Starting from the observation of a widespread apparent consensus regarding the justification and assessment of environmental policy measures within the framework of traditional environmental economics, the study examines the fundamental relationship between environmental economics, environmental policy, and market economy. Three different environmental economic approaches are derived and their implications for the derivation and assessment, particularly of German environmental policy, are discussed. The author, born in 1962, is a graduate economist and received his doctorate in 1998 from the University of Trier. He is a specialist advisor for economics at the German National Library in Frankfurt am Main.