Credible Monitoring Research Articles

Pragmatic Visionaries:: Difference Makers as Social Entrepreneurs

I n the early 1970s, barely a trace of what is today a rapidly growing infrastructure on corporate responsibility existed. Overall, the responsibility infrastructure encompasses a variety of different institutions that place pressures on companies for greater accountability, responsibility, transparency, and sustainability. Some of these institutions, like social investment, an emergent responsibility assurance infrastructure, business associations, and internal responsibility management approaches, are market based, in that they rely onmarketmechanisms. Others are based in civil society, including multi-stakeholder dialogues and collaborations, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), activists, interest groups, watchdogs, and ratings and rankings. In parts of the world, legislative and regulatory action is also beginning to focus, in particular, on issues of disclosure and transparency around ESG – environmental, social, and governance – aspects of firms. Below, I explore how a select group of individuals called difference makers used pragmatic vision and social entrepreneurship to build some of the pioneering institutions of the responsibility assurance framework now emerging. This framework is part of a much more extensive network of emerging institutions around corporate responsibility. It encompasses: (1) standards, codes, and principles that businesses are increasingly expected to live up to; (2) credible monitoring, verification, and certification systems to provide assurance that what is stated by companies is what is actually being done; and (3) generally accepted reporting standards comparable to financial reporting standards, but focused on non-financial or ESG matters. This infrastructure has created both new visibility for issues of corporate responsibility and also numerous responses and increasingly proactive momentum among companies, particularly multinational corporations who are in the limelight, around ESG issues. Although there are many individuals whose work could be highlighted, space constraints focus this manuscript on the work of only a few of the many difference makers. SEEDS OF RESPONS IB I L I TY ASSURANCE

Wine Brokers as Independent Experts

This paper aims to show that an institutional arrangement such as brokerage is an efficient coordination mechanism to mitigate the contractual hazards in the relationship between merchants and wine growers. We explain its efficiency by considering brokers as independent experts that can help merchants to monitor the growers' wine-making process. More precisely, when the merchant cannot observe the grower's production effort and finds it costly to commit to a credible monitoring of the wine quality process, it can be efficient to delegate the monitoring task to the broker. Thus, delegation to a third party has a commitment effect.

Designing, testing and implementing a trial dryland salinity credit trade scheme

This article describes implementation and outcomes of a credit trading trial focussed on dryland salinity in Victoria, Australia. In lieu of extant specified property rights, participants were invited to agree to obligations to provide groundwater recharge credits in exchange for pecuniary compensation. Participants were able to meet their obligations to supply groundwater recharge credits through land management actions resulting in monitored outcomes consistent with contractual obligations to reduce recharge. Alternatively, those in deficit were provided the option to obtain sufficient credits through market exchange. Surplus transferable recharge credits were produced by those participants who exceeded their own contractual obligations through improved land management. The paper describes the process of contract design and implementation. The trial involved a design and testing phase and an on-ground implementation phase. We describe composite methodologies deployed in the design and testing of alternative policy instruments and institutional arrangements, conducted prior to implementation. These involved community consultation, an attitudinal and behavioural survey, experimental economics and the development of a transparent and credible monitoring protocol. The conclusions drawn as a result of this analysis provided an empirical basis to implement the on-ground trial phase. Results of on-ground implementation are described. Finally, the methods and results of a Benefit Cost Analysis (BCA) of the on-ground trial implementation are outlined. The BCA accounted for salinity damage reduction, forgone river flow, carbon sequestration, production benefits and costs. The result of BCA was an estimated net benefit.

Re‐engaging disaffected youth through physical activity programmes

It is a cherished belief within physical education and sport communities that participation in sport/physical activity has the potential to offer young people a range of physical, psychological and social benefits. More recently in the UK, this belief has become prominent in government policies that, among other things, are seeking to re‐engage disaffected young people in order to increase their life chances and minimise the impact of anti‐social behaviours upon others. Yet, the link between physical activity interventions and developing pro‐social behaviours is not straightforward, and there is a lack of credible research evidence to support many of the claims made for physical activity to or to inform decisions about effective intervention design. This paper reviews key literature, focusing particularly on disaffected young people and physical activity interventions in the school context, and identifies six key issues that, we would argue, warrant consideration when planning physical activity programmes to re‐engage disaffected young people. In particular, it is argued that the unprecedented levels of public and private funding available for physical activity related programmes in the UK, and the high expectations placed upon them to deliver specific measurable outcomes, mean that the need for credible monitoring and evaluation is pressing.

Analysis of Transect Counts to Monitor Population Size in Endangered Insects The Case of the El Segundo Blue Butterfly, Euphilotes Bernardino Allyni

Before, during and after habitat restoration from 1984 to 1994, we monitored population size of the federally listed endangered El Segundo blue butterfly, Euphilotes bernardino allyni (Shields). In the subsequent formalization of a recovery plan for the species, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service established several recovery criteria, including a requirement of ‘a scientifically credible monitoring plan’ to track population size annually. To avoid detrimental effects of the extensively used mark-release-recapture method on the delicate El Segundo blue butterfly, which would conflict with protection afforded by the Endangered Species Act, we chose instead to perform transect counts to estimate relative population size. Herein, we analyze the results of our transect counts by three different methods, developed by or modified from Pollard, Watt et al. and Zonneveld. Qualitatively, the three methods, which have different assumptions, produced similar results when applied to the same data. Zonneveld's model estimates death rate in addition to an index of population size, thus providing more information than the other two methods. The El Segundo blue butterfly's sedentary nature and the close relationship of its adult and early stages to one foodplant permits extrapolation of the index of population size based on transect counts, to an estimate of actual population size. Our data document butterfly numbers increasing from 1984 to 1989, but then declining until the end of our observations in 1994. Based on analysis of our El Segundo blue butterfly data, we propose an implementation of a scientifically credible monitoring plan.

Monitoring Compliance with BMPs: The Experience of State Forestry Agencies

Abstract Thirty-four states implement compliance monitoring programs to determine whether voluntary or mandatory forest practices are being applied by landowners and timber harvesters. In only 20 states does the lead forestry agency have sole responsibility for monitoring. Since the early 1990s, some states have completed five or more monitoring survey cycles, the most recent costing an average of $60,000. Effectiveness of compliance monitoring is enhanced by positive landowners' and harvesters' attitudes, assignment of monitoring responsibility to a single agency, credible monitoring processes, and sufficient resources.