The Voluntary Environmentalists: Green Clubs, ISO 14001, and Voluntary Environmental Regulations
The Voluntary Environmentalists: Green Clubs, ISO 14001, and Voluntary Environmental Regulations
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自愿环保主义者：绿色俱乐部、ISO 14001 和自愿环境法规
DOI：
10.1057/crr.2008.7
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发表时间：
2008
影响因子：
1.9
通讯作者：
T. Hargrave
中科院分区：
文献类型：
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作者：
T. Hargrave
企业声誉评论Vol. 11, 1,109 - 111©2008 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363-3589 $30.00 110生命周期评估。标普通过对美国（采用率低）和英国（采用率高）的ISO 14001成员资格的案例研究提出假设，然后通过大样本（59个国家）计量经济学分析来检验他们的假设。他们得出的结论是，在环境法规更为严格和灵活、企业与政府之间的关系是合作而不是诉讼关系、消费者关心环境的国家，ISO的采用（因此其感知到的声誉利益）更大。P & P从本质上发展了一个非常彻底的国家层面的企业环境声誉权变理论。他们的研究结果表明，公司对环境声誉投资的价值在不同国家背景下有显著差异。通过分析3000多家美国ISO 14001认证和未认证的设施的环境和监管绩效，P & P研究了他们的第二个问题，ISO成员资格与环境和监管绩效之间的联系。他们控制了广泛的变量，并使用工具变量来解决“内生性问题”——在这种情况下，改善环境绩效的问题可能不是由ISO 14001成员资格驱动的，而是由与ISO成员资格和绩效高度相关的其他变量驱动的。P & P得出结论，作为一个整体，iso认证的设施比未认证的设施实现了更好的法规合规记录和更低的排放。他们发现，“即使控制了设施的合规历史，以及设施的环境绩效与他们加入ISO 14001的决定之间的潜在内生性”，这种“结果仍然存在”。30)这个结论可信吗？虽然使用工具变量可能会有问题，但标普的方法似乎非常谨慎。如果有怀疑的理由，他们更多地与ISO 14001有关，而不是与计量经济学技术有关。值得赞扬的是，标准普尔对此是透明的，指出ISO 14001对任何愿意承担成本的公司开放，有潜在的重大道德风险问题，不要求公开审计结果，不施加制裁，也不要求证明环境改善。然而，尽管ISO 14001的这些特点可能会引起对程序和作者分析结果的怀疑，但它们也提供了更大的理由来购买标准普尔的理论。如果ISO 14001是一个没有真正的牙齿（或者至少没有大的尖牙）的绿色俱乐部提供了宝洁发现的环境效益，那么很可能一个真正的训练营-一个具有类似宽松标准但更可信执行的俱乐部-将提供更大的效益。如果《环保志愿者》这本书有什么地方让读者不满意的话，那不是标普对iso14001标准的关注，而是这本书的狭隘范围。标普感兴趣的是政策设计的本质，而不是大体轮廓。他们从来没有探讨他们经常提出的绿色俱乐部必须被视为监管的补充而不是替代的主张，这让读者想知道绿色俱乐部是如何与其他政策工具一起运作的。这不是小事。虽然绿色俱乐部可能会促使公司超越严格的命令和控制法规的要求，但如果与排放交易或绿色税收制度合作，它们是否会增加显著价值就不太清楚了，这两种制度都旨在奖励出色的环境绩效和……
Corporate Reputation Review Vol. 11, 1, 109–111© 2008 Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. 1363-3589 $30.00 110 lifecycle assessment. P & P develop hypotheses through a case study of ISO 14001 membership in the US, where adoption rates are low, and the UK, where they are high, and then test their hypotheses via a large sample (59 country) econometric analysis. They conclude that ISO adoption (and therefore its perceived reputational benefit) is greater in countries where, among other things, environmental regulations are more stringent and flexible, business–government relations are cooperative rather than litigious and consumers are concerned about the environment. P & P essentially develop an extremely thorough country-level contingency theory of corporate environmental reputation. Their findings suggest that companies view the value of investments in environmental reputation as varying markedly across national contexts. P & P study their second question, the link between ISO membership and environmental and regulatory performance, by analyzing the environmental and regulatory performance of over 3,000 US ISO 14001 certified and non-certified facilities. They control for a wide range of variables and use instrumental variables to address the ‘endogeneity problem’–in this case, the problem that improved environmental performance may be driven not by ISO 14001 membership but rather by some other variable that is highly correlated with both ISO membership and performance. P & P conclude that as a group, ISO-certified facilities have achieved better regulatory compliance records and lower emissions than non-certified facilities. This ‘result persists’, they find,‘even while controlling for facilities’ compliance histories as well as potential endogeneity between facilities’ environmental performance and their decisions to join ISO 14001’(p. 30) Is this conclusion credible? While the use of instrumental variables can be problematic, P & P’s approach appears to be extremely careful. If there are reasons for doubt, they have more to do with ISO 14001 than with econometric techniques. To their credit P & P are transparent about this, noting that ISO 14001 is open to any company willing to bear the cost, has a potentially significant moral hazard problem, does not require audit results to be made public, imposes no sanctions and requires no demonstration of environmental improvement. Yet while these features of ISO 14001 may be cause for skepticism about the program and the results of the authors’ analysis, they also provide greater reason to buy into P & P’s theory. If ISO 14001, a green club with no real teeth (or at least no big sharp fangs) delivers the environmental benefits that P & P find, then it is likely that a true bootcamp–a club with similarly lenient standards but more credible enforcement–would provide even greater benefit.If there is anything in the Voluntary Environmentalists that leaves the reader wanting, it is not P & P’s focus on ISO 14001 but rather the book’s narrow scope. P & P are interested in the nitty-gritty of policy design rather than the broad strokes. They never explore their frequent assertion that green clubs must be seen as a complement to rather than a substitute for regulation, leaving the reader to wonder just how green clubs do operate in conjunction with other policy tools. This is no trivial matter. While it is plausible that green clubs would induce companies to go beyond the requirements of rigid command and control regulations, it is less clear that they would add significant value when partnered with emissions trading or green tax regimes, both of which are designed to reward strong environmental performance and …