The effect of environmental regulation on environmental innovation

Environmental expenditure estimates resulting from US environmental policy are based on current technology which may overstate policy's true costs. Existing evidence shows that ex ante cost estimates are greater than realized costs due to unexpected technological progress. This research programme asks whether innovation is a response to environmental regulation or whether the true regulatory compliance costs are overestimated ex ante when technological advancement is ignored? The author conducts an empirical study of the US manufacturing industry's environmental patent activities and environmental regulation as measured by pollution abatement and control expenditure (PACE) data. She finds a statistically significant positive relationship between environmental regulation and innovation when estimated by ordinary least squares (OLS). However, the OLS coefficient of pollution abatement costs is inconsistent because of a correlation between the explanatory variable and unobservable variables. Two-staged least squares addresses the inconsistency problem, resulting in positive and significant PACE coefficients. Thus, there is evidence that innovation is a response to environmental regulation. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

Collective action,rational man and economic reasoning

Quality & Quantity -     

Corporate environmental marketing: An environmental marketing action model

A model of environmental marketing action and success is proposed, which includes a range of variables and examines the relationship between them. Environmental success is partly determined by the level of Environmental Marketing Action which varies between level 0 and level 8 and which directly determines the extent of environmental marketing success. Perceptions of environmental consciousness, the subjective norm and net total risk determine the level of environmental marketing action. Beliefs with regard to stakeholders and events and the motivation to comply with these beliefs combine to form the subjective norm.     

The dynamics of optimal environmental regulation

The problem of environmental control by direct regulatory restrictions on firms' maximum discharge levels is examined. The problem can be viewed as one of optimally selecting this upper bound and of selecting a time at which it comes into force (firms are normally given time to adjust to the new regime). The firm chooses a private-cost minimising adjustment path - and the control authority needs to take account of this in setting the regulatory control. The resulting second-best solution is contrasted with the ‘first-best’ environmental adjustment path.     

国际公约环保项目效益审计的尝试与探索

几年来,审计署外资司保护臭氧层环保项目的效益审计多次得到《蒙特利尔议定书》执委会、世界银行、联合国环境计划署、联合国开发计划署等国际组织的肯定和称赞,为保护地球臭氧层,为维护和改善人类的生存环境作出了很大贡献,有力地促进了我国环保事业的发展,维护了我国在国际环保领域的声誉。     

Collective strategies for improving environmental performance: A case study of the biotechnology industry

This paper examines the potential contributions of institutional theory and the collective strategies framework to assist managers in emerging industries in developing better means of addressing societal concerns. Lack of understanding and difficulties in communication between companies in the forefront of new technology developments and a society that is concerned about the environment have led to many of the problems facing the biotechnology industry. Measures intended to protect the environment from potential adverse effects have frequently restricted activities in the new biotechnology field, even though scientists are themselves convinced of the safety and control they exert over their new technologies. Collective strategies can be instrumental in stabilising certain aspects of the environment. Proper selection of issues and coordinated action can be helpful to all industry participants by informing public perceptions and government regulations and help insure that major environmental trends will evolve in a manner beneficial to all concerned.     

Financial comparability and environmental diversity: an international context

Accounting and environmental management both hold improved resource‐use efficiency as an ultimate goal, but intermediate processes and objectives vary and consequently it is separately assessed within each discipline. This paper intends to make visible the globalizing trends in accounting practice, which aim to standardize financial reporting to produce comparable information so that shareholders can maximize their economic wealth. This paper seeks to contrast this comparability strategy with the apparent need for diversity in accounting information exhibited by actual accounting practices, the information needs of environmental management and, ultimately, the cultural needs of sustainable development. We argue that a more pluralistic model, that enables a holistic assessment of corporate performance and balances diverse stakeholder objectives, is better suited to an uncertain future. Implementation requires accountants and environmental managers jointly to create and test a new order of reporting. There are many practical challenges but most significantly accountants and environmental managers must combine to enhance the visibility and credibility of these diverse performance measures. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. and ERP Environment     

The economic consequences of environmental regulation in China: From a perspective of the environmental protection admonishing talk policy

Environmental regulation may lead to undesired economic consequences. China has tightened its environmental policies to deal with severe environmental pollution in recent years, but existing studies pay little attention to the economic consequences of China's environmental policies. Using the panel data of 211 prefecture‐level and above cities in China from 2003 to 2016, we for the first time estimate the economic impact of the environmental protection admonishing talk (EPAT) policy, a newly implemented environmental regulation policy in China. We use the difference‐in‐differences strategy to identify the economic effects of the EPAT policy combined with the propensity score matching method to control a potential selection problem. The results show that a relative decline occurs in gross domestic product per capita in target cities after the implementation of the EPAT, and the negative impact is exerted on the secondary industry rather than the tertiary industry. Furthermore, we find that target cities respond to the environmental protection requirements of higher authorities through a one‐size‐fits‐all approach of limiting the production activities of industrial enterprises. Meanwhile, the EPAT policy does not improve environmental efficiency. Such findings are instructive for policymakers who need to trade off economic welfare and environmental quality when formulating and implementing new environmental policies.     

Corporate environmental strategies as tools to influence regulation

Corporate environmental initiatives have been attributed to a variety of different motives, including cost‐cutting, marketing to ‘green’ consumers willing to pay extra for environmentally friendly products, and shaping future government regulation (including the possible preemption of regulation). Understanding what really motivates corporate environmentalism is important for policymakers, since the effectiveness of government environmental policies depends in large part on how corporations will respond to them. We focus on the welfare implications of two alternative strategies firms may use to shape government regulations: (i) attempting to preempt future legislation altogether or (ii) failing this, to soften the impact of new laws by inducing regulators to set relatively weak standards. We show that while the first sounds threatening to social welfare, it produces political cost savings that outweigh any weakening of environmental performance. The second motivation, however, raises corporate profits, but not by enough to outweigh the resulting loss of environmental quality. Copyright © 1999 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.     

有限风险再保险监管:国际经验与启示

有限风险再保险作为一种复杂的风险管理工具,在迅速发展的同时也有可能产生一定的道德风险。本文对有限风险再保险监管的国际经验进行了分析,得出了对我国有限风险再保险监管的有益启示。     

Enhancing environmental information transparency through corporate social responsibility reporting regulation

This research aims to contribute to the scientific debate about the lack of interlinkages between mandatory non-financial reporting and sustainable business models. For our purposes, a counter-accounting analysis was conducted on the non-financial reports of a sample of 145 Italian firms interested by the Directive 2014/95/EU effects. Specifically, the study adopts an empirical approach to evaluate environmental information transparency, which represents one of the main critical issues concerning the non-financial declarations prepared by European Italian Public Interest Entities (PIEs) to comply with Directive 2014/95/EU. The results highlight that corporate governance and report characteristics affect environmental transparency. Furthermore, the results confirm the overall attitude to avoid the disclosure of unfavourable or unavailable environmental information through impression management strategies. Finally, the analysis underlines the opportunities for policymakers to rethink mandatory non-financial reporting to sustain the ecological transition of European PIEs.     

Is positive action ‘positive’? Collective bargaining and gender relations in the Irish civil service

Participation in the EC has given Irish unions the clout to press for equality policies. However, economic factors combined with an entrenched sex-gender system hinder women's progress in achieving employment equity. Within the civil service, positive action policies have tended to perpetuate women's marginal status and discourage their labour force attachment.     

Corporate sustainability and financial performance: Collective reputation as moderator of the relationship between environmental performance and firm market value

Markets value superior corporate sustainability performance in part because investors use a firm's environmental performance as a signal of desirable but difficult-to-observe attributes, such as the firm's integrity capacity. Yet a signaling conflict can arise when a firm belongs to an organizational form that has a collective reputation for being unethical. In such circumstances, the firm's environmental performance may no longer credibly signal its underlying integrity capacity, leading markets to adjust downward the value they would otherwise place on the firm's environmental performance. Using longitudinal data on South Korean firms, we find that improvements in firm environmental performance lead to smaller increases in market values for firms belonging to a poorly reputed organizational form. However, firms can partially recover lost value by adopting firm features that reduce the signaling conflict, thereby restoring the notion of corporate sustainability performance driving firm market values.     

Reconciling the Porter hypothesis with the traditional paradigm about environmental regulation: a nonparametric approach

This paper estimates the impact of pollution abatement investments on the production technology of firms by pursuing two new directions. First, we take advantage of recent econometric developments in productivity, efficiency analysis and nonparametric kernel regression by adopting a conditional nonparametric frontier analysis. Second, we focus not only on the average effect but also search for potential nonlinearities. We provide new results suggesting that pollution abatement capital affects with a bell-shaped fashion technological catch-up (inefficiency distribution) and does not affect technological change (shifts in the frontier). These results have relevant implications both for modeling and for the purposes of advice on environmentally friendly policy.     

Global governance in new public environmental management: An international and intertemporal comparison of voluntary standards' impacts

The aim of this paper is to analyse the indirect effects of environmental management system implementation and certification. Specifically, the paper comprehensively assesses the effects of International Organisation for Standardisation (ISO) 14001 and European Union Eco‐Management and Auditing Scheme (EMAS) certification as well as experience with implementing environmental management systems on (a) organisational activities outside the scope of environmental management systems, (b) pollution prevention, and (c) product stewardship. This is done by applying multivariate regression analysis to a large multicountry and multiperiod dataset. The analysis finds heterogeneous effects that are limited specifically as concerns pollution prevention and product stewardship and cannot establish clear links to national business systems. Given this and the differences between environmental management system standards, implications for global governance in the context of new public environmental management and the role of national governments in implementing sustainability, even beyond environmental protection, are discussed. Ultimately, the paper evidences on potential limitations of the major international environmental management system standards ISO 14001 and EMAS in supporting the diffusion of advanced practices such as pollution prevention and product stewardship that are necessary for sustainable development. In doing so, it highlights that government‐led public environmental management remains crucial for organising governance, especially in the context of voluntary standards that are applied internationally.     

Business-oriented environmental regulation: Measurement and implications for environmental policy and business strategy from a sustainable development perspective

Business-oriented environmental regulation is expected to have a fundamental role in mitigating the adverse effects of human activity on the natural environment. However, its effectiveness and efficiency are not well established. A systematic literature review reveals validity and reliability problems in the measurement of business-oriented environmental regulation. From a sustainable development perspective, we develop a theoretical framework that aims to enhance the measurement and assessment of this kind of regulation. Our theoretical framework proposes that the goals of business-oriented environmental regulation must articulate a measurement system in a 3 × 3 matrix: three measurement levels (stringency, response, and outcome—in this cause–effect order) and three sustainability dimensions (environmental, social, and economic—in this constraint order). For each cell, we propose a combination of objective and subjective indicators. This theoretical framework expands existing approaches to business-oriented environmental regulation measurement by integrating a sustainable development perspective into a measurement framework in a structured theory-driven manner. Not only will this measurement system be useful for improving environmental policy, but it will also allow companies to improve their business strategy and come closer to complying with environmental regulations in order to effectively contribute to solutions for current environmental problems and help achieve a sustainable development.     

Influence of healthy human capital and environmental regulation on green total factor productivity in China

Environment affects the health of residents; to promote high-quality economic development, their combined effect is crucial in measuring green total factor productivity (GTFP). Yet, scholars seldom consider the regulatory effect of the environment, spillover effect of healthy human capital, and synergistic effect between the environment and the health of residents. Using the panel threshold model and spatial Durbin model, along with the measurement of inter-provincial GTFP from 2011 to 2019, we examine the effect of environmental regulation, healthy human capital, and their synergistic effect on the development of the green economy in China. The results reveal that environmental regulation inhibits the improvement of GTFP, whereas healthy human capital and interaction items promote the improvement of GTFP. There exists a threshold effect of environmental regulation on the promoting effect of healthy human capital on the GTFP in China, in general, and inland areas in particular. Moreover, environmental regulation, healthy human capital, and interaction items have significant spatial spillover effects on the GTFP in provinces with similar economic attributes.     

Company size,environmental regulation and ecological modernization: further analysis at the level of the firm

In the paper published in Business Strategy and the Environment (7, (3)) entitled ‘Sector variation and ecological modernization: towards an analysis at the level of the firm’, the authors situated their analysis of firms within the framework of ecological modernization. They indicated the part which sector variability plays in firms positioning themselves towards environmental issues. In this paper, the authors extend their analysis to consider the effects that environmental regulation and company size have on the levels of environmental motivation demonstrated by companies and what this reveals about the prospects for a move towards ecological modernization. © 1998 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.