Local building regulations are to date an unfamiliar and yet surprisingly versatile ecological means of construction design. This volume comprehensively examines for the first time the possibility of enacting environmentally relevant local building regulations in all 16 federal states - against the background of the respective constitutional and legal framework on federal and state level. A particular highlight is the conflict between voluntary measures to protect the environment undertaken by house builders who are otherwise required to comply with "classic" building regulations as the sole construction design regulations. Numerous examples reveal the potential of building regulations as a means of protecting the environment as well as their advantages against town planning; they are less complex, less time consuming and thereby a cheaper means of ensuring a municipal contribution to environmental protection which is equally mandatory. An independent proposal as to how powers of authority could effectively be granted completes the analysis.