Industry Environmental Agreements and Climate Policy: Learning by Comparison

Abstract

Despite considerable debate over the environmental effectiveness of industry agreements, there remains a lack of systematic comparative data as to which design features most influence their ability to encourage corporations to reduce environmental impacts. Using an analytical framework to assess the motives for, negotiation and implementation of industry agreements, this paper reviews agreements developed in Australia, Germany and the UK to regulate industrial greenhouse-gas emissions. It is argued that, contrary to the popular view that agreements are generally useful only as transitional instruments on the way to legislation or economic instruments, they can act as important drivers of change in corporate attitudes and behaviour, especially when combined with the threat of economic instruments. Conclusions are drawn on the merits of different design features to improve the environmental performance of agreements, including reporting, monitoring, and the use of legal and financial sanctions to ensure compliance with agreed targets.

Unpacking the complexity of environmental regulatory governance in a globalizing world: a critical review for research agenda setting

“…One strand of literature conceptualizes corporate environmental strategies from a performance perspective by adopting a continuum categorization. Such a continuum could range from compliance with regulations and unified industry practices, to further actions to voluntarily reduce the negative environmental externality (Bailey, 2008;Sharma, 2000). The second line of research draws on business behavioural diversity in dealing with specific issues such as green certification (Boiral, 2007), carbon emission (Levy & Egan, 2003), and dealing with new regulations (King, 2000).…”

Environmental regulation in the twenty-first century: a systematic review of (and critical research agenda for) JEPP scholarship

“…Non-statutory forms of regulation, such as industry self-regulation, voluntary regulation and regulatory partnerships have featured regularly in its issues (e.g. Bailey, 2008;Carter & Weible, 2013;Taylor & Lawrence, 2012). 6 Arguably, the new environmental policy instruments that have emerged since the 1990sregulatory and otherand the oft-observed shift from government-led environmental policy and planning to environmental governance (Jordan et al, 2003(Jordan et al, , 2005(Jordan et al, , 2013Young et al, 2008), may have drawn JEPP's attention away from studying 'traditional' statutory and other forms of government-led environmental regulation.…”

What Roles are There for Government in Voluntary Environmental Programmes?

“…Scholars also point out that monitoring and enforcement is key to a VEP's success (Lyon and Maxwell, ; Short and Toffel, ). Without meaningful monitoring and enforcement, VEPs are not expected to achieve their intended outcomes (Bailey, ). Various forms of monitoring and enforcement are pointed out in the literature as having different impacts on VEP performance.…”