Voluntary Environmental Agreements Research Articles

Heterogeneous environmental policies and employment: evidence from China.

This paper attempts to investigate how the rapid development of China's environmental policy contributes to the changes in China's labour market. We first categorise the environmental regulations into (i) command-and-control policies, (ii) economic incentive policies, and (iii) voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs). Then, we use the provincial panel data over the 2000-2015 period to estimate the effect of alternative environmental regulations on employment in China. The results show that alternative environmental regulations have different impacts on employment. This difference even exists within the same group of environmental policies. Amongst the command-and-control policies, the three simultaneities policy leads to less employment, while the deadline governance systems increase employment. For economic incentive policies, higher environmental tax leads to lower employment, while more funding for environmental research promotes employment. The results also show that more VEAs reduced labour demand. In addition, the dynamic impact and regional heterogeneity of environmental regulations on employment are confirmed by the empirical estimation. Specifically, the economic incentive policies significantly impact employment in Central and Western China, whereas they have a non-significant impact on employment in Eastern China. This finding confirms that economic development impacts the relationship between environmental regulations and employment.

Relational Voluntary Environmental Agreements with Unverifiable Emissions

Abstract Environmental regulation and pollution control may clash against the presence of unverifiable tasks, like source-specific emissions. To tackle this issue, we reshape a voluntary agreement instrument, already available in the existing literature, from a dynamic perspective by means of a relational contracting approach. We define a Relational Voluntary Environmental Agreement (RVEA) in an N firms symmetric context, and show that even if emissions are not contractible across firms, and therefore enforcement cannot be delegated to a third party, if firms are sufficiently patient, a self-enforcing RVEA induces the achievement of the environmental objective. Finally, our welfare analysis reveals a notable result: our RVEA can imply less free riding and be welfare-improving with respect to a Voluntary Environmental Agreement enforced by a third party (along the lines of McEvoy, D. M., and J. K. Stranlund. 2010. “Costly Enforcement of Voluntary Environmental Agreements.” Environmental and Resource Economics 47: 45–63).

Assessing the performance of voluntary environmental agreements under high monitoring costs: Evidence from the Brazilian Amazon

Voluntary environmental arrangements generally coexist with State-based and private rules, creating a property rights system that legitimizes certain behaviors. In a world of positive transaction costs, legitimacy ensues from imperfect monitoring activities, opening room for opportunism. In this paper, we discuss how the existence of multiple rules in a scenario of high monitoring costs affects the performance of an environmental policy. We discuss the case of deferred prosecution agreements (TAC, acronym in Portuguese), which are voluntary arrangements designed with the goal of incentivizing slaughterhouses to monitor the environmental practices of ranchers in the Brazilian Amazon. More specifically, we study how the signature of a TAC agreement affects deforestation rates in the Brazilian Amazônia Legal region at the municipality level. This paper adopts a difference-in-differences approach to analyze a sample of Brazilian municipalities between 2006 and 2017. Our results, which remain robust across alternative estimators and subsamples, show that the signature of a TAC agreement increases deforestation rates by 0.2 standard deviations. We argue that the signature of a TAC agreement, by creating an imperfect proxy for “good behavior” that enables both compliant and non-compliant organizations to access credit, may incentivize deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon.

The Impact of the Voluntary Environmental Agreements on Green Technology Innovation: Evidence From the Prefectural-Level Data in China

“Porter Hypothesis” believes that moderate environmental regulation can promote the growth of green technology innovation. Voluntary environmental agreements are a typical type of environmental regulation and theoretically promote green technology innovation. In 1964, Japan was the first country in the world to implement a voluntary environmental agreement, with good results. Subsequently, European Union countries began to implement the “fifth Environmental Action Plan” on 1 January 1993, which effectively combined voluntary environmental agreements with corporate self-regulation. The prior empirical work assists the idea that environmental regulation has diverse impacts on the environment. However, China’s voluntary environmental agreements have a short implementation time and lack of experience and need to be further explored in terms of policy proposal and technology implementation. The existing literature is based on a sample of units at the provincial level or national level are studied, utilizing multiple regression analysis methods, this study in China prefecture-level administrative units as investigation object, and choose the government environmental protection education, the government agreement propaganda, enterprise ecological ethics, information disclosure, market efficiency, and information technology support six elements as the key independent variables. This paper empirically examines the promotion effect of the voluntary environmental agreement on green technology innovation, finds the shortcomings of China’s voluntary environmental agreement regulation, and puts forward specific improvement strategies to promote the growth of green technology innovation more effectively. It is found that government environmental protection education, enterprise ecological ethics construction, market effectiveness, and information technology support have obvious promoting effects on green product innovation, green process innovation, and end management innovation. Government agreement publicity has no promotion function for green product innovation, green process innovation, and terminal governance innovation. The disclosure of protocol information has a promotion effect on green product innovation, but it lacks the promotion function on green process innovation, and end management innovation. The research believes that the deepening of the implementation of voluntary environmental agreements in China should give full play to the leading role of the government, implement progressive policies, deepen the internal coordination of environmental regulations, give play to the supervision role of the public and the media, learn from the experience of western countries, and promote green credit. The finding of the study opens up new insight for appropriate policymaking.

Major US electric utility climate pledges have the potential to collectively reduce power sector emissions by one-third

Major US electric utility climate pledges have the potential to collectively reduce power sector emissions by one-third

Formation of factors for the selection of criteria for environmental friendliness of organic products based on the implementation of an integrated eco-strategy

In this article, we will reveal the opportunities, needs and features of the implementation of environmental strategies in order to motivate the environmental activities of commodity producers in the field of agricultural production. The problem of preserving the environment and ensuring food security in the existing ecological and economic conditions can be solved by achieving optimal environmental management and environmental protection. Improving the relationship between the environment and the economy requires the use of various regulatory tools. The vector of institutionalization of ecological and economic interests should be aimed at correcting certain mandatory actions between the participants of these relations. This includes the active development of approaches that include the integration and combination of information, legal, administrative, economic, moral and ethical tools for regulating nature management and environmental protection. The achievement of the ecological and economic optimum is possible through the analysis of the expected effect and the free conclusion of agreements (contracts) between the subjects of ecological and economic relations and the development of the institute of voluntary environmental agreements using the tools of game theory. The effectiveness of the implementation of integrated eco-strategies can be most clearly expressed in the agricultural sector as the need to produce high-quality agricultural products while maintaining the quality of the environment, especially soil fertility. The trend of consumer choice of organic products in the world continues, grows, determines the growth of the organic products segment and correlates with the goals of environmental policy. In Russia, some of the identified shortcomings and shortcomings of the institutional conditions constrain the growth rate of organic production, but the high potential of its production in the future can significantly change the export orientation of the agricultural sector, increase the competitiveness of domestic agricultural products and become one of the promising directions (vectors) of ecological and economic development of Russia. Organic organic standards is essential for the formation and improvement of institutional conditions of realization of ecostrategy, the main actors (players) which is the complex nature of national and ecostrategy explains the interest and willingness of participants to implement environmental-economic optimization of the activities of organic producers. Depending on the existing norms, rules and standards, the choice of actions of participants in voluntary environmental agreements is associated with individual expectations of maintaining high-quality environmental and economic benefits.

Information asymmetry in voluntary environmental agreements: theory and evidence from UK climate change agreements

Abstract Voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs) are often plagued by adverse selection problems, because the regulator has imperfect information about firm-specific production technologies and abatement costs. We explore this issue using the UK climate change agreement (CCA) as a case study. First, we present a theoretical emulation of the programme. Second, we resolve the regulator’s asymmetric information problem by estimating unobserved energy efficiency (EE) using production theory. Third, we use microdata from three confidential manufacturing surveys to empirically test how limited information impacts resource allocation within the scheme. In line with the problem of limited information about firm production technologies, we find that firms with lower levels of EE receive higher CCA tax discounts. This finding holds over a range of robustness tests.

Breves considerações sobre os acordos ambientais como instrumento de proteção do ambiente

Este trabalho trata do surgimento e aplicação dos acordos voluntários ambientais, especialmente em sua utilização no ordenamento Brasileiro, através do compromisso de ajustamento de conduta. Inicialmente é abordada a ideia conceitual, caracterização e necessidade do instrumento de co-regulação em prol da proteção do ambiente sob o âmbito da comunidade europeia e na legislação brasileira. Na sequência, procura-se destacar a contribuição da adoção de instrumentos alternativos na promoção do princípio do acesso à Justiça e maior eficiência na tutela jurisdicional. Por fim, analisa os novos mecanismos na solução dos conflitos ambientais, que devem ser sustentados na participação do cidadão, em prol do fortalecimento da democracia. Neste ensejo, propõe uma reflexão sobre a implementação e efetividade dos acordos em busca de prevenção e reparação dos danos ambientais.

Can’t environmental regulation be voluntary?: Logic and Effectiveness of Voluntary Environmental Agreement

Can’t environmental regulation be voluntary?: Logic and Effectiveness of Voluntary Environmental Agreement

Voluntary Agreements, Flexible Regulation and CER: Analysis of Games in Developing Countries and Transition Economies

In this paper, we study the implementation of environmental voluntary agreements (EVA) in developing countries and transition economies to effectively motivate firms to take corporate environmental responsibility. We uses flexible regulation (FR) as the background pressure of EVA and present a four-stage game-theory model to explore under which conditions firms will comply the law and take environmental responsibility. We find that EVA could be the equilibrium outcome as long as existence of the background pressure, and the equilibrium level of abatement could exceed the standard of legislation when the background pressure of FR is large enough or the unit cost of abatement under EVA is low enough, or the social cost of capital is low enough. We also identify that the increase of abatement level will not increase firm's abatement cost in EVA, and sometimes even be lower with the support of technology and cost-sharing assistance in EVA. In addition, we suggest that the firm can actively choose the first-best level of taking environmental responsibility before participating into EVA, which can minimize the total abatement cost.

Competition and Environmental Policy in the EU: Old Foes, New Friends?

European competition authorities consider environmental and competition policy to be complementary, as each has the objective of improving social welfare. Naturally, one would imagine that environmental considerations have already been accounted for in competition policy practice, but thus far, only in the case of voluntary environmental agreements. This paper analyzes the extent to which the two types of policy are complementary by examining the legal framework of competition policy, voluntary environmental agreements and three competition cases with equal relevance to the environment and then examines the basic theoretical economic observation that less competition implies lower pollution levels relative to more competition. This trade-off between the benefits of reduced emissions on the one side and increased competition on the other implies that disregarding environmental considerations in the implementation of competition policy entails a negative externality, which can be eliminated if environmental considerations are internalized in competition policy. The impact of the externality is found to depend on the emission level, the emission damage, and market size. Further, this implies that if competition authorities were to adopt a broad definition of the relevant market in competition cases, then environmental considerations would play a limited role in competition policy, whereas a narrow definition implies that environmental considerations should have a much more important place than competitive considerations in competition policy.

Досвід державного управління охороною навколишнього середовища в країнах ЄС

Проаналізовано досвід здійснення державного управління в країнах Європейського Союзу, зокрема застосування таких нових інструментів, як екологічні угоди та самозобов’язання. На основі аналізу практики укладання добровільних екологічних угод в країнах ЄС, насамперед у Нідерландах та ФРН, дається їх характеристика. Висвітлюються переваги та недоліки укладання добровільних екологічних угод в практиці державного управління в сфері охорони навколишнього середовища в таких проблемних областях, як зниження впливу на навколишнє середовище існуючих джерел забруднення, зменшення викидів токсичних речовин, підвищення енергоефективності та ін. Розкрито чинники, які впливають на добровільну саморегуляцію підприємств, у тому числі практика поєднання добровільних підходів з обов’язковими компонентами державної політики регулювання. Значне місце відведено аналізу використання контрактної технології здійснення екологічної політики та дається оцінка такого підходу з точки зору перспектив природоохоронної політики.

Voluntary Environmental Agreements Applied to Jingzhou Textile and Dyeing Enterprises for Pollution Prevention and Controls

As a tool of environmental policy, many countries in a world attach importance to voluntary agreement increasingly. The paper summarized that Voluntary Environment Agreements (VEAs) was put into practice in textile printing and dyeing industry of Jingzhou, put forward a frame of the VEAs and its details which are implemented in the city, investigated and analyzed the concrete measures that were adopted by a part of the textile and dyeing enterprises in performing VEAs, and the preliminary effects in energy-saving and emission-reduction engendered by the measures. The practices indicated that textile and dyeing enterprises adopting VEAs is beneficial to enhance their productivity and management, and to decrease their energy consumption and the amount of sewage. To encourage the enterprises adopting VEAs, the government should support them in relevant policy and financing, solve their capital deficit and the increased cost due to the advanced environment management.

자발적 프로그램의 성과 분석: 30/50프로그램 중심으로

In this paper we evaluate the performance of voluntary environmental agreements in South Korea, called as the 30/50 program. We constructed establishment- and chemical substance-level panel data from 2004 to 2010 by using the Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTR) Information System. Although firms voluntarily participate in the program and the agreement is not binding, we find that the chemical materials released by the participating firms is substantially reduced by 1.2 to 2.7 tons. Although the abatement effect is more salient for those listed chemical substances in the agreements, the reductions in other substances are also significant. This implies that participating firms adopted new technologies that could reduce environmental hazards.

Voluntary Environmental Agreements in Developing Countries: The Colombian Experience

According to proponents, voluntary agreements (VAs) negotiated with polluters sidestep weak institutions and other barriers to conventional environmental regulation in developing countries. Yet little is known about their effectiveness. We examine VAs in Colombia, a global leader in the use of these policies. We find that the main motive for using VAs has been to build capacity needed for broader environmental regulatory reform. Their additional effect on environmental performance has been questionable. These findings suggest that in developing countries, VAs may be best suited to capacity building, not environmental management per se.

Voluntary environmental agreements in developing countries: the Colombian experience

Voluntary agreements (VAs) negotiated between environmental regulators and polluters are increasingly popular in developing countries. According to proponents, they can sidestep weak institutions and other pervasive barriers to conventional mandatory regulation in such countries. Yet little is known about the drivers of their use and their effectiveness in poor countries. The considerable literature on voluntary initiatives in industrialized countries, where both VAs and socioeconomic conditions differ, may not apply. Using a conceptual framework drawn from the economics literature, we examine four prominent VAs in Colombia, a global leader in the use of this policy. We find that the main motive for using VAs has been to build capacity needed for broader environmental regulatory reform and that partly as a result, VAs’ additional effect on environmental performance has been limited. These findings contrast with those from industrialized country studies, which typically conclude VAs are used as a low-cost substitute for impending mandatory regulation and have few benefits because of weak regulatory pressure. Our findings suggest that in developing countries, VAs may be best suited to capacity building, not environmental management per se.

A dynamic analysis of voluntary agreement implementation in Mexico

This paper provides a descriptive historical analysis of failure and success factors during the implementation phase of environmental voluntary agreements (VAs) in Mexico. Secondary source data suggest that over the past two decades, perceptions of VAs have changed, and the purpose of this paper was to identify the driving factors behind that change. The analytical framework has three components: the first one refers to prior research findings on the perceptions of the Mexican private sector. The second and third components draw on previously reported ‘successful’ characteristics in voluntary approaches. By including a range of interest groups, the authors aimed to include those aspects of communication processes described as ‘lobbying’ by several authors. A major outcome of this analysis is that the low level of ‘trust’ among actors amounted to a failure factor when implementing a VA but that, after 14 years, the level of ‘trust’ had increased resulting in a cooperative attitude among actors. Communication effectiveness had an important role in the ‘trust’ building process, leading to the conclusion that communication processes had also improved. Although this cannot be claimed as a direct result of the lobbying processes, this research has identified the influence of ‘lobbying’ in facilitating the successful implementation of a VA. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Costly Enforcement of Voluntary Environmental Agreements

We examine the consequences of costly enforcement on the ability of voluntary agreements with industries to meet regulatory objectives, the levels of industry participation with these agreements, and the relative efficiency of voluntary and regulatory approaches. A voluntary agreement can be more efficient in reaching an aggregate emissions target than a conventional emissions tax, but only if: (1) profitable voluntary agreements in which members of the agreement pay for its enforcement exist; (2) members of a voluntary agreement actually bear the costs of enforcing the agreement; (3) the agreement is enforced by a third-party, not the government, and (4) this third-party enforcer has a significant advantage in monitoring technology and/or available sanctions over the government.

Voluntary agreements to improve environmental quality: symbolic and substantive cooperation

AbstractWithin the context of environmental voluntary agreements (VAs), this paper analyzes the determinants of the degree of participation by firms in collective corporate political strategies that aim to shape government policy. We demonstrate that substantive cooperative strategies are more likely to be pursued by firms that enter a VA close to its initiation, while symbolic cooperation is more likely behavior by late joiners. We show that late joiners and early joiners within VAs adopt different cooperative strategies because they face different institutional pressures. Our analysis is based on the strategies of firms participating in the Climate Challenge program (1995–2000) established by the U.S. Department of Energy and representatives of the national electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Our results show that early joiners were subjected to higher levels of political pressure at the state level and were more dependent on local and federal regulatory agencies than late joiners were. Early joiners were also better connected to the trade association and more visible. Late joiners had undertaken significantly less investment in environmental improvements than early joiners. Our paper also illustrates the difficulty involved in using VAs to try to induce improved environmental outcomes when there are no sanctioning mechanisms. Although early entrants reduced their emissions more than nonparticipants, our results show no significant difference overall between participants and nonparticipants in the reduction of their emissions. Copyright © 2010 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Temporal concentration changes of DEET, TCEP, terbutryn, and nonylphenols in freshwater streams of Hesse, Germany: possible influence of mandatory regulations and voluntary environmental agreements

The present study focuses on the temporal concentration changes of four common organic pollutants in small freshwater streams of Hesse, Germany. The substances (tris(2-chloroethyl)phosphate (TCEP), the technical isomer mixture of 4-nonylphenol (NP), 2-(t-butylamino)-4-(ethylamino)-6-(methylthio)-s-triazine (terbutryn), and N,N-diethyl-m-toluamide (DEET)) are subject to differing regulations. Whereas the use of NP and the related nonylphenolethoxylates (NPEOs) are almost completely banned under EU directive 2003/53/EC, the herbicide terbutryn is only restricted for use as a herbicide in the majority of member states of the European Union (EU). In contrast, TCEP and DEET are not regulated by legislation, but have been replaced in some products through consumer pressure. The impact of regulation on the environmental concentrations of these pollutants is discussed. The substances were monitored in small freshwater streams in the Hessisches Ried region, Germany, during the period September 2003 to September 2006. The samples were extracted with solid phase extraction (SPE) and analyzed by coupled gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS). All target compounds were detected frequently within the fresh water streams of the study area. Monitoring in the study area revealed a significant concentration decrease only for NP. For the other three compounds, no significant concentration decrease was observed. Terbutryn concentrations and loads showed a seasonal trend with higher levels in summer and autumn, but were also present in winter and spring. Concentrations of TCEP and DEET were in the range of prior investigations. The decrease of NP concentrations and loads during the sampling period indicates that the regulation of NP and NP ethoxylates has led to a significant improvement in reducing the occurrence of this compound in the aquatic environment. Furthermore, the ban on agricultural use of terbutryn at the end of 2003 had no discernable influence on terbutryn concentrations in the following years. The benefits of national bans or self-regulations by manufacturers on several chemicals appear to be limited. In contrast, the European-wide ban (of NP) revealed to be effective in preventing the substance from entering the aquatic environment on a large scale and reduced the NP concentration to an acceptable level (i.e., below the PNEC). Further research is needed to investigate diffuse sources and point sources of terbutryn not related to agriculture. Further research is required to find an explanation for the ongoing high concentration of TCEP in river water despite of the supposed replacement of TCEP by TCPP already in the 1990s.