Legislation for the environment: does it work? ‐ an empirical study into selected UK‐based chemical manufacturing firms

Abstract

In the past two decades, there has been a steady rise of global environmentalism among the public and organizations alike. A series of EU and UK environmental legislation has been developed with mixed results. According to a recent study carried out by Warwick Business School, 65 per cent of the companies contacted saw legislation as an important source of pressure for supplying green technologies, but only 30 per cent of companies were reported to have responded to this pressure. To further explore the “legislation‐behaviour” incongruity within the chemical industry, a survey of 203 chemical firms has recently been conducted, followed by a series of interviews involving senior managers of some of these firms. The results show that much of the EC legislation has not been as effective as it could have been in curbing pollution‐inducing activities. The main reasons include: lack of effective communication at EU level, lack of consultation during the development of legislation, too frequent legislation changes, absence of incentive as well as enforcement mechanism, and resource constraints.