Download Free The Voluntary Approach To Environmental Policy Book in PDF and EPUB Free Download. You can read online The Voluntary Approach To Environmental Policy and write the review.

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.
In recent years, voluntary approaches to emission reductions have increasingly been adopted by major companies all over the world and have increasingly been supported by regulatory bodies and public administrations. Despite this world-wide effort to achieve a better environmental performance through voluntary approaches, economic analysis has somehow neglected the importance of voluntary approaches as an environmental policy instrument. This book is a first attempt to fill this gap by gathering together all major experts in the fields and by providing a detailed analysis of all main aspects characterising the design and implementation of voluntary approaches in environmental policy. The book, which is the outcome of cooperation between the École des Mines of Paris and the Fondazione ENI E. Mattei, within the EU Concerted Action on Market Based Policy Instruments for Environmental Protection, contains both theoretical analyses and case studies. The chapters of this book therefore provide a useful assessment of the main features and of the potential implementation problems of a new, important and promising environmental policy instrument.
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.
This book provides a systematic analysis of the different types of voluntary approaches for environmental policy, their economic characteristics, their role and effectiveness.
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.
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.
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.
Voluntary agreements and other approaches based on co-operation between public authorities and (agro) industrial polluters are rapidly gaining importance throughout Europe. This so-called Joint Environmental Policy-making (JEP) is increasingly being presented as a 'third way', alongside direct regulation through laws and the use of financial sticks and carrots in the form of eco-taxes and subsidies. Successes and failures are reported from JEP experiences in various European countries. This book seeks to evaluate these experiences. Is JEP really the panacea it is sometimes claimed to be? To what extent does JEP actually fit into different national policy systems and cultures? Is the application of JEP dependant on specific circumstances? In answering these and other questions, the book focuses on the forces and institutional conditions that are likely to promote the introduction, determine the form, and contribute to the successful functioning of JEP arrangements. Against the background of both deregulation and ecological modernization tendencies in European environmental policy, this book offers detailed analysis of JEP in three European countries (Austria, Denmark, and the Netherlands) and in three areas: industrial energy efficiency, food labelling, and package waste. The volume contributes to a better understanding of JEP in Europe and formulates policy recommendations for its successful implementation. But it also contributes to comparative environmental policy studies in providing an innovative approach.
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.