Regulating from the Inside: Can Environmental Management Systems Achieve Policy Goals?

Abstract

The past three decades of environmental regulation have resulted in considerable improvements in some of the more visible and pressing environmental impacts of industrial activity.  Nevertheless, substantial challenges remain ahead in providing still more effective and sensible environmental protection.  To meet the remaining challenges, policymakers and analysts are increasingly looking for a "third way" of dealing with environmental problems, that is, for new policy tools that fall somewhere between the free market and conventional public regulation (Ayres and Braithwaite 1992; The Aspen Institute 1996; Chertow and Esty 1997).  In this book, we examine the potential of one such tool that is emerging on the policy agenda:  the environmental management system (EMS).