Enforcement Of Environmental Policies Research Articles

The influence of digital platform on the implementation of corporate social responsibility: from the perspective of environmental science development to explore its potential role in public health.

This paper aims to explore the intersection of corporate social responsibility (CSR) and public health within the context of digital platforms. Specifically, the paper explores the impact of digital platforms on the sustainable development practices of enterprises, seeking to comprehend how these platforms influence the implementation of environmental protection policies, resource management, and social responsibility initiatives. To assess the impact of digital platforms on corporate environmental behavior, we conducted a questionnaire survey targeting employees in private enterprises. This survey aimed to evaluate the relationship between the adoption of digital platforms and the implementation of environmental protection policies and practices. Analysis of the survey responses revealed a significant positive correlation between the use of digital platforms and the environmental protection behavior of enterprises (), Moreover, the presence of innovative environmental protection technologies on these platforms was found to positively influence the enforcement of environmental policies, with a calculated impact ratio of (). An intermediary analysis highlighted that environmental innovation technology plays a mediating role in this process. Additionally, adjustment analysis showed that enterprises of various sizes and industries respond differently to digital platforms, indicating the need for tailored environmental policies. These findings underscore the pivotal role of digital platforms in enhancing CSR efforts and public health by fostering improved environmental practices among corporations. The mediating effect of environmental innovation technologies suggests that digital platforms not only facilitate direct environmental actions but also enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of such initiatives through technological advances. The variability in response by different enterprises points to the importance of customizable strategies in policy formulation. By offering empirical evidence of digital platforms' potential to advance CSR and public health through environmental initiatives, this paper contributes to the ongoing dialogue on sustainable development goals. It provides practical insights for enterprises and policy implications for governments striving to craft more effective environmental policies and strategies.

Deforestation fight in the sight of Brazilian Amazonas inhabitants

Brazilian Amazon deforestation crystallizes numerous political, economic, and social issues. Recent empirical studies explore deforestation drivers by focusing on large-scale perspective but ignore the sight of the local populations. This article aims at providing an overview of deforestation perception among local populations defined as living within or near the Amazon biome. We have conducted 197 interviews in October 2021 in the Brazilian Amazonas region. On the basis of these interviews, we provide statistical analysis to explore 5 effects capable of driving the local perception of the deforestation processes: the gender, educational, generational, geographical and indigenous effects. Our results first highlight a very high and positive educational effect for the highest education level and a high indigenous effect, both in conformity with the intuition. Second, we observe a negative gender effect, contradicting some strands in the academic literature, and a high but ambiguous geographical effect. Finally, age does not appear to be neither a driver of interest nor an engagement in the fight against deforestation. In a context where the enforcement of environmental policy has become ineffective in recent years, we argue that characterizing local perceptions of deforestation processes might help to adjust the policy campaigns against deforestation, enhance their effectivenesses, and therefore participate to the restoration of Amazonian cover.

Eroding resilience of deforestation interventions—evidence from Brazil’s lost decade

Brazil once set the example for curtailing deforestation with command and control policies, but, in the last decade, these interventions have gone astray. Environmental research and policy today are largely informed by the earlier successes of deforestation interventions, but not their recent failures. Here, we investigate the resilience of deforestation interventions. We discuss how the recent trend reversal in Brazil came to be, and what its implications for the design of future policies are. We use newly compiled information on environmental fines in an econometric model to show that the enforcement of environmental policy has become ineffective in recent years. Our results add empirical evidence to earlier studies documenting the erosion of the institutions responsible for forest protection, and highlight the considerable deforestation impacts of this erosion. Future efforts for sustainable forest protection should be aimed at strengthening institutions, spreading responsibilities, and redistributing the common value of forests via incentive-based systems.

Does informal environmental regulation matter? Evidence on the different impacts of communities and ENGOs on heavy-polluting firms’ green technology innovation

Firms, especially heavy-polluting firms, are facing intense pressure from informal environmental regulations, which play a unique role in promoting heavy-polluting firms’ green technology innovation (GTI). Communities and ENGOs are two important informal environmental regulation entities that have different influence mechanisms to stimulate heavy-polluting firms in GTI. The research results indicate that heavy-polluting firms’ GTI follows an inverted U-shape as the number of communities around these firms increases, whereas it follows a positive linear correlation as the number of ENGOs increases. Interestingly, ownership types and administrative hierarchy distance positively moderate the curvilinear and linear relationships. State-owned enterprises (SOEs) are more inclined to maintain their legitimacy by fulfilling communities’ and ENGOs’ environmental requirements than non-SOEs. A shorter administrative hierarchy distance means that firms are supervised by high-level governments. The autonomy effect of lower-level governments does not affect the vigorous enforcement of environmental policies, which also enhances these two relationships.

Beyond the campaign‐style enforcement: A consensual approach to bridge the environmental policy implementation gap

AbstractExisting studies on environmental policy implementation in China have largely been focused on the inadequacy of environmental policy implementation at local levels and the adversarial campaign‐style enforcement used to remedy it, while overlooked other approaches to addressing environmental issues. We present a case in which a consensual approach was used to control water pollution and identify key factors contributing to the adoption and success of such an approach. The research unit is the process of water pollution control in Shandong Province from 2002 to 2011. During the case period, the pulp and paper industry (the leading polluting source) was regulated with gradually tightened water pollution discharge standards which were made and implemented in a consensual way, surface water quality was greatly improved, and the economic output of the regulated industry grew rapidly. Key factors contributing to the adoption and success of such an approach include the presence of a capable policy entrepreneur who played an important role in policy innovation, forging consensus building in policy making and facilitating consensual policy implementation; the deep and wide involvement of the regulated firms in the policy making process which allowed them to share know‐how and express preferences; and the strong political support from provincial higher‐ups which signaled strong political wills. The findings enrich our understanding of environmental policy enforcement in China by adding a set of internal factors to a literature pool focusing more on the the influence of such external factors as institutional incentiveson policy processes and outcomes.

Environmental Justice, Toxicology and Politics

The Earth and all its inhabitants, including humans, regardless of color, race, income level, or nationality, should be treated with respect as to the implementation and / or enforcement of environmental policies, laws or imposed regulations. Climate change and contaminants can strip an urban community from their basic living needs, and a subsistence community from depletion of natural survival resources. This short commentary addresses that all people should have access to the decision making processes of environmental and health hazards, assessment of legacy toxins and risk management decisions in order that every community worldwide can maintain sustainability through ecological balance.

A comparison study on environmental policies for expressway construction projects between China and the US: A tiered analysis approach

The development of expressway construction projects (ECPs) poses overwhelming challenges to the physical environment around the world. The challenges are supposed to be addressed with the enforcement of environmental policies (EPs). In this regard, developed countries have gained rich experience in EP formulation while developing countries are making efforts to improve policy decision-making on environmental sustainability. This study compares ECP-related EPs (EREPs) between China and the US by conducting a historical analysis with materials from 1960 to 2018 and text mining-based evaluation with materials from 2009 to 2019. The comparison results indicate that (1) an EREP framework is composed of two systems, namely outer factors and inner EPs; (2) the upper-level EPs exhibit a periodic and plan-dominating trend in China and an explanatory tendency in the US; (3) Chinese EPs are focused on pollution mitigation, whereas US EPs highlight the impacts on human health; (4) Both attach less importance to environmental protection measures at the project-level EPs. This paper provides a longitudinal comparison and analysis of EREPs in two huge countries, implying that EREPs are a snapshot of national rules and backgrounds. The findings lay a foundation for future research to examine the innovation of environmental policies, especially for those countries with massive expressway construction projects and the related environmental issues.

Towards reducing inter-city economic inequality embedded in China’s environmental protection tax law

Cities are at the front line of combating environmental pollution and climate change, thus support from cities is crucial for successful enforcement of environmental policy. To mitigate environmental problems, China introduced at provincial level the Environmental Protection Tax Law in 2018. Yet the resulting economic burden on households in different cities with significantly different affluence levels remains unknown. The extent of the economic impacts is likely to affect cities’ support and public acceptability. This study quantifies the economic burden of urban households from taxation of fine particle pollution (PM2.5) for 200 cities nationwide from a ‘consumer’ perspective, accounting for PM2.5 and precursor emissions along the national supply chain. Calculations are based on a multi-regional input–output analysis, the official tax calculation method and urban household consumption data from China’s statistical yearbooks. We find that the current taxation method intensifies economic inequality between cities nationally and within each province, with some of the richest cities having lower tax intensities than some of the poorest. This is due to the fact that taxes are collected based on tax rates of producing regions rather than consuming regions, that cities with very different affluence levels within a province bear the same tax rate, and that emission intensities in several less affluent cities are relatively high. If the tax could be levied based on tax rates of each city where the consumer lives, with tax rates determined based on cities’ affluence levels and with tax revenues used to support emission control, inter-city economic inequality could be reduced. Our work provides quantitative evidence to improve the environmental tax and can serve as the knowledge base for coordinated inter-city policy.

Ephemeral forest regeneration limits carbon sequestration potential in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

Although deforestation remains widespread in the tropics, many places are now experiencing significant forest recovery (i.e., forest transition), offering an optimistic outlook for natural ecosystem recovery and carbon sequestration. Naturally regenerated forests, however, may not persist, so a more nuanced understanding of the drivers of forest change in the tropics is critical to ensure the success of reforestation efforts and carbon sequestration targets. Here we use 35years of detailed land cover data to investigate forest trajectories in 3014municipalities in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest (AF), a biodiversity and conservation hotspot. Although deforestation was evident in some regions, deforestation reversals, the typical forest transition trajectory, were the prevalent trend in the AF, accounting for 38% of municipalities. However, simultaneous reforestation reversals in the region (13% of municipalities) suggest that these short-term increases in native forest cover do not necessarily translate into persistent trends. In the absence of reversals in reforestation, forests in the region could have sequestered 1.75PgC, over three times the actual estimated carbon sequestration (0.52PgC). We also showed that failure to distinguish native and planted forests would have masked native forest cover loss in the region and overestimated reforestation by 3.2 Mha and carbon sequestration from natural forest regeneration by 0.37PgC. Deforestation reversals were prevalent in urbanized municipalities with limited forest cover and high agricultural productivity, highlighting the importance of favorable socioeconomic conditions in promoting reforestation. Successful forest restoration efforts will require development and enforcement of environmental policies that promote forest regeneration and ensure the permanence of regrowing forests. This is crucial not only for the fate and conservation of the AF, but also for other tropical nations to achieve their restoration and carbon sequestration commitments.

Making It Count: How to Achieve Structural Change with Community-Based Participatory Research Projects.

Making It Count: How to Achieve Structural Change with Community-Based Participatory Research Projects.

Sensations of Air Temperature Variability and Mitigation Strategies in Urban Environments

This study examined sensations of air temperature variability and mitigation strategies in the Niger Delta, Nigeria using the cross-sectional and descriptive research designs. This study purposively selected the Capital Cities of the nine states in the study area; while the simple random sampling technique was used to select the study elements. Taro Yamane (1967) formula was employed in determining the study sample size of 400 which was apportioned to each of the cities based on proportional allocation with respected to the population of the cities, hence forming the basis for the distribution of the survey questionnaire. The results show that majority were aware of the impacts of temperature and rated the temperature in the neighborhood as high, but not aware of the comfort threshold of air temperature. Majority had never taken personal steps to mitigate high temperature and at the same time not satisfied with the level of temperature in their urban environment. Urban growth and rise in population, construction materials of urban surfaces, removal of trees/vegetation, manmade heat, air pollutants emission, congestion of buildings and time of season were found to stimulate high temperatures in the cities. Human discomfort, excessive heat, illness and diseases, soil aridity/lack of water in soil, poor air quality, increase in diseases vectors, increase in energy demand and usage, and dehydration of the body and regular thirst for water were found to be impacts and problems associated with high temperature. The prevailing strategies adopted to mitigate impacts of high temperature were only the use of electric fans (63.50%) and drinking of plenty water (92.50%). Therefore, the study recommends among others that planting and preservation of trees should be encouraged, mass awareness campaign on practices that exacerbate high temperature should be sponsored by the authorities, and regulatory agencies should strictly control urban growth and be committed to the enforcement of environmental policies. Doi: 10.28991/HEF-2021-02-02-02 Full Text: PDF

Environmental governance as a new runway of promotion tournaments: campaign-style governance and policy implementation in China's environmental laws.

The inefficient enforcement of environmental policies cannot address global environmental challenges. As a result, China's government has implemented the Central Environmental Protection Inspection (CEPI) to overcome the policy-implementation gap between higher and lower levels of government. The existing literature has examined the positive effects of CEPI on environmental pollution, but has not explained the mechanisms for its success. To examine these mechanisms, this article uses a series of regression analyses on an empirical data set of 282 prefecture-level cities from 2010 to 2018. The results identify the mechanism for the effective implementation of CEPI, from the perspective of the campaign-style governance of local officials at local levels. This study also shows the heterogeneity of the campaign-style governance behavior of local officials, including position types and professional and cultural backgrounds. And finally, this study demonstrates that the campaign-style governance behavior of local officials has a moderating effect on the relationship between environmental pollution and local officials' promotion. Ultimately the article proposes that higher government levels should adopt the effective incentives policy to address gaps between environmental policy and implementation.

Impact of cement factories in saffron cultivation Pulwama district of Kashmir

Investigations on the impact of cement factories on saffron farming in Kashmir valley, carried out through group discussions among 30 respondents of three saffron growing villages, Khrew, Khanmoh, and Wuyan, revealed that the pollution caused by cement factories immensely affected its corm, stigma and petals resulted into sharp decline in saffron production, productivity, marketing and the industry in particular. The study suggested strict enforcement of environmental policies and procedures by the government pollution management agencies of the area.

Ecological civilization, authoritarian environmentalism, and the eco-politics of extractive governance in China

With the national push for an ecological civilization under way, Chinese environmental governance is becoming more authoritarian as the central government exerts a stronger control over the enforcement of environmental policies. In this paper, I examine how the ecological civilization project has become a key driver of change in extractive regions, constituting new eco-politics of extractive governance that can be characterized by heightened authoritarian environmentalism, with the Central Environmental Inspection Team as a particularly important mechanism through which the centralization of environmental governance is achieved. I argue that the ambitious environmental goals of an ecological civilization are achieved by sacrificing the interests of extractive communities. As these vulnerable communities are highly dependent on their extractive industries and often face significant diversification difficulties, the eco-civilization project has devastating local socioeconomic impacts and are likely to accelerate structural decline and population shrinkage if not promptly addressed through external support. I argue that this constitutes a form of environmental injustice, where environmental policies impose unfair burdens on disadvantaged individuals and communities. In particular, extractive communities bear the greatest burden of both environmental exploitation and environmental protection. Achieving socially just environmental sustainability should be an important aspect of ecological civilization.

China's Environmental Tax Aggravates Cities’ Affluence Disparities

Cities are at the frontier of combating environmental pollution and climate change, thus support from cities is crucial for successful enforcement of environmental policy. To mitigate environmental problems, China introduced at provincial level the Environmental Protection Tax Law in 2018. Yet the resulting economic burden on cities with significantly different affluence levels remains unknown. The extent of the economic impacts is likely to affect cities’ support and public acceptability. This study quantifies the economic burden of urban households from taxation of fine particles (PM2.5) for 200 cities nationwide from a “consumer” perspective, accounting for PM2.5 emissions along the entire supply chain. Calculations are based on a Multi-Regional Input-Output (MRIO) analysis, the official tax calculation method and urban household consumption data from China’s statistical yearbooks. We find that the current taxation method intensifies economic inequality between cities nationally and within each province, with some the richest cities having lower tax intensities than some of the poorest cities. This is due to the fact that taxes are collected based on production-based emissions rather than consumption-based emissions, and that cities with very different affluence levels within a province bear the same tax rate, and that emission intensities in several less affluent cities are relatively high. If the tax could be levied based on consumption-based emissions of each city, with tax rates determined based on cities’ affluence levels and with tax revenues used to support emission control, intercity economic inequality could be reduced. Our work provides quantitative evidence to improve the environmental tax and can serve as the knowledge base for coordinated intercity policy.

Ranking effect in air pollution governance: Evidence from Chinese cities

Information disclosure in environmental governance, or informational governance conceptualized by Arthur Mol, has been increasingly utilized as a policy instrument to incentivize environmental policy enforcement in not only democratic societies but also authoritarian regimes like China. This study uses an explicit regulation, the air pollution ranking in Chinese cities as an example to illustrate how such informational governance policy instrument has an impact on local air pollution governance. Empirical evidence is based on monthly comprehensive air quality index ranking data of 74 key monitoring cities in China from 2013 to 2018. And a regression discontinuity design is applied to explore the relationship between air pollution ranking and air quality improvement in localities. The results show that (1) air quality of the bottom ten cities in the ranking will improve in the coming month compared with their counterparts; (2) such improvement happens upon the releasing of the ranking, but would not last for more than a month; (3) while top ten cities in the ranking do not experience such change in air quality. Therefore, we argue that the air pollution ranking system in China can be a useful informational governance instrument in providing negative incentives for environmental administrations in bottom cities to strengthen air pollution control. However, as a top-down environmental information disclosure program, such ranking institution could only mobilize local air quality governance temporarily. And new institutions ought to be established to further internalized local governments’ environmental externalities.

The waste treatment and recycling efficiency of industrial waste processing based on two-stage data envelopment analysis with undesirable inputs

Abstract Achieving a resource-conserving and environment friendly supply chain while pursuing economic development has always been the goal of countries across the world. As an emerging industrial nation, China is battling serious environmental problems. While there have been efforts to address waste processing, researchers are now interested in gauging the efficiency of waste treatment policies. We built a two-stage data envelopment analysis model with undesirable input to assess the efficiency of recycle treating and industrial waste reuse, including wastewater, waste gas and solid wastes in China. Our model is based on a circular economy structure that proposed by Environmental Protection Institute of China. The proposed method can serve as evaluation tool for the government policy in China as well as other emerging economy. We collected the data during the critical environmental policy enforcement period: the 11th five-year plan (from 2006 to 2010). We also analyze the waste treatment efficacy for the solid waste in the 11th and 12th five-year plan period (from 2011 to 2015). In contrast to earlier studies that have mainly focused on pollution disposal efficiency, this work takes both pollution and resource attributes of waste into consideration. The results revealed that integrated efficiency of industrial waste processing system was stable over five years. It also showed that efficiency at the pollution disposal stage was higher than that at the resources reuse stage, and contributed more to overall efficiency. We also find that the efficiency of the pollution and disposal of the solid waste improved during the 11th and 12th five-year plan. Further, the study reveal that the pollution disposal stage shows a similar trend as the integrated system, while the resources reuse stage does not. Finally, it also displays that there are three efficient development modes, namely, balanced, ecosystem, and coordinate development modes. In discussion, we provide benchmarks from developed countries for different development mode. We also point out other emerging countries that can benefit from our research by identifying their development mode and formulating their environmental policy based on these benchmarks in the future.

Green Economy: Challenges of Sustainable Consumption and Production in Ethiopia

Sustainability issues became the most common agenda of several countries around the world, due to the three nucleolus factors such as social, economic and environment. Sustainable consumption and production is among the fundamental concern of the UN SDGs. Though, Ethiopia’s manufacturing sector is at its infant stage, few industries located around urban areas, are releasing their waste into the river system. Like many other African countries, Ethiopia is suffering from climate change and environmental pollution. Cognizant of this, the Ethiopian government planned to transform the country into a middle income category with zero carbon emission by 2025 by executing the GTP and CRGE initiative. However, successful implementation of the program confronted several challenges. Thus, the aim of this study is to identify major bottlenecks related to SCP and to point out possible ways to achieve a green economy trajectory in Ethiopia. The current research paper is a qualitative study in to the SCP. Secondary data from peer-reviewed reputable journals, UN SDG 12 reports, country wide analysis on green economy, FDRE SDG reports, news release, website of Ministry of Environment, Forest & Climate Change (MEFCC) and sustainability stakeholders report have been collected and analyzed. A semi-structured interview was carried out with MEFCC office personnel. Loose environmental policy enforcement at national, regional and local level, complexity in organizing SMEs structure for green, lack of knowledge and awareness regarding the impact and benefits of green economy among private industries, poor incentive package for private firms to promote environmental activities and support green economy and insufficient, unreliable and irresponsible production are among the major environmental bottlenecks that Ethiopia is facing currently. Keywords: Sustainable consumption and production (SCP), CRGE (Climate Resilience Green Economy), Sustainable Development Goals, Green Economy DOI : 10.7176/JESD/10-1-05

REVIEW OF CHALLENGES CONFRONTING THE IMPLEMENTATION AND ENFORCEMENT OF ENVIRONMENTAL POLICIES AND REGULATIONS IN SIERRA LEONE.

Environmental sustainability in a developing country like Sierra Leone is faced with numerous challenges such as shifting cultivation, mining, deforestation, land degradation, urbanization, land grabbing, wildfire outbreak, corruption, under funding, inadequate man power, pollution, and political interference. Since independence, Sierra Leone has enacted various environmental protection instruments alongside with 48 international multilateral environmental agreements though some are yet to be ratified. Environmental performance index ranking of Sierra Leone is at the bottom of the index for almost four decades. This paper examines the environmental policies, regulations, challenges, mining impacts, conflicting mandates, treaties and conventions since independence and proposed the way forward in sustaining Sierra Leone?s environment. It is concluded that the major challenges facing the current and past governments in dealing with environmental issues includes; weak policies and institutions, implementation and adoption problem; natural disasters; war; non mechanized farming, mandate overlap by ministries, corruption, poverty, illegal mining and logging, weak monitoring and absence of inter-sectorial coordination among government agencies among others. Sierra Leone needs sound environmental institutions that are equipped with environmental research facilities as well as improve the educational and expertise capacity of staff. It is recommended that sound EIA/SEA survey should be conducted annually with standard guide lines on the environment health status. The formation of the Environmental Protection Agency through the Acts of Parliament in 2008 is seen as the right step in the right direction on environmental sustainability. This review provide relevant information on the current status and challenges facing the environment and hence serve as a bench mark for designing appropriate policies and regulations for a sustainable environment in the near future.

The use of administrative sanctions to prevent environmental damage in impact assessment follow-ups

Scholars have long been highlighting the value of administrative sanctions in improving environmental policy enforcement. However, few studies have evaluated how such sanctions are implemented, particularly in the context of environmental impact assessments (EIA) and their respective follow-up programs. The main objective of this article was to evaluate how administrative sanctions have been used in EIA follow-ups, using the Brazilian state of Minas Gerais as the empirical context. More specifically it tried to understand what have been the main triggers, frequency, nature and financial values of the sanctions issued to noncompliant mining projects operating under the conditions of environmental licenses. First, through literature reviews, the study characterized the institutional and regulatory framework in which administrative sanctions are applied. Content analyzes of 29 infraction processes further revealed that lump sum fines are the preferred option of administrative sanction in EIA follow-ups. The analysis also revealed that the fines could be perceived as disproportionally small if one considers the size and financial power of non-compliant companies. The great majority of the fines were paid by developers: a fact that contradicts previous empirical findings and anecdotal evidence in Brazil. Overall, the study suggests that the impact of administrative sanctions in corporate behavior, while unclear, is likely small. The study concludes by discussing practical and academic implications.