The Handbook of Environmental Voluntary Agreements

1. Front Matter

   Pages i-xiv

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2. Voluntary Agreements in Environmental Policy

   1. The Economics of Environmental Voluntary Agreements

      • Edoardo Croci

      Pages 3-30

   2. Corporate Self-Regulation and Multi-Stakeholder Dialogue

      • P. Mazurkiewicz

      Pages 31-45

3. The Poltical Economy of Voluntary Agreements

   1. Voluntary Agreements in a Rent-Seeking Environment

      • M. Glachant

      Pages 49-65

   2. Aspects of the Political Economy of Environmental Voluntary Agreements

      • L.G. Hansen

      Pages 67-89

4. The European and the American Approach to Environmental Voluntary Agreements

   1. The Evolution of Environmental Agreements at the Level of the European Union

      • G. Schnabl

      Pages 93-106

   2. The Use of Voluntary Approaches for Environmental Policymaking in the U.S.

      • K. Brouhle, C. Griffiths, A. Wolverton

      Pages 107-134

   3. Negotiated Regulation, Implementation and Compliance in the United States

      • N.A. Ashford, C.C. Caldart

      Pages 135-159

5. Design, Negotiation and Implementation of Environmental Voluntary Agreements: National and Sector Approaches

   1. Efficiency Standards versus Negotiated Agreements in the European Electrical Appliance Sector

      • P. Menanteau

      Pages 163-178

   2. Implementing the Duty of Acceptance in Flemish Waste Policy

      • M. De Clercq, R. Bracke

      Pages 179-202

   3. Environmental Voluntary Agreements in Portugal

      • M.F.M. Cabugueira

      Pages 203-219

   4. Designing Energy Conservation Voluntary Agreements for the Industrial Sector in China: Experience from a Pilot Project with Two Steel Mills in Shandong Province

      • L. Price, E. Worrell, J. Sinton

      Pages 221-235

6. Evaluation of Environmental Voluntary Agreements

   1. On the Assesment of Environmental Voluntary Agreements in Europe

      • M. De Clercq, R. Bracke

      Pages 239-260

   2. Environmental Voluntary Agreements in the Dutch Context

      • H.T.A. Bressers, T.J.N.M. De Bruijn

      Pages 261-281

   3. Analysing the Effectiveness of an Environmental Voluntary Agreement: The Case of the Australian National Packaging Covenant

      • R.L. Burritt, H. Lewis, K. James

      Pages 283-306

   4. Towards an Integrated Performance Indicator for (Energy) Benchmarking Covenants with Industry

      • J. Couder, A. Verbruggen

      Pages 307-332

7. Environmental Voluntary Agreements in Policy Mixes

   1. Environmental Agreements Used in Combination with Other Policy Instruments

      • N.A. Braathen

      Pages 335-364

   2. Using the Benchmarking Covenant for Allocating Emission Allowances: Are We Still Moving Ahead?

      • A.W.N. Van Dril

      Pages 365-380

8. Back Matter

   Pages 381-395

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EDOARDOCROCI IEFE - Università Bocconi, Milano, Italy Voluntary approaches in environmental policy represent a “third wave” of regulation in the environmental field. “Command and control” was the first wave. Its core is based on uniform emission standards, the respect of which needs to be enforced through extensive monitoring and severe sanctions. The expected cost of sanction for non-compliance, calculated as its amount multiplied for the probability to be caught, must be superior to the benefits of non-compliance, in order to let the sanction be effective. As the benefits of non-compliance can vary among firms, sanctions need to be very high in order to be effective. In fact sanctions are ordinary correlated to environmental damage and not to the benefits of non-compliance. But very high sanctions can be difficult to enforce as they appear unfair and can lead to dramatic consequences on firms and workers, up to shut-downs of plants. Ambient standards reduce these problems, but oblige the regulator to know a huge amount of information, regarding the specific contribution of each polluter to the polluted body. Information is difficult to obtain because of asymmetric information and costly to produce because it requires large and skilled regulating and enforcing organizations. Nevertheless complex regulation is the base of any environmental policy framework, as it allows the policy maker to fully exercise its power of composition of various interests in a relatively transparent way. Economic instruments were the second wave.

• Conservation
• Environmental agreements
• Environmental economics
• Environmental management
• Environmental policy
• Voluntary agreements
• compliance
• environment
• political economy
• industrial pollution prevention

• Vice Director of IEFE, Università Bocconi, Milan, Italy

  Edoardo Croci

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