Voluntary approaches (VAs) are increasingly implemented in different countries as the main instrument in environmental policies. The authors focus on the economics of VAs, their advantages and disadvantages and how they compare with other climate policy instruments. Voluntary Approaches in Climate Policy illustrates how corporate voluntarism can be harnessed to mitigate the climatic impact of business, and assesses the economics of VAs at the firm level and in the context of climate policies. It goes on to explore their efficiency and effectiveness, how they compare and combine with other instruments, how they impact competition and why they get adopted. Many questions are addressed and answered, such as:* What kinds of VAs have been implemented in different countries? * How did they perform under various economic and environmental criteria? * What are the key factors in increasing firms' participation in VAs? * How do VAs combine with other climate policy instruments such as carbon taxes and emissions trading? * How could they be designed for better performance?The book also contains an overview of VAs with a summary of each contribution, their main policy implications and suggestions for future research.Highlighting the implications of VAs in policy terms, this accessible book will appeal to a wide-ranging audience including economists, social scientists, policymakers and business managers, as well as environmental scientists and practitioners with a specific interest in climate change.

Voluntary approaches, such as corporate codes of conduct, have been widely advocated as alternatives to traditional approaches to environmental regulation. Yet concern remains that companies cannot be trusted to police themselves and that many of the putative advantages of self regulation, such as reduced cost and increased flexibility, have not been realised in practice. The book systematically analyses three initiatives (environmental management systems, the Australian Greenhouse Challenge and the Australian mining industry's Code for Environmental Management) and their contribution to public environmental policy. By moving the debate away from narrow considerations of economic efficiency towards a broader framework that accounts for the multiple goals to which environmental policy needs to be directed, this book significantly enhances our understanding of the role that voluntary approaches can play in achieving environmental policy goals. The book is required reading for all those concerned with the design and implementation of modern environmental policy.

Protecting the environment is often not the primary objective of businesses. As the world has become more environmentally aware, the necessity of environmental regulations becomes apparent. Voluntary Environmental Programs: A Policy Perspective examines different approaches to environmental protection in business. Typically, environmental improvements on the part of industry result from government regulations that command certain action from industry and then control how well it performs. An alternative approach is voluntary environmental agreements, where firms voluntarily commit to make certain environmental improvements individually, as part of an industry association, or under the guidance of a government entity. For example, many new initiatives targeting climate change originate from companies that voluntarily commit to reduce their carbon output or footprint.

Voluntary environmental agreements (VEAs) – generally agreements between government and business – have been regarded by many as a key new instrument for meeting environmental objectives in a flexible manner. Their performance to date has, however, also led to considerable criticism, with several parties arguing that they are methods for avoiding real action that goes beyond "business-as-usual". Is either of these positions justified? The aim of this book is to highlight and learn the lessons from existing experience, looking not just at results but also at specific elements of agreements and also at the process of the agreement itself. Lessons are drawn from experience from across the world, covering the full range of environmental challenges, and from the perspective of key stakeholder groups. Importantly, the book also presents tools for assessing and improving existing agreements and includes recommendations and guidelines for future agreements in key areas such as climate change. It also deals at length with the problem of how such agreements might be used in developing and transitional economies. The overall view of the book is that there is a real potential for the future use of VEAs as part of the policy mix and as a tool for sharing the responsibility for meeting environmental objectives. For the agreements to play this role, however, significant steps are needed to ensure that they are effective, efficient, equitable and appropriately linked to a portfolio of other instruments. The book is divided into four sections. First, existing agreements, their development and efficacy are considered; second, the prospects for voluntary agreements in developing and transitional economies are discussed; third, a range of authors examine the role of VEAs as part of the policy mix to combat climate change; and, finally, the book concludes with an examination of how new tools for evaluating and improving VEAs could be utilized in the future. Voluntary Environmental Agreements will be of interest not only to academics, governments and businesses wishing to understand this specific instrument, but also to those already implementing or considering applying VEAs to meet their environmental objectives.

This title was first published in 2001. This wide-ranging and comprehensive collection investigates the background to environmental economic development over the last thirty years, and the political implications of new directions resulting from technological and cultural changes in environmental issues. It examines the application of economic analysis to environmental problems in the past and solutions to the current issues of water, soil, air, energy, waste and urban ecology, discussing the implications of political decisions, cultural changes and technological constraints. It will prove a stimulating resource for students, academics, researchers and policy-makers alike.

The past twenty-five years have seen a significant evolution in environmental policy, with new environmental legislation and substantive amendments to earlier laws, significant advances in environmental science, and changes in the treatment of science (and scientific uncertainty) by the courts. This book offers a detailed discussion of the important issues in environmental law, policy, and economics, tracing their development over the past few decades through an examination of environmental law cases and commentaries by leading scholars. The authors focus on pollution, addressing both pollution control and prevention, but also emphasize the evaluation, design, and use of the law to stimulate technical change and industrial transformation, arguing that there is a need to address broader issues of sustainable development. Environmental Law, Policy, and Economics,which grew out of courses taught by the authors at MIT, treats the traditional topics covered in most classes in environmental law and policy, including common law and administrative law concepts and the primary federal legislation. But it goes beyond these to address topics not often found in a single volume: the information-based obligations of industry, enforcement of environmental law, market-based and voluntary alternatives to traditional regulation, risk assessment, environmental economics, and technological innovation and diffusion. Countering arguments found in other texts that government should play a reduced role in environmental protection, this book argues that clear, stringent legal requirements--coupled with flexible means for meeting them--and meaningful stakeholder participation are necessary for bringing about environmental improvements and technologicial transformations.

This report assesses the use of voluntary approaches by building on a number of new case studies and an extensive search of the available literature.

The first edition of this pragmatic course text emphasized the policy value of a "big picture" approach to the ethical, political, technological, scientific, economic, and management aspects of environmental issues. The text then applied this approach to real-world case examples involving leaks in underground storage tanks, toxic waste cleanup, and the effects of global climate change. This second edition demonstrates the ongoing effectiveness of the book's framework in generating meaningful action and policy solutions to current environmental issues. The text adds case examples concerning congestion taxes, e-waste, hydrofracking, and recent developments in global climate change, updating references and other materials throughout and incorporating the political and policy changes of the Obama administration's first term and developments in national and global environmental issues.

With the growing number, complexity, and importance of environmental problems come demands to include a full range of intellectual disciplines and scholarly traditions to help define and eventually manage such problems more effectively. Decision Making for the Environment: Social and Behavioral Science Research Priorities is the result of a 2-year effort by 12 social and behavioral scientists, scholars, and practitioners. The report sets research priorities for the social and behavioral sciences as they relate to several different kinds of environmental problems.