Environmental Product Quality Research Articles

Information campaigns and ecolabels by environmental NGOs: Effective strategies to eliminate environmentally harmful components?

AbstractEnvironmental nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) are increasingly using strategies to encourage firms to eliminate product components (e.g., palm oil) that are harmful to the environment (e.g., rainforests) or to replace them with NGO‐certified sustainable components. Under what conditions do NGOs' information and ecolabeling strategies succeed in eliminating certain harmful components when these components contribute to the intrinsic quality of a product? The paper addresses these questions using a model of two‐dimensional vertical product differentiation in a market with consumers either informed or uninformed about the environmental quality of products and two firms that initially offer a product with the harmful component and a harmful component‐free product. We show that the information campaign plays a crucial and effective role in improving environmental quality, although the optimal share of informed consumers for the NGO is large but not always 100%. Ecolabeling cannot replace the information campaign. It is only a complementary tool to an intensive information campaign. Used together, they can succeed in triggering the substitution of the certified sustainable component for the harmful one.

Price Competition and Product Differentiation Based on the Subjective and Social Effect of Consumers' Environmental Awareness.

Consumer environmental awareness (CEA) can affect green consumption decisions in different and confusing ways. In order to explain the reasons for these divergences, this study divides CEA into two main components: the subjective effect and the social effect. Then, we integrate the two effects into the classic Hotelling model to study the influence of CEA’s subjective effect and social effect on price competition and product differentiation strategy. It was found that the subjective and social effects of CEA have opposite impacts on price competition and product differentiation strategies. The subjective effect of CEA increases the price and profit level of enterprises, and enlarges the difference in the environmental friendliness of products. Meanwhile, the social effect of CEA reduces the enterprises’ price and profit level, and narrows the difference in the environmental quality of products. Therefore, we suggest that it is necessary for producers of green products to distinguish between these two effects. Numerical examples are provided to verify our findings. Finally, some possible suggestions regarding the competition of green products are put forward which take into consideration the subjective and social effects of CEA. The main contribution of this paper is to theoretically explain the opposite effects of the two different components of CEA on environmentally friendly product pricing and differentiation strategy; this presents a possible explanation as to why the behavior regarding CEA differs, and provides theoretical support for enterprises to price and differentiate green products.

Heavy metal content in pork under using triticale in rations

The aim of the scientific work was to study the content of heavy metals in feed and pig production using rations with different content of grain mixtures and to determine their impact on the environmental quality of products. Experimental experiments on pigs were carried out in the conditions of the physiological yard of the Institute of Agriculture Polissya NAAS. We developed balanced rations for feeding young pigs with the addition of varying amounts of triticale to the composition of grain mixtures instead of wheat (% by weight): grain mixture No. 1 — wheat — 75, lupine — 10, mixed feed — 15; grain mixture No. 2 — wheat — 55, triticale — 20, lupine — 10, mixed feed — 15; grain mixture No. 3 — wheat — 35, triticale — 40, lupine — 10, mixed feed — 15. Rresearches were conducted to study the accumulation of Pb, Cd, Cu, and Zn in pig-breeding products when for fattening young pigs was used cereal mixtures with addition varying amount triticale to the composition. On the basis of the studies performed, it can be argued that among metals, high migration and deposited activity in the long back muscle is noted Zn, and in the liver — Cu. According to the migration ability of the studied metals, Cd is characterized by significant accumulation properties. Its coefficients of conversion into products of slaughter of pigs were 1.3–4.6 times higher than lead. Established that concentration of Pb, Cu, and Zn in the longest back muscle was significantly lower of permissible concentrations, whereas the contamination level of meat (groups I and II) and liver (groups I and III) Cd exceeded regulatory conditions by 2.0–2.4 concentration and by 24.7–28.7% respectively. Substitution in the cereal mixtures composition 20-40% (by weight) of wheat to similar amount triticale for fattening the young pigs in ІІІ zone of radioactive contamination promotes a much smaller transition of Pb, Cd, Cu, and Zn in pork — by 3.27 (group III), 0.55–8.96, 1.15–1.27 and 0.52–7.86% (absolute) respectively.

Tax Competition in Vertically Differentiated Markets with Environmentally Conscious Consumers

This paper analyses the effects of tax competition on environmental product quality, pollution and welfare in a two-country, vertically differentiated, international duopoly, in which consumers are environmentally conscious. The firm in each country chooses first the environmental quality of its product (which reflects the emissions generated in the production process) and then the price. In equilibrium one country will be more polluted than the other because firms choose different levels of environmental quality of their products. We find that a country’s optimal commodity tax is higher if the domestic firm is the more polluting supplier. Furthermore, non-cooperative commodity tax rates are inefficiently high in equilibrium. This is because, in this framework with environmentally aware consumers, commodity taxes affect the choice of firms regarding their emissions. Therefore, a domestic tax reduction not only raises the profits of the foreign firm but also lowers its emission levels, resulting in higher welfare for the other country. We also analyse the optimal cooperative and non-cooperative commodity and emission taxes with border tax adjustments. With these two policy instruments available, commodity taxes are higher.

Linking Market Orientation and Environmental Performance: The Influence of Environmental Strategy, Employee’s Environmental Involvement, and Environmental Product Quality

As it has become more and more urgent to solve the problems of environmental protection, we consider it necessary to conduct multilevel studies to examine the impact of business strategy on both employees’ and firms’ performances in environmental protection. Synthesizing the perspectives of strategic orientation, corporate strategy, and firm performance, we propose a comprehensive theoretical model linking market orientation and environmental performance. Based on a survey of 134 matched chief executive officers, senior marketing managers and frontline workers from Chinese firms, we found that market orientation positively affects environmental strategy which, in turn, influences both environmental product quality and employees’ environmental involvement. These latter two variables consequently have a positive influence on environmental performance. At the same time, environmental commitment moderates the link between market orientation and environmental strategy.

North-South Trade and the Evolution of the Environmental Quality of Products

This study recasts the question of the specialization of developing countries in the export of products that use the environment more intensively. Specifically, the role of learning and mutation in trade games has been examined. The results of the study reveal that whatever the learning strategy involved, North-South trade game could not make the environmental qualities of products in the two regions to converge.

Overcompliance and Voluntary Agreements

Voluntary agreements with industry offer many examplesof overcompliance with respect to environmentalstandards. Such phenomena seem to be irrational butappear less surprising considering firms' strategiesare aimed to internalise environmental quality. Wemodel the choice of the environmental quality ofproducts in a one-shot game between a monopolist andconsumers, to show the existence of inefficientequilibria where quality is low because of moralhazard. The firm can, however, change its' equilibriumstrategy in a repeated but finite game, in order tobuild an environmental reputation if we suppose thatconsumers' information is not only imperfect withregard to quality, but also incomplete with respect toany environmental constraint that may affect thebehaviour of firms (like the threat either of astricter regulation or of potential entry). In atwo-period model, we show the existence of a perfectBayesian equilibrium in mixed strategies where thefirm can revert to the production of green products inorder to influence consumers' beliefs and acquire anenvironmentally friendly reputation. Due to thepeculiarity of environmental information (greenproducts are credence goods), we claim that anexplicit agreement is also necessary in order toestablish monitoring and controlling procedures toverify the performance of firms. These procedures canexplain per se the diffusion of voluntary agreementsthat are nevertheless self-enforcing because of thereputation effect.