The rapid growth of shale gas development has led to an intense and polarizing debate about its merits.  This book asks and suggests answers to a question that has not yet been systematically analyzed: what laws and policies are needed to ensure that shale gas development helps to accelerate the transition to sustainability?

In this groundbreaking book, more than a dozen experts in policy and academia assess the role that sustainability plans in decisions concerning shale gas development in the U.S. and elsewhere, offering legal and policy recommendations for developing shale gas in a manner that accelerates the transition to sustainability.

Contributors assess good practices from Pennsylvania to around the planet, discussing how these lessons translate to other jurisdictions.  Ultimately, the book concludes that major changes in law and policy are needed to develop shale gassustainably.