The process of industrial change has resulted in the creation of so-called "Brownfields" across Europe, particularly in urban areas. Brownfields are sites that have been affected by the former uses of the site or surrounding land, are derelict or underused, and may have contamination problems. They are often marginally viable or even non-viable sites as they are not competitive compared to greenfields without public intervention. Therefore, these sites present particular challenges to national and regional policymakers, including the remediation of hazards to human beings, groundwater and ecosystems, and the need to facilitate the reintegration of rehabilitated sites into the property market and to ensure that they can be regenerated for new economic uses. While management of contaminated land aims to manage or eliminate risks, the primary objective of Brownfield redevelopment is the reuse of the land and the reintegration of the properties into the economic cycle. The fact that Brownfield regeneration avoids the consumption of Greenfield sites means it is often regarded as sustainable and thus worthy of public funding. In a recent study carried out under the EU-funded project RESCUE1, European researchers have analysed the benefits and deficiencies of current financial, fiscal, legal, regulatory and policy initiatives with direct or indirect relevance to sustainable Brownfield regeneration. To this end, the authors first looked at the incentives Europe-wide, and then analysed in more detail the incentives in some Member States, namely Germany, the United Kingdom and France. Finally, the authors proposed solutions to address the defined deficiencies.

The results of the analysis show that current initiatives are effective in facilitating brownfield regeneration through reuse of soil/construction waste, maintenance of heritage buildings, land use/urban design and a citizen participation process. The authors highlight that little attention is given to the sustainability of the methods used to regenerate Brownfield sites. As the majority of the Brownfield regeneration projects in Europe are subsidized by the European Commission through the Structural Funding support system, the authors propose to introduce a set of sustainability criteria to guide this funding scheme towards sustainable Brownfield projects. Furthermore, according to the study, integrated land management policies addressing Brownfield regeneration with the right technology should focus on market-led initiatives (indirect incentives, gap-finding, etc.) but also enable public intervention.