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Over the last decades, environmental issues have assumed a growing importance on political agendas. Despite the public commitments made (laws, international conventions, political statements) and the varied, ambitious and complex management systems set up (institutions, planning procedures, financial tools... ), examples in all environmental areas (biodiversity, water management, air and varied, pollution... ) show that in many situations processes causing serious environmental degradation are out of control. Analysing and assessing the coherence and effectiveness of actions in the light of environmental commitmentsmustmore than ever be a central issue for environmental studies. However, developing new in depth analyses of such issues requires an appropriate theoretical framework. This paper aims to show that “Strategic Environmental Management Analysis” (SEMA), a theoretical framework developed to this end over the last twenty years, provides precisely the foundations needed. The paper summarises the framework’s background in the 1980s and its foundations in strategic approaches of organizational sociology and strategicmanagement. It shows how the framework, when implemented using appropriate methodologies, can be instrumental in overcoming widespread contradictions, confusions or misconceptions in fields that are crucial for sustainable development and environmental management. In the paper, the theoretical reframing promoted by SEMA is applied in two fields taken as examples: integrated coastal management, and environmental policy evaluation.