Voluntary approaches for environmental protection in the European Union - a survey

✍ Scribed by B�rkey, Peter ;L�v�que, Fran�ois

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2000
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 297 KB
• Volume: 10
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0961-0405
• DOI: 10.1002/(sici)1099-0976(200001/02)10:1<35::aid-eet214>3.0.co;2-m

✦ Synopsis

The use of voluntary approaches has gained significant momentum in the European Union over the last decade. To date, more than 300 of these schemes are in force in the different member states and their number is still increasing. Through a survey of the literature our paper tries to portray the use of voluntary approaches in the member states and to identify both their common characteristics and those that separate them. It appears that the most frequently used types of voluntary approach are environmental agreements that are negotiated between public and private bodies. The common characteristic of these negotiated agreements throughout the member states is that they set collective targets for industry. However, they differ in important ways in their linkage to the pre-existing regulatory framework and thereby in the ways monitoring and enforcement are implemented. An assessment of effectiveness and efficiency is therefore difficult, also because available data are still scarce.