Green Grades

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Forest Stewardship Council ◽  
Original Dataset ◽  
Forest Stewardship

A debate has emerged recently about the role of information in environmental politics. Much of this debate has focused on the emergence and effectiveness of product eco-labels and corporate sustainability ratings as a new form of environmental governance. “Information optimists” believe that the provision of information can be an effective strategy to protect the environment, while “information pessimists” are concerned that information-based approaches serve as a distraction from more effective forms of governance that rely on the rule of law. This book advances a third position of “information realism,” which acknowledges both the contributions and limitations of information -based governance initiatives. It asserts that these initiatives must develop into more mature governance initiatives for them to overcome their current weaknesses and produce long-lasting and substantial environmental benefits. The book uses a series of in-depth case studies and an original dataset on 245 cases of environmental certifications and ratings to discuss their contributions and limitations and highlight their best and worst practices. These include programs such as ENERGY STAR and USDA Organic, the Sustainable Forestry Initiative and the Forest Stewardship Council, and LEED and Green Globes. Each chapter is organized around a different component of the information value chain that is at the heart of these initiatives, and applies concepts such as legitimacy, validity, and usability to analyze how they are both constructed and perceived. The book concludes with a set of recommendations for policymakers, designers and users of these initiatives that can improve their long-term effectiveness as a form of environmental governance.

scholarly journals The role of FSC certification to maintain sustainability: the case of Precious Woods Amazon Company

2017 ◽  
Vol 10 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Debora Ramos Santiago
Keyword(s):  
Sustainable Development ◽  
Forest Management ◽  
Sustainable Use ◽  
Clean Energy ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Forest Stewardship Council ◽  
Local Conditions ◽  
Market Expansion ◽  
Forest Stewardship

The objective of this study is to analyze the role of the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) for the maintenance of sustainability in the Amazon, considering the specific case of the timber Precious Woods Amazon (PWA), trying to understand the fundamental aspects of this certification program, the environmental benefits generated and the challenges for the conservation and promotion of sustainable development of the Amazon. As base of information, essentially was used the sources of data of the Forest Stewardship Council data (FSC), the Institute of Agricultural and Forest Management and Certification (IMAFLORA) and Precious Woods Amazon (PWA). The FSC certification has been considered an important instrument for the conservation of global sustainability, through their strict principles and criteria that enable forest management occurs in an environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable. In this perspective, the PWA has contributed significantly to the conservation of the Amazon, making it a world reference in sustainable use of forests. Despite the harsh criticism existing on the veracity of their practices, the available data revealed to be unquestionable the importance of PWA promoting sustainable development in the region, because since its inception the protected areas have been expanded, in addition, the company generates decent jobs, clean energy and income for these isolated areas in the interior of Amazon, also fostering productive traditional practices in the communities that surround them. Many are the challenges to market expansion certificate in the Amazon, requiring efficient actions to foster it, promoting the spread of information, supervision and implementation of beneficial policies directed to local conditions, so that forest certification become a reality in the market, not only internationally, but also location. Environmental certification is a green and responsible development, becoming a worldwide trend at recent times.

scholarly journals Future-Proofing Capitalism: The Paradox of the Circular Economy for Plastics

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-22
Author(s):  
Alice Mah
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Sustainable Business ◽  
Industrial Systems ◽  
Corporate Strategies ◽  
Global Environmental ◽  
Sustainability Concept

The marine plastics crisis sparked a wave of corporate interest in the circular economy, a sustainable business model that aims to eliminate waste in industrial systems through recycling, reduction, reuse, and recovery. Drawing on debates about the role of corporations in global environmental governance, this article examines the rise of the circular economy as a dominant corporate sustainability concept, focusing on the flagship example of the circular economy for plastics. It argues that corporations across the plastics value chain have coordinated their efforts to contain the circular economy policy agenda, while extending their markets through developing risky circular economy technologies. These corporate strategies of containment and proliferation represent attempts to “future-proof” capitalism against existential threats to public legitimacy, masking the implications for environmental justice. The paradox of the circular economy is that it seems to offer radical challenges to linear “take-make-waste” models of industrial capitalism, backed by international legislation, but it does not actually give up on unsustainable growth. We need to tackle the plastics crisis at its root, dramatically reducing the global production of toxic and wasteful plastics.

The Green Debate: Information Optimists, Pessimists, and Realists

Green Grades ◽  
2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Graham Bullock
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
Environmental Politics ◽  
Information Value ◽  
Governance Strategies ◽  
Main Components ◽  
Civil Sector ◽  
Role Of Information

Chapter 1 outlines the debate about the role of information in environmental politics, and reviews the arguments both for and against the use of information-based environmental governance strategies. It describes the nature of these strategies and how they differ from other forms of governance and uses of information. It explores the use of information-based strategies by public, private, and civil sector actors historically, and discusses the factors that have driven their proliferation and the outbreaks of information in contemporary times. The chapter also presents the concept of the information value chain and its five main components (its governance, content, methods, interfaces, and outcomes), which provides an important analytical lens on these strategies and serves as the book’s primary theoretical framework. The chapter concludes with an outline of the book’s chapters and a summary of its key arguments and contributions.

scholarly journals Public Opinion and the Legitimacy of Global Private Environmental Governance

2020 ◽  
Vol 20 (1) ◽  
pp. 60-81
Author(s):  
Fabian G. Neuner
Keyword(s):  
Public Opinion ◽  
Environmental Governance ◽  
International Organization ◽  
Democratic Deficit ◽  
Forest Stewardship Council ◽  
The Public ◽  
Collective Action Problems ◽  
Forest Stewardship ◽  
Public Opposition

The rise of global private environmental governance has inspired substantial research assessing whether organizations like the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) are legitimate. These organizations address global challenges and help overcome collective action problems, but public opposition can severely curb their effectiveness. Yet, we do not know whether the public supports such organizations and perceives them as legitimate. This article draws on diverse political science literatures to outline why a focus on public opinion is important. The article tests two competing arguments explaining potential opposition toward organizations like the ISO and the FSC: accounts centered on the role of sincere preferences over the legitimate locus of authority and on the influence of domestic elite rhetoric. Results suggest that public opinion is generally positive and that elite rhetoric about a potential democratic deficit rather than simple information about the bodies’ governance structures decreases favorability.

NGO Power in Global Social and Environmental Standard-Setting

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (4) ◽  
pp. 36-59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Magnus Boström ◽  
Kristina Tamm Hallström
Keyword(s):  
Standard Setting ◽  
Forest Stewardship Council ◽  
Global Organizations ◽  
Responsible Behavior ◽  
Environmentally Responsible ◽  
Forest Stewardship ◽  
Multi Stakeholder ◽  
The Impact

We have seen a worldwide increase in new nonstate, multi-stakeholder organizations setting standards for socially and environmentally responsible behavior. These standard-setting arenas offer new channels for political participation for NGOs. Scholars have drawn attention to the rise and the role of NGOs in global politics, but there is less research on the power and long-term implications of NGO participation in transnational multi-stakeholder standard-setting. This article analyzes NGOs within three such global organizations: the Forest Stewardship Council, the Marine Stewardship Council, and the International Organization for Standardization on Social Responsibility. Using a power-based perspective, we demonstrate the impact that NGOs can have on multi-stakeholder work. In doing so, we analyze four types of NGO power: symbolic, cognitive, social, and monitoring power. The article further emphasizes institutional, structural, and discursive factors within multi-stakeholder organizations that create certain challenges to NGO power and participation in the longer term.

scholarly journals Circular Agreements—Exploring the Role of Agreements and Deals as a Political Tool for a Circular Economy

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nils Johansson
Keyword(s):  
Value Chain ◽  
Circular Economy ◽  
Policy Instruments ◽  
Alternative Form ◽  
Advantages And Disadvantages ◽  
Free Rider Problem ◽  
Political Governance ◽  
The Eu

AbstractA problem for a circular economy, embedded in its policies, tools, technologies and models, is that it is driven by the interests and needs of producers, rather than customers and users. This opinion paper focuses on an alternative form of governance—agreements, which thanks to their bargaining approach brings actors from across the value chain into the policy process. The purpose of this opinion paper is to uncover and analyse the potential of such agreements for a circular economy. Circular agreements aim at increasing the circulation of materials and are an emerging form of political governance within the EU. These agreements have different names, involve different actors and govern in different ways. However, circular agreements seem to work when other types of regulations fail to establish circulation. These agreements bring actors together and offer a platform for negotiating how advantages and disadvantages can be redistributed between actors in a way that is more suitable for a circular economy. However, circular agreements are dependent on other policy instruments to work and can generate a free-rider problem with uninvolved actors. The agreements may also become too detailed and long term, which leads to problem shifting and lock-ins, respectively.

scholarly journals Additional Benefits of Community Managed Forest: A Case Study of Champadevi Community Forest

2012 ◽  
Vol 12 ◽  
pp. 127-132
Author(s):  
Bhanu B Panthi
Keyword(s):  
Carbon Sequestration ◽  
Significant Contribution ◽  
Research Area ◽  
Environmental Benefits ◽  
Managed Forests ◽  
Managed Forest ◽  
Community Based

This research attempts to identify the existing condition of the community managed forest based on the assumption that it will serve as a proxy for the condition of other forests in the mid hills region of Nepal. The research area has an atypical variation in altitude and diverse pattern of vegetation. This study mainly focuses on estimating carbon content in the forest and identifying the species that has more carbon storage capacity. The research signifies the role of forests in mitigation of ‘Global warming’ and ‘Climate change’ by storing carbon in tree biomass. These types of community based forest management programs are significant for their additional carbon sequestration through the avoidance of deforestation and degradation. The carbon sequestration have a significant contribution to environmental benefits, any shrinkage of forests have an enormous impact on CO2 emission with long term consequences. Thus, the development and expansion of community managed forests provide many benefits to the adjacent community and globally at large.DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3126/njst.v12i0.6490 Nepal Journal of Science and Technology 12 (2011) 127-32 

scholarly journals The role of voluntary certification in maintaining the ecologically unequal exchange of wood pulp: the Forest Stewardship Council's certification of industrial tree plantations in Brazil

2016 ◽  
Vol 23 (1) ◽  
pp. 434 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jutta Kill
Keyword(s):  
Economic Cost ◽  
Pulp And Paper ◽  
Raw Material ◽  
Tree Plantations ◽  
Forest Stewardship Council ◽  
Certification Scheme ◽  
Unequal Exchange ◽  
Voluntary Certification ◽  
Forest Stewardship

Voluntary certification schemes have grown in popularity since the late 1980s. Today, a large number of consumer items from coffee and chocolate to oil palm and soya products carry labels that supposedly attest their contribution to promoting fair trade or a reduction of negative environmental impacts. Many printed books, magazines and other paper products carry a label promising 'environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial and economically viable' management of the tree plantations that deliver the raw material for the pulp and paper from which these products are made. This article explores the role that one such voluntary certification scheme used by the pulp and paper sector plays in maintaining ecologically unequal exchange. Would ecologically unequal exchange in a certified product cease to exist if the voluntary certification schemes available for pulp and paper products were to become the norm, instead of just catering to a niche market? If the answer to that hypothetical question is 'no' – which it is – then the question that arises is: what role does the voluntary certification scheme play in upholding ecologically unequal exchange? This article explores the role of one particular voluntary certification scheme – by the Forest Stewardship Council – in maintaining ecologically unequal exchange in the trade of pulp products between industrialised countries with a relatively high per-capital consumption of pulp and paper products and the global South, in this case Brazil. It shows how, from the perspective of communities who bear the ecological, social and economic cost of industrial tree plantations and who oppose further expansion of these plantations, voluntary certification schemes have (inadvertently?) helped tilt the balance of power even further in favour of corporate interests for expansion. An unacknowledged imbalance of power between corporations and the certification schemes, on the one hand, and communities and their allies, on the other, has become manifest and aids further expansion of industrial tree plantations for production of pulp for export, thus contributing to maintaining ecologically unequal exchange.Key words: certification; commodity chains; conflicts; consumption; ecologically unequal exchange; environmental justice; Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), industrial tree plantations; pulp and paper; resistance struggles

scholarly journals Corporate Social Performance, Financialization, and Real Investment in US Manufacturing Firms

2019 ◽  
Vol 11 (7) ◽  
pp. 1836 ◽  
Author(s):  
Sebastiano Cupertino ◽  
Costanza Consolandi ◽  
Alessandro Vercelli
Keyword(s):  
Capital Accumulation ◽  
Corporate Social Performance ◽  
Social Performance ◽  
Corporate Sustainability ◽  
Manufacturing Firms ◽  
Business And Society ◽  
Corporate Social ◽  
Real Investment

In recent years, the global financial and economic crisis are rewriting the relationship between business and society, focusing, among other things, on the role of the process of financialization, not only in the economy as a whole but also within non-financial companies. Shareholder value maximization, together with the commoditization of business, has led to a general short-term approach at the expense of capital accumulation and core business activity, to the detriment of not only firms’ competitiveness and productivity but also of human capital, strategic innovation, business ethics, and long-term growth. Within this framework, this study investigates the role of corporate sustainability, analyzing the nexus between financialization, accumulation of real capital, and corporate social performance, an issue that has been neglected so far. Using a sample of US manufacturing firms from 2002 to 2017, we found that, while financialization was negatively correlated with corporate real investment, the environmental and social firm performance positively impacted corporate capital accumulation. Our results support the belief that a focus on environmental, social, and governance standards, fostering real investments, may enhance a firm’s long-term growth with a positive effect on its long-term value.

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