Challenges of Environmental Law (KomUR). Her research focuses on international and European environmental law, particularly climate change mitigation, ecosystem services, sustainable development, and the governance of carbon dioxide removal technologies (CDR).