Environmental Regulatory Regime Research Articles

Circular Economy and the Changing Geography of International Trade in Plastic Waste.

Plastic pollution has become a major environmental concern worldwide. As the circular economy is increasingly seen as a means for achieving sustainable development, it is imperative to promote the more efficient use of plastics worldwide. An integral part of the circular economy model, trade in waste, and the scrap for recovery is a part of the solution to achieve sustainability. This paper studies the changing geography of the international trade in plastic waste. It reveals increasingly complex patterns of the transboundary trade in plastic waste over more than two decades. The movement of plastic waste from high-income countries to developing nations has been the largest flow, but trade flows of other directions turn out to be significant. The findings of the paper debunk the North-South or core-periphery dichotomy that is embedded in the international environment justice tradition (including the ecologically unequal exchange theory) as well as in international environmental regulatory regimes such as the Basel Convention. The paper contributes to the discussions about value that are central in political economic approaches to global trade (e.g., the global value chain and global production network) by demonstrating the relative, spatial, and dynamic nature of the concept. As the transboundary trade in plastic waste has exacerbated pollution and marine litter in some major receiving countries, it needs to be better monitored and regulated to ensure it is conducted in a transparent and environmentally sound manner. The paper also explores several policy measures that could help tackle the plastic pollution crisis and achieve sustainable development.

Is carbon neutrality feasible for Korean manufacturing firms?: The CO2 emissions performance of the Metafrontier Malmquist–Luenberger index

To achieve carbon neutrality, the Korean government has promoted regulatory policies on the transition toward a carbon free economy in 2050. Unfortunately, these policies face strong complaints from industries with respect to losing international competitiveness owing to extra cost burdens. Is it feasible to achieve a carbon neutral economy with these regulatory policies? This study tries answering the question by evaluating the CO2 emissions performances of the Korean manufacturing industry for feasible solutions toward a carbon neutral economy. For this purpose, we adopted the metafrontier Malmquist–Luenberger (MML) index to reflect group heterogeneity at the technology level. Forty subsectors of manufacturing industrial data were collected from 2012 to 2017, which were classified under four technological levels: high, middle-high, middle-low, and low. The CO2 emissions performance showed a poor effect from the policies, with an overall 0.8% deterioration (−0.8%) in the CO2 emissions. Under the group heterogeneity, the middle-high and middle-low technology groups showed a significantly slower upward trend, implying that the environmental regulatory regime did not have a strong effect on these groups. To obtain a feasible solution for this fine tuning, MML decomposition was implemented in the second stage. As the efficiency change is the main driver that influences the CO2 emissions performance, the Korean government should encourage the catching-up effect in industries via a green cultural revolution, as well as provide strong incentives to avoid negligible performance in the innovation effect, supported by more market-oriented emissions trading schemes (ETSs).

University Stormwater Management within Urban Environmental Regulatory Regimes: Barriers to Progressivity or Opportunities to Innovate?

U.S. public university campuses are held directly responsible for compliance with many of the same federal- and state-level environmental regulations as cities, including stormwater management. While operating as 'cities within cities' in many respects, campuses face unique constraints in achieving stormwater regulatory compliance. To compare the abilities of campuses to comply with stormwater regulations to municipalities, we conduct mixed-methods research using primary data from five University of California (UC) campuses. Public universities constituted over 20% of California's "nontraditional" permittees under the municipal separate storm sewer system (MS4) regulation regime in 2013. We utilize semi-structured interviews with campus and regulatory officials, a survey of campus students and staff around support and willingness to pay for innovative stormwater management, and content analysis of campus stormwater management documents to examine challenges to public university stormwater compliance. We find that, despite their progressive environmental practices in other areas like energy and water conservation, even as compared to cities, stormwater management practices on the evaluated campuses are constrained by several factors: infrastructure financing limitations, lack of transparent and coordinated decision-making, a lack of campus resident involvement, and regulatory inflexibility. Our study provides new insights, both for understanding campuses as sustainable 'cities within cities' and more broadly for urban environmental compliance regimes globally.

Polar Code implementation in the Arctic Five: has harmonisation of national legislation recommended by AMSA been achieved?

ABSTRACT In the seminal Arctic Marine Shipping Assessment 2009 Report, Arctic states were urged to explore the harmonisation of their national maritime regulatory regimes and uniform safety and environmental protection regulatory regimes. These recommendations were important because before the Polar Code was fully adopted in 2015, there existed no dedicated international standard for polar shipping and some Arctic states legislated national regimes on a unilateral basis. Arctic states endeavoured to facilitate the development of international safety and pollution prevention rules and standards through the IMO, culminating in the adoption of the Polar Code. Over the last 5 years the Arctic Five have implemented the Polar Code in their capacities of flag and coastal states. Against this backdrop, this article discusses the extent to which and how the Arctic Five have pursued the legislative harmonisation recommended by the AMSA report.

Improving public compliance with modern environmental laws in Nigeria: looking to traditional African norms and practices

Over the years, the Nigerian environment, once rich in biodiversity with a healthy conservation status, has been witnessing increasing degradation. This situation broadly suggests that, among other factors, there is low public compliance with the existing state-based environmental regulatory instruments which presently dominate the environmental governance landscape in the country. However, there was, and still is, better public compliance with traditional African norms and practices on environmental governance which – especially when these norms held sway in the pre-colonial era – provided better protection for the environment. This paper provides evidence to support this assertion and ultimately seeks to unravel the qualities of traditional environmental governance – including effective public access to information, decision-making processes and justice in environmental matters – that ensured meaningful public compliance with environmental standards. It further seeks to demonstrate how those qualities of traditional environmental governance systems might be adapted and applied to improve compliance with the contemporary environmental regulatory regime in Nigeria.

Are “dirty” industries looking for pollution havens? – an overview of selected studies

The paper aims to present an overview of theoretical and empirical studies dedicated to “dirty” industries that migrate to pollution havens. It consists of three parts. The first one discusses the major determinants that trigger the migration of dirty industries. Next, attention is paid to the results of studies which reject the hypothesis about the existence of pollution havens. Part three addresses the ideas and concepts that validate this hypothesis and confirm that dirty industries move to countries with a more relaxed environmental regulatory regime. The paper finishes with a summary section presenting the main conclusions from the analysis.

How Do Different Types of Local Governments' Sustainability Programs Relate to Their Environmental Outcomes

Local governments worldwide have developed a suite of sustainability programs to improve environmental conditions within their jurisdictions. However, critics suggest that local governments' sustainability programs are more symbolic than substantial in that they are often developed to create the appearance of addressing environmental issues rather than actual environmental performance outcomes. Despite the skeptics, as yet, we have little empirical understanding of the environmental impact of local sustainability programs. This paper bridges the gap by considering how the design of 102 county governments' individual sustainability programs relates to improvement of their ozone quality between 2003 and 2013. After controlling for the spatial dependence of ozone quality among neighboring counties, this paper offers the evidence that local sustainability programs are related to improved environmental conditions. Moreover, the sustainability programs that are designed more comprehensively across environmental issues appear to have greater policy efficacy compared to those focusing on a few environmental issues. These findings provide optimistic views about the local, non‐regulatory policy effort for improving collective environmental quality. This implication is particularly salient given the lack of strong national and international environmental regulatory regimes.

Plastics at sea: Treaty design for a global solution to marine plastic pollution

Treaty design is a key determinant of success for environmental regulatory regimes. Well-designed treaties incentivise participation, reward compliance and deter non-compliance among the parties to the agreement. The design process can also positively affect interactions between states and help shift national perspectives and interests during negotiations. Based on treaty design evaluations of the Montreal and Kyoto Protocols, a review of existing measures to curb plastics at sea, and expert interviews, this study identifies seven treaty design elements likely to improve the success of a future legally binding mechanism to address marine plastic pollution. These include: a) the adoption of a principle of common but differentiated responsibilities; b) an adequate scope considering land- and sea-based sources, as well as chemical additives and all stages of the lifecycle of plastics; c) issue-linkage to international plastics trade; d) a financial mechanism to support implementation measures; e) built-in flexibility to adapt to changes; f) effective monitoring, reporting and review procedures; and g) enforcement through incentivising compliance and deterring non-compliance. Developed out of an inclusive treaty negotiation process, these elements can help overcome current governance challenges regarding the elimination of marine plastic pollution.

Sustainability Transitions in Baltic Sea Shipping: Exploring the Responses of Firms to Regulatory Changes

This study investigates how the introduction of more stringent environmental regulation regarding sulphur and nitrogen emission control areas induced shipping companies to react to a new situation and opened up a window of opportunity for build-up of niches for alternative vessel energy sources. By drawing on a multi-level perspective from the socio-technical transition literature, the study provides empirical evidence for how realignments in the environmental regulatory regime alter incumbent actors’ positions and produce varying environmental innovation responses to reduce air-borne pollution from shipping. The study illustrates that the stringency of a regional command-and-control regulation in combination with evolving pressures in the external landscape environment and shipping companies’ task environments are essential components shaping the adoption of environmental innovations. Although incremental innovations seem to dominate in a fossil fuel-based maritime transportation socio-technical system, our results demonstrate the role of regulations and the behaviour of frontrunners in the context of regime fragmentation and sustainability transition processes.

Managing market innovation for competitive advantage: how external dynamics hold sway for financial services

From the complexity theory, it is argued that external factors largely determine the effectiveness of firm-level strategies. Hence, firms must seek to align their strategies such as market innovation with the prevailing business environment to achieve competitive advantage. We investigate the moderating effect of three environmental factors, regulatory regime, competitive intensity and customer demand, on the relationship between innovation and competitive advantage creation in financial services firms. Data were collected from the Ghana's financial services sector with a focus on banking and insurance institutions. Constructs were validated through confirmatory factor analysis while robust regressions estimates were run to test their hypothesised relationships. We found that both competitive intensity and regulatory regime positively increase the effect of market innovation on competitive advantage. It was also found that the interaction between competitive intensity and regulatory regime has a positive effect while the interaction between customer demand and regulatory regime dampens the positive relationship between market innovation and competitive advantage creation. The concurrent occurrences of the three factors were found to have a negative moderating effect.

Red state, blue state, green state: analysing the geography of federal environmental crime prosecutions within and across the U.S. states

While green criminologists note that environmental crimes are taken less seriously than street crimes by law enforcement and the criminal justice system, the diffuse structure of the environmental regulatory regime in the United States and lack of governmental databases makes empirical assessment of environmental crimes and enforcement efforts particularly difficult. This article builds on a need in the green criminological literature to empirically assess the distribution and prosecution of environmental crimes in the United States, by focusing on the underserved area of the U.S. states. Using content analysis of 972 federal environmental crime prosecutions 2001–2011, this article explores the nature and geography of these crimes and subsequent prosecutions within and across the U.S. states. Our findings show a wide distribution of crimes and prosecutions occurring across the states, with Clean Air and Clean Water violations being particularly prevalent. We also find a weak trend between prosecutions and both the amount of pollution and number of environmental groups per state, but the small number of cases and limitations of the data make drawing firm conclusions difficult. These findings show an increased need to build databases to understand the prevalence of environmental crimes and the prosecution of those offenses in the U.S. states.

Lamarck Revisited: The Implications of Epigenetics for Environmental Law

For generations, a bedrock concept of biology was that genetic mutations are necessary to pass traits from one generation to the next, but new developments in genetics are challenging this fundamental assumption. A growing body of scientific evidence demonstrates that chemical alteration of the way a gene functions, whether through exposure to chemicals, foods or even traumatic experiences, may not only affect the exposed individual, but also the individual’s offspring for two generations or more. This interaction between genes and the environment, known as epigenetics, has revolutionized the understanding of how genes are expressed within an individual and how they affect that individual’s offspring. Epigenetics also presents novel challenges for chemical regulatory regimes in the United States and around the world. Chemical substances that do not cause mutations typically are not regulated based on their potential effects on future generations. They may be regulated based on their harms to living individuals, or perhaps to those exposed before birth, but until recently future generations were not thought to be at risk. We explore the implications of the new field of epigenetics for public and private regulation of toxics, and we suggest new legal strategies to reflect the new scientific understanding. We argue that new developments in public and private governance suggest optimism for the ability of the environmental regulatory regime to respond to new findings in the science of epigenetics.

The maturity model for corporate environmental management

The optimization of corporate environmental management is an ongoing process of organizational improvement which is usually based on many small, iterative steps. This development will be analyzed in this paper on the basis of a framework which suggests that corporate management can progress through four stages of maturity: “basic”, “standardized”, “automated” and “continually improved”. These stages are generic in nature and can be applied to virtually any kind of corporation. In the current paper, however, the focus will be on multinational corporations (MNCs), which vary in terms of the degree of interaction, the time dependencies, the information flows, the size of the enterprise, the manufacturing model, the position within the supply chain, the financial and environmental regulatory regimes, the global manufacturing requirements and the degree of vertical integration. Knowing the level of corporate management maturity helps to achieve better understanding of the company-specific aspects of its management optimization and better predictability of corporate capacities to meet the optimization goals and to move to the next level. The strict hierarchy of management maturity levels and the deep interdependency between these elements make it impossible for a corporation, for example, to implement automated management if it has not yet established standardized management procedures. A corporation dedicated to “continual improvement” without the implementation of appropriate information and communication technologies, and without the modernization of production processes, is likely to fail due to a lack of common foundation and understanding of how processes are managed process. With every new maturity level, environmental management becomes increasingly integrated and at the latest stage even fully incorporated into “operations management” and “corporate management” respectively. Such amalgamation of environmental issues into general management at every level of corporate hierarchy enables a corporation to look for solutions which can make environmental protection economically profitable and, moreover, contribute to the minimization of external and internal environmentally-related risks.

Energy technology investments in competitive and regulatory environments

The goal of this paper was to develop a better understanding of how energy firms might respond to competitive pressures in the context of regulatory risk. We model how competitive pressures affect capacity investments that firms make into their portfolio of technologies. Using comparative statics, we characterize energy firms’ incentives to invest in different energy technologies under imperfect competition in outputs and prices and within different environmental regulatory regimes. We find that under Cournot competition, firms that invest in renewable technologies benefit from both strategic and spillover effects on their overall profits. Under Bertrand competition, these benefits are enjoyed only by firms that invest in conventional technologies. Our findings can provide guidance for policy makers. Notably, even relatively weak targets set by regulators are likely to spur additional investment into renewable technologies. Regardless of policy type, strategic interactions and spillover benefits drive the optimal management of energy technology R&D activities. Our results also suggest ways for regulators to exploit the inherent benefits of imperfections in competitive markets to stimulate firms’ efforts at improving on the technologies in their portfolios. Overall, our results describe how technology investment incentives are shaped by the strategic interactions between firms, market structures, and environmental policy choices.

SWOT analysis of safety and environmental regulation for China and USA: its effect and influence on sustainable development of the coal industry

This comparative study investigates and analyzes by SWOT analysis the nature, strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats of coal mining industry safety and environmental regulatory regime versus development in China and USA. The study aims to evaluate the present attributes of the regulatory regimes versus both industries’ response, and deduce influence of this regulation on Chinese coal mining industry safety and environmental investment. The study presents theories about regulation and development so as to understand the need for regulation. It also draws out the status, types, examples, similarities and differences of the coal mining industry safety and environmental situation and regulatory regimes. Thereafter, SWOT analysis is carried out to examine strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats associated with the current regulatory regimes. Results indicate that China although having numerous coal mine safety and environmental related policies and regulations, their effect is rarely significantly fostering increased safety and environmental investment as well as research and development but reducing fatalities. This trend, therefore, confirms the need for properly designed safety and environmental regulation that fosters investment and technological improvements, so as to achieve sustainable development of the industry. The need is to learn from the US coal industry regulatory framework which has enabled advances in technology aimed at improving productivity while tackling safety and environmental problems.

Regulating Pollutants, Good Neighbor Agreements, and Negative Externalities: Who Bears the Burden of Protecting Communities?

Given the failure of federal, state, and common-law environmental regulation to deal with the external social costs of pollution on human health and the environment, local communities have turned to legal and nonlegal strategies to address their concerns. This Article seeks to address the increased need for the study of community environmental policing and monitoring of air quality. The case study presented of the Portland Good Neighbor Agreement considers whether the community benefits gained by a Good Neighbor Agreement are equitably balanced against the costs to the community of negotiation and implementation. While such agreements have the potential for a wide range of positive benefits for a community, there are significant transaction costs associated with negotiating, signing, implementing, and enforcing the terms and conditions. As such, reliance on Good Neighbor Agreements to remediate the negative human health impacts of pollution is misguided and detracts from the critical need for an environmental regulatory regime to take the responsibility off of communities and to adequately address the impacts of industrial pollution.

The Economic Costs of Environmental Regulation in U.S. Dairy Farming: A Directional Distance Function Approach

Analyses of the costs of regulating greenhouse gas emissions from dairy production, which could be used to assess the effectiveness of alternative policy measures, is a missing link in the literature. This article addresses this gap by establishing the economic impact associated with a hypothetical greenhouse gas environmental regulatory regime across major dairy producing counties in the United States. In doing so, the article makes three important contributions to the literature. First, it develops a comprehensive pollution index based on Environmental Protection Agency methodologies, which contrasts with previous studies that rely on partial measures based only on surplus nitrogen stemming from the over‐application of fertilizer. Second, the article uses a directional output distance function, an approach that has not been employed previously to evaluate polluting technologies in the U.S. dairy sector. Third, the article incorporates a four‐way error approach that accounts for unobserved county heterogeneity, time‐invariant persistent technical efficiency, time‐varying transient technical efficiency, and a random error. The results indicate that regulating greenhouse gas emissions from dairy farming would induce a 5‐percentage point increase in average technical efficiency. In addition, the economic costs of implementing this hypothetical regulatory framework exhibit significant spatial variation across counties in the United States.

Environmental Management Compliance, Law and Policy Regimes in Developing Countries: A Review of the Zambian Case

This paper is a review of environmental management compliance of the extractive industry; particularly mining in Zambia and the government’s commitment to environmental protection in view of sustainable development .The main objective of this work was to review industrial compliance against Zambia’s environmental legal regime for the period between 2009 and 2014, track environmental policy development, its implementation within the institutional functional framework in view of precautionary principle, polluter pays principle and sustainability. The authors concluded that while the environmental legal framework may be considered relatively new compared to developed nations like United Kingdom, it dates back to the 1970s and is comparable in terms of strength, to that of developed nations. However, there are many challenges regarding effective implementation. Thus, although there are many stiffer and tougher regulations enacted in Zambia (to a point where some advocates of neo-classical frontiers economics have criticized Zambia as slowly introducing one-more among the most highly regulated environmental sectors in the world, deterring development) the authors concluded that implementation was a huge challenge: implementation of Zambia’s environmental regulatory regime faces wide range of problems, from a highly centralized financial and decision-making system and budgetary allocation of negligible size, to lack of appropriate tools, equipment and personnel technical capacity. It was found that while the environmental regulations have been further stiffened around 2011-2013; compliance of mining companies was lagging behind. This was evidenced by failure of 8 in 10 mining firms to submit periodic reports as per regulatory conditions on their permits. Cases of discharging and disposing of hazardous waste to gain savings from the expenses that would otherwise arise through normal disposal procedures still exist. The authors concluded that while new and stronger measures have been put in place by government to ensure that the environmental degradation caused by mining and other extractive industry activities are adequately managed, the measures are not working effectively. These findings are consistent with the findings of the 2014 Auditor General’s Report. It was clear that co-ordination within the government’s regulatory institutional framework with interacting mandates was weak, while the selective nature on the application of the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) regulations was demeaning environmental protection and socio-economic justice.

Substitution of hazardous offshore chemicals in UK waters: an evaluation of their use and discharge from 2000 to 2012

The offshore oil and gas industry will use and discharge large quantities of chemicals into the marine environment during operational activities, with some of those chemicals considered hazardous. Chemical substitution, as part of the environmental regulatory regime, has been advocated as a simple and effective tool to reduce inputs of hazardous substances to the environment. In 2007 the UK National Plan was introduced, to prioritise into four groups and subsequently phase out in stages the most hazardous substances used and discharged during offshore oil and gas operations. Level 1 substances categorised for phase out in 2010 were virtually eliminated from discharge between 2006 and 2012 and there was a significant decline in discharge of substances at Level 2 to 4 over the same period. The discharge of substitutable substances had been reduced to less than 5 tonnes at most production installations by 2012. More than 91% of this discharge is contributed by corrosion inhibitor, scale inhibitor, demulsifier and water clarifier formulations. The discharge of corrosion inhibitors accounted for the largest contribution to UK National Plan Level 2 substitutable substance discharges, and they appear to be the type of product with the fewest options found for substitution. This implies that a finite discharge of substances from these groups will continue to require formal justification beyond the target date, as occurred for Level 1 substances after the 2010 target date. The overall figures for substitutable substance discharges from 2006 to 2012 suggest that the introduction of the UK National plan with prioritisation of substances for substitution and ongoing encouragement of operators and, indirectly, suppliers to work towards reduction goals for substitutable substances is resulting in a reduction in discharges and contributing to their ultimate phase out. The next few years will be particularly challenging as the deadline for the phase-out of discharges of substitutable substances included in OSPAR Recommendation, 2006/3 is 1 January 2017 and, in addition, by 2018 all chemical substances used offshore will need to have been registered under the EC REACH Regulation. The approach described in this paper illustrates the benefits of a prioritised strategy for chemical substitution and an ongoing dialogue between the industry and regulator. A continuing case by case dialogue with offshore operators and suppliers will be essential to ensure that alternative technical solutions are trialled and options for substitution are investigated at the earliest stage.

Integration of exploration, drilling and installation activities given regulatory challenges

Coordination and integration of exploration activities, both seismic and drilling, development drilling and offshore installation campaigns is difficult at the best of times. Add to this the regulatory requirements, which included the establishment of NOPSEMA and the associated regulations in January 2012, and the already complex task of executing work efficiently became even more challenging. The paper explores the development and application of an integrated schedule that met the overall business needs as well as key stakeholders (Environment, Exploration, Drilling, Projects and Operations). Factors and constraints that had to be addressed included existing drilling rig and installation contracts with significant associated costs, maintaining project schedules that were sanctioned prior to regulatory changes coming into effect, resourcing levels and an environmental regulatory regime seeking continuous improvement. Individual stakeholders tended to focus on their own areas yet there are schedule inter-relationships with others that had knock on effects. The integrated schedule provided a proactive management tool that was and continues to be used to plan and review key activities in a constantly changing environment.