The Managerial Turn in Environmental Policy

Abstract:     
Regulators and policy analysts increasingly recognize that firms' internal management is an important ingredient in combating the nation's environmental problems. Governmental strategies to shape such management may well achieve environmental goals at lower costs. Management-based strategies tend not to impose one-size-fits-all standards, but instead give firms responsibility for developing their own responses to environmental problems, thereby leveraging firms' superior knowledge about the risks they generate and the potential methods of reducing those risks. This article examines several recent management-based strategies, considers the empirical evidence on their effectiveness in improving environmental performance, and assesses their overall advantages and disadvantages. It concludes by urging greater attention be given to policies that encourage firms to improve their environmental management.

Keywords: environmental law, environmental management, IS0 14001, business and the environment, regulatory reinvention, next generation environmental policy, environmental policy innovation, self-regulation, management-based regulation

JEL Classifications: D73, K23

Accepted Paper Series