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An Example of a Case-Study Explaining Variation in Corporate Environmental Performance

An Example of a Case-Study Explaining Variation in Corporate Environmental Performance. Robert A. Kagan, Neil Gunningham, & Dorothy Thornton. Context: The Amoral Calculator v. The Greening of Industry.

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An Example of a Case-Study Explaining Variation in Corporate Environmental Performance

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  1. An Example of a Case-StudyExplaining Variation in Corporate Environmental Performance Robert A. Kagan, Neil Gunningham, & Dorothy Thornton

  2. Context: The Amoral Calculator v. The Greening of Industry • Regulated business corporations take costly measures to improve their environmental performance only when they believe that legal non-compliance is likely to be detected and harshly penalized. • Yet there is now considerable evidence that some companies do more for the environment than the law requires.

  3. So... • Why do some companies but not others choose to move beyond compliance? • What social policy tools are likely to prove most effective in achieving improved corporate environmental performance?

  4. Sample - Case studies can have a sample size of more than 1 • 14 pulp and paper manufacturing mills with a similar technology in 4 jurisdictions. • Selection criteria: Australia, New Zealand, and the US states of Georgia and Washington - tried to include all facilities. • Selection criteria: in British Columbia, Canada, chose 4 out of 14 facilities based on reputation, company, convenience

  5. Qualitative Data • Lengthy on-site, semi-structured interviews with environmental managers, (and in most cases) with mill managers, corporate environmental managers, regulators, and activists familiar with the mill. • Interviews were designed to elicit pollution control histories, and probed for specific examples.

  6. Qualitative Data: Developing a measure of Environmental Management Style • Developed Five Ideal Types: 1. Laggards 2. Reluctant Compliers 3. Committed Compliers, 4. Environmental Strategists 5. True Believers

  7. Quantitative Data • Environmental Performance: pollutant loads in water discharges: (1) conventional pollutants BOD, TSS and (2) toxic pollutant: AOX (think of as a proxy for dioxin) • Economic Data: sales and income for parent corporation

  8. Findings: Compliance, Declining Pollution, Narrower Differences Over Time

  9. Findings: Still Significant Contemporary Variation

  10. Regulatory Regime Does Not Explain Facility-Level Environmental Performance

  11. Contemporary Economic Indicators Do Not Explain Environmental PerformanceEarlier Economic Indicators are Correlated with Current Environmental Performance

  12. Social Pressures Do Partially Explain Beyond Compliance Environmental Performance • "We have to continuously convince the public we have a right to exist.” • “The EPA is such a monolith it can’t adapt. It takes a decade to get something to happen. The environmental community is really setting the tone. It’s done far more to make companies accountable for pollution. It does more to keep me on my toes...”

  13. But the most powerful explanatory variable is Environmental Management Style

  14. EXTERNAL FACTORS INTERNAL FACTORS History Culture Personnel etc. Social License Legal License Economic License Environmental Management Style Environmental Performance The License Model of Corporate Environmental Performance

  15. Without the use of the case-study methodology we would not have discovered: • The importance of social license • The importance of interactions between economic, legal/political, and social spheres • The importance of corporate management style • Nor would we have been able to develop the license model.

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