Measuring Green: The Generation of the Information

Chapter 4 uses the differences between LEED, Green Globes, the Living Building Challenge, and ENERGY STAR to highlight the methodological issues associated with information-based governance. The chapter introduces the concepts of replicability, reliability, and validity, and applies them in an analysis of the transparency and quality of the data and methods used in existing information-based initiatives. The importance of life cycle approaches to developing valid environmental information about products and companies is also discussed. With a few important exceptions, data from 245 cases of these initiatives demonstrates their general lack of methodological transparency and validity, and highlight the challenges associated with developing robust metrics of sustainability. The chapter discusses several important tradeoffs between different dimensions of validity, and suggests several strategies for managing these tradeoffs. It also identifies the most promising and problematic information generation practices found in the database and the lessons learned from these examples.

Green Realism: Limits, Linkages, and Outcomes

Chapter 7 synthesizes the results from the previous chapters in a discussion of the idea of information realism and its cousin, green realism. It acknowledges the valid points that the optimist and pessimist sides of the debate have made about the role of information-based governance strategies, while also highlighting the shortcomings of these two opposing perspectives. It outlines three possible futures for information-based governance strategies – one that heeds the concerns of skeptics and lessons learned discussed in this book, one that ignores them, which will lead to their further loss of support and effectiveness, and a third that is based on the insights of information realism presented in the book. In particular, the chapter highlights the importance of creating linkages between information-based governance strategies and traditional regulation-based approaches and efforts to change industry norms more broadly. It returns to the green decision scenarios posed in Chapter 1, and offers specific recommendations for designers, users, and policymakers who are interested in improving the effectiveness of information-based environmental governance strategies.

Delivering Green: The Communication of the Information

Chapter 5 begins with a vignette about a corporate executive tasked with turning round her firm’s sustainability reputation. She must develop a holistic strategy for communicating the company’s environmental goals, progress, and achievements to its diverse stakeholders. It introduces and provides examples of the different forms, interfaces, and architectures by which corporations, government agencies, non-profit organizations and individuals can use to effectively deliver environmental information to their intended audiences. Possible delivery mechanisms include labels on products, ratings in a press release, data on a website, awards on a billboard, or slogans on a boycott sign. Concepts such as prominence, intelligibility, and feasibility are introduced and used to evaluate these different communication strategies. The chapter concludes with a further discussion of the noteworthy communication practices being used by existing information-based environmental governance initiatives.

The Green Debate: Information Optimists, Pessimists, and Realists

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.

Valuing Green: The Content of the Information

Chapter 2 introduces and explores questions about the content of information-based strategies with a motivating example focused on food choices. What values are embedded in programs that evaluate food products and companies, such as USDA Organic, Food Alliance, and Fair Trade? Different conceptions of value and values, are used to analyze the content of these and other similar initiatives. These concepts help reveal the many factors that determine whether different audiences will respond to environmental certifications and ratings, from the nature of the information provided to the personal preferences of individuals and their exposure to different forms of marketing and education. The chapter asserts that values are essential to understanding the perceived relevance of different forms of information content, and presents a range of data and theories about the relationships between values and different product categories, geographic scales, types of goods, and parts of the value chain. It concludes with a discussion of the most promising and problematic practices for increasing the perceived relevance and importance of the content of information-based strategies.

Being Green: The Effects of the Information

Chapter 6’s discussion of the outcomes of information-based governance strategies begins with a comparison of three initiatives that evaluate electronics products – ENERGY STAR, EPEAT, and TCO. It introduces different conceptions of effectiveness, and emphasizes that different actors may have different definitions and perceptions of effectiveness. The chapter discusses a range of hypotheses and evidence related to the effects of information on consumers, businesses, government agencies, advocacy organizations, and researchers. While some evidence shows that a few existing programs have indeed created tangible social and environmental benefits, the database of 245 cases reveals that the vast majority of information-based governance strategies have failed to provide such information about their effectiveness to the public. The chapter ends with a discussion of promising and problematic practices for tracking the environmental outcomes and benefits of information-based governance strategies.

Trusting Green: The Organizations behind the Information

Chapter 3 begins with a decision scenario involving the Forest Stewardship Council and Sustainable Forestry Initiative. They both provide information about toilet paper greenness, but which of these claims should we trust? The concepts of trustworthiness, accountability, credibility, and legitimacy are introduced to address this question, and then used to analyze the 245 cases of eco-labels and sustainability ratings in the EEPAC Dataset. Accountability relationships to funders, advisors and other actors in the public, private, and civil sectors are analyzed, and the reputational and trustworthiness implications of these relationships are discussed. Signals of credibility, such as expertise and independence, are also identified and discussed. The chapter concludes with a discussion of promising and problematic organizational practices related to organizational trustworthiness, and particularly those that enhance the transparency and clarity of a program’s accountability relationships.