Abstract
This article focuses on the learning process of the participatory norm in the environmental policies linked to the cement industry. The historical perspective shows how cement industrialists, facing environmental controversies, have gradually taken hold participatory instruments that were emerging in the 90’s. Both consulting commissions and partnerships with local actors and environmental NGOs are multi-stakeholders devices working as a medium for manufacturers to establish a dialogue with these new actors of public policies. Stemming from transaction learning in conflicts, these participatory devices have spread through prescription learning, opening new spaces of negotiation dealing with the regulation of relations between industry and its environment. Promoting interaction with the least radical actors, they ultimately enable manufacturers to rebuild their role in a changing public policy.