An empirical study of the initial adoption of ISO 14001 in Japanese manufacturing firms

This paper analyzes stakeholders' environmental preferences/pressures and the financial flexibility that together influence firms to adopt ISO 14001, which is the international standard primarily concerned with an Environmental Management System (EMS). Since firms retain ISO 14001 once they have adopted it, a firm's decision to adopt ISO 14001 is considered from the period that they initially acquire the certification. Therefore, we assert that we have to focus on the determinants of initial ISO 14001 adoption. We analyzed: 1) the determinants of initial ISO 14001 adoptions respective to 1996, 1999, and 2004; and 2) the determinants of initial ISO 14001 adoptions during the period 1996-2004. The estimation results support the view that stakeholders' environmental preferences/pressures and firms' financial flexibility influenced their decision to adopt ISO 14001 in both analyses. Particularly, it is remarkable that we found that: 1) the determinants of the initial ISO 14001 adoption differed among the years of adoption; and 2) there is a positive relationship between economic performance and initial ISO 14001 adoption.     

ISO 14001 Environmental Certification: A Sign Valued by the Market?

The main purpose of this work is to analyse whether ISO 14001 certification is interpreted by the capital market as a sign of environmental responsibility, modifying long-term efficiency expectations and the profitability of firms. Under competing assumptions that ISO 14001 certification is adopted by firms either proactively or reactively, we test competing hypotheses about how this certification affects the market value of firms. The analysis is based on a sample of 80 environmental certifications of the plant systems or processes of large Spanish firms which traded on the continuous market of the Madrid Stock Exchange from 1996 to 2002. Using event study methodology, we found that ISO 14001 certification has a negative effect on the market value of certain firms. Specifically, the results obtained seem to show that the market negatively views the allocation of resources to ISO 14001 certification in the case of less polluting and less internationalised firms. On the other hand, the results obtained do not suggest clear evidence that the economic impact of ISO 14001 certification is negative for more polluting and more internationalised firms.     

A new insight into environmental innovation: Does the maturity of environmental management systems matter?

Technological innovation has recently become more essential than ever. To examine the factors that might induce environmental technological innovation, we focus on ISO 14001, a voluntary approach to environmental management, and scrutinise how the proficiency or maturity level of ISO 14001 in facilities influences environment-related research and development (R&D) expenditures that promote environmental technological innovation. We measure the maturity level based on the length of time since a given facility adopted ISO 14001. Using Japanese facility-level data from “Environmental Policy Tools and Firm-Level Management and Practices: An International Survey” (OECD Survey), we estimate two Tobit models by addressing an endogeneity issue in ISO 14001. The estimation results provide empirical evidence that as the ISO 14001 is improved in facilities, those facilities are likely to spend more on environmental R&D. The facility age and market concentration also positively affect environmental R&D. These findings suggest that the maturity level of ISO 14001 is an important factor influencing the investment in environmental R&D.     

DETERMINANTS OF A FIRM'S ISO 14001 CERTIFICATION: AN EMPIRICAL STUDY OF TAIWAN

Abstract.   Only rarely have empirical studies analysed the responses of Taiwanese manufacturing firms to ISO 14001, despite firm responses to environmental issues being an important aspect of environmental management. This study empirically examines the determinants of firms' environmental self-governance. Export oriented Taiwanese firms, which face environmental concerns from foreign consumers, are found to be more likely than domestic focused firms to adopt ISO 14001. This study also finds that several firm attributes are decisive for firm adoption of ISO 14001. However, this study does not find any significant impact of local governors' political party affiliation on firms' ISO 14001 certifications.     

Demand for ISO 14001 adoption in the global supply chain: An empirical analysis focusing on environmentally conscious markets

This paper analyzes the environmental preferences and pressures of customers in environmentally conscious markets influencing the number of adoptions of ISO 14001—the international standard certified by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) concerning an Environmental Management System (EMS)—in a country. Customers in different countries have different priorities and ideas with regard to the environment and its management, and therefore it is possible that environmental preferences and pressures of customers in environmentally conscious markets are greater, although many earlier studies suggest that foreign customers generally form a significant stakeholder group encouraging the adoption of ISO 14001. A random-effects Tobit estimation using a sample of 155 countries over eight years supports the view that the environmental preferences and pressures of customers in environmentally conscious markets (including Finland, Japan, Germany and Denmark) are more likely to encourage domestic along with foreign suppliers to adopt ISO 14001. As it is easier for firms in environmentally conscious markets to adopt ISO 14001 because of their better economic performance, they have already adopted certification and consequently require their domestic and foreign suppliers to do likewise in the global supply chain. For this reason, suppliers wishing to access environmentally conscious markets can obtain an advantage with ISO 14001 certification.     

Green not (only) for profit: An empirical examination of the effect of environmental-related standards on employees’ recruitment

Thanks to an original database on French firms we investigate the impact of environmental-related standards on employees’ recruitment. Using a bivariate probit model, we show that voluntary environmental-related standards (i.e., ISO 14001 standard, organic labeling, fair trade, etc.) improve the recruitment of professional and non-professional employees. This finding suggests that, beyond environmental considerations, human resources management can drive registration.     

Assessing participation in voluntary environmental programmes in the developing world: the role of FDI and export orientation on ISO14001 adoption in Thailand

Empirical assessments of the determinants of firm participation in Voluntary Environmental Programmes (VEPs) in the developing world are largely absent from the environmental regulation literature, leaving a number of important factors unique to such countries unexplored. This article examines these factors, namely the roles played by Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and export orientation, in addition to factors deemed important in the industrialized world context to the problem of ISO14001 adoption in one developing nation, Thailand. We make use of unique primary data from 494 firms, and focus on three important industries, the resource-based food and beverages industry, the labour-intensive textiles and wearing apparel industry, and the more high-technology electronics and electrical appliances industry. We find that FDI plays a role in ISO14001 adoption, especially FDI from Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and ISO14001-rich countries. Other important determinants include firm size, experience with ISO9000, and production of intermediate products. Firms faced with fewer obstacles to environmental improvements such as those facing lower costs, having more understanding of the procedure, and with greater access to the appropriate technology are also more likely to adopt ISO14001.     

Globalization and Voluntary Environmental Management in Developing Countries

Weak capacity to enforce regulations and sanction violators, and an emphasis on economic growth in developing countries has led to concerns about worsening environmental conditions and the potential for these countries becoming pollution havens for multinational corporations. International environmental standards, voluntary programs, and public disclosure programs have gained popularity because they engage market participants in providing incentives for self-regulation and have the potential to substitute for the lack of domestic regulatory capacity. This paper analyzes the motivations for firms to undertake voluntary environmental management and reviews the empirical evidence on the type of firms participating in such initiatives and their effectiveness in improving environmental performance. We also consider the special case of China that has witnessed dramatic globalization following its acceptance into the World Trade Organization and participation by its firms in global supply chains. We conclude with a discussion of the effectiveness of these efforts as a substitute for weak regulatory and civic society pressures in these countries.     

Factors Influencing Corporate Environmental Protection Activities for Greenhouse Gas Emission Reductions: The Relationship Between Environmental and Financial Performance

This paper analyzes the relationship between a firm??s greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and its profitability in Japanese manufacturing. Defining the difference between the marginal revenue and cost of reducing GHG emissions as the ??net benefit,?? which is endogenously characterized by various factors, we estimate a switching regression model where the sign of the net benefit determines the relationship between GHG emissions and profitability. Our empirical analysis focuses on ISO 14001 adoption, market competition, uncertainty, financial flexibility, and share ownership structure as the factors, and indicates that firms with low firm-specific uncertainty, high financial flexibility, and a high proportion of large shareholders tend to have a nonnegative net benefit, so that the positive relationship between their GHG emissions and profitability is mitigated. On the other hand, although ISO 14001 adoption is generally considered to be an indicator of a firm??s stance on environmental proactiveness, it does not provide a sufficient incentive to reduce emissions. Factors such as uncertainty, financial flexibility, and share ownership structure are more important to GHG emission reductions.     

Stimulating different types of eco-innovation in the UK: Government policies and firm motivations

In this paper, we adopt a recent OECD framework and examine the role of external policy tools and internal firm specific factors for stimulating three different types of eco-innovations that range on a spectrum of lower to higher technological and environmental impacts: End-of-Pipeline Pollution Control Technologies, Integrated Cleaner Production Technologies and Environmental R&D. Using a novel firm-level dataset from a DEFRA survey, we estimate a Tobit model, which provides empirical evidence showing that these eco-innovations are motivated by different external policy tools and internal firm specific factors. Our findings indicate that End of Pipeline Technologies and Integrated Cleaner Production Technologies are mainly driven by equipment upgrade motives with a view of improving efficiency while environmental regulations are effective in stimulating the End-of-Pipeline technologies and Environmental R&D. Interestingly, alongside government induced regulations, we find that market factors, mainly motivated by cost savings, are effective in driving Environmental R&D. Finally, ISO14001 certification is effective in strengthening the positive impact of environmental management systems on both End-of-Pipeline technologies and Environmental R&D while CSR policies have no significant impact on motivating any of the eco-innovations.     

Does eco-certification boost regulatory compliance in developing countries? ISO 14001 in Mexico

Private sector initiatives certifying that producers of goods and services adhere to defined environmental process standards are increasingly popular worldwide. According to proponents, they can circumvent chronic barriers to effective public sector environmental regulation in developing countries. But eco-certification programs will have limited effects on producers?? environmental performance if, as one would expect, they select for those already meeting certification standards. Rigorous evaluations of the environmental effects of eco-certification in developing countries that control for selection bias are rare. We use plant-level data on more than 80,000 Mexican facilities to determine whether ISO 14001 series certification of environmental management systems boosts regulatory compliance. We use propensity score matching to control for nonrandom selection into the program. We find that plants recently fined by environmental regulators were more likely to be certified, all other things equal, but that certified plants were subsequently fined just as often as similar uncertified plants. These results suggest that in Mexico, the ISO 14001 program attracts dirty plants under pressure from regulators??not just relatively clean ones??but does not have a large, lasting impact on their regulatory compliance.     

Are international environmental policies effective? The case of the Rotterdam and the Stockholm Conventions

This is the first paper to show that participation in an international environmental agreement has some effectiveness. Our identification strategy consists of applying difference-in-differences techniques in a panel data framework to various levels of data aggregation. We find that ratification of the Rotterdam Convention (RC) and the Stockholm Convention (SC) leads to a reduction in trade of hazardous substances from OECD to non-OECD countries. In particular, we find that when the exporter ratifies the RC, there is a reduction in the import of hazardous chemicals of about 7 percent. In the case of the SC, the results show significant reductions of around 16 percent in trade shipments of persistent organic pollutants. This reduction is more than double the effect found for the RC, which was expected due to a more restricted obligation imposed by the SC convention.     

Environmental management practices: good or bad news for innovations delivering environmental benefits? The moderating effect of market characteristics

We examine empirically whether environmental management practices (EMPs) (environmental audits, ISO 14001 standard, etc.) promote (or not) additional innovations delivering environmental benefits. Using a large sample of French firms (N=4114) and simultaneous equations model (SEM), we found that EMPs positively influence the decision of firms to introduce innovations delivering environmental benefits, but this positive relationship is moderated by market characteristics. The findings indicate that EMPs promote such environmental-related innovations when the market of the main activity of the firm is growing. However, when the market is uncertain or competitive, this relationship turns out to be negative.     

我国参与国际标准化组织的现状及对策研究

国际标准化组织是目前世界上最大的标准化权威机构，是国际标准的最主要开发者和出版者。对一个国家来说，标准是走向世界的“通行证”。通过调研该组织的管理模式和我国参与现状，剖析了我国参与国际标准化组织在管理和运作过程中的现存问题及其原因，在此基础上分析了国外值得借鉴的经验，为我国向国际组织输送人才提出了对策建议。     

Productivity,capital intensity,and ISO 14001 adoption: Theory and evidence

The determinants of ISO 14001 adoption have been considered to fall into two categories: external pressure from environment‐oriented stakeholders or customers and internal need due to expected future benefits. In this study, we further elaborate the mechanism underlying firms’ adoption of the standard by investigating the inter‐relationship among firms’ productivity, capital intensity, and decision making regarding adoption. Applying a general equilibrium model, we show that under optimal conditions, highly productive firms can benefit more from adoption. Moreover, technological advancements potentially drive up firms’ capital intensity and this positively affects their incentive for adoption. The empirical practice using firm‐level data in Vietnam verifies our predictions with robustness. In addition, we find that the phenomenon outlined above becomes even more obvious in the manufacturing sectors.     

Correcting for the endogeneity of pro-environment behavioral choices in contingent valuation

In contingent valuation studies, observed behavioral choices often enter as independent variables in the willingness to pay function. However, these variables may be endogenously determined when the error term in the behavioral model is correlated with the error term in the willingness to pay model. We investigate the effects of correcting for the endogeneity of a variable, namely membership status in environmental organizations that proxies unobservable characteristics of the respondents. Jointly modeling the membership variable and the willingness to pay response yields an estimate for the effect of the former that contradicts previous findings but is intuitive and agrees with theoretical expectations.     

Long‐Run Impact of Biofuels on Food Prices

About 40 percent of US corn is now used to produce biofuels, which are used as substitutes for gasoline in transportation. In this paper, we use a Ricardian model with differential land quality to show that world food prices could rise by about 32 percent by 2022. About half of this increase is from the biofuel mandate and the rest is a result of demand‐side effects in the form of population growth and income‐induced changes in dietary preferences, from cereals to meat and dairy products. However, aggregate world carbon emissions would increase, because of significant land conversion to farming and leakage from lower oil prices.     

Free trade and the burden of domestic policy

Abstract. Consider a small economy facing accession to a exogenously defined trade agreement. Before accession, the government controls trade and pollution policy. After accession, it retains control over pollution policy, but must allow free trade in all goods. This is a choice many governments face while joining trade agreements today. They decide whether greater market access to other members is more valuable than control over trade policy. I ask two questions. All else being equal what happens to environmental policy after accession? Second, what affects the choice of accession and how does this choice impact aggregate welfare? I show that a loss in control over trade policy alters the political incentives determining environmental policy. Before accession, producers can transfer a portion of their burden of environmental regulation to consumers through price increases. After accession the same regulation is borne entirely by producers. Owing to the change in burden, there exist plausible conditions under which the adoption of free trade can lead to more stringent environmental regulation, a reduction in the preferential treatment of special interest groups, and an increase in aggregate welfare.     

Barriers to energy efficiency: A comparison across the German commercial and services sector

Based on a large sample for the German commercial and services sector, this paper econometrically assesses the relevance of various types of barriers to energy efficiency at the sectoral level and across fifteen sub-sectors. The results at the level of entire sectors suggest that the lack of information about energy consumption patterns and about energy efficiency measures, lack of staff time, priority setting within organizations, and - in particular - the investor/user dilemma are all relevant barriers. Allowing for sector-specific differences in the relevance of these individual barriers yields a more heterogeneous picture. The numbers and types of relevant barriers vary across sub-sectors, and the majority of sub-sectors are subject to relatively few barriers. The statistically most significant barriers are found for the sub-sector of public administrations. These findings are robust, independent of whether the definition of an organization's energy efficiency performance includes only measures that have actually been realized or also those that are being planned. For planned projects, however, organizations appear to underestimate internal priority setting as a barrier to energy efficiency.     

Climate policy vs. agricultural productivity shocks in a dynamic computable general equilibrium (CGE) modeling framework: The case of a developing economy

The main objective of this paper is to compare the cost of climate policy consistent with the 2 °C global warming target (Paris Agreement target) with the cost of climate change induced agricultural productivity shocks, using a recursive dynamic CGE model for India. The social cost of carbon, in terms of loss in agriculture sector, is estimated to be about 2 percent of GDP, at zero rate of discount, under conservative forecasts of fall in agricultural productivity. In comparison, the cost of climate policy consistent with the Paris Agreement target of 2 °C is about 1 percent of GDP. Thus, there is a strong case for the adoption of ambitious climate policy in India, provided other countries also adhere to the same. Besides, revenues generated from the carbon tax and emission allowance could be a means to support the development and adoption of new energy and agricultural technologies, to increase social sector expenditure and to reduce abatement costs.