Selon des croyances largement répandues, la protection de l'environnement est associée à une hausse des coûts imposés aux entreprises par le gouvernement. Au cours de la dernière décennie, ce point de vue a été contesté par un grand nombre d'analystes. Ces derniers ont cerné de...

L'image du Québec « vert » a récemment fait l'objet de commentaires contradictoires; certains lui donnent une image d'un exemple environnemental à suivre alors que d'autres qualifient cette même image de mythe. Afin de mieux connaître la situation, nous comparons certains indicateurs...

This text presents ten Quebec examples on green profitability. Managers concerned with the quality of the environment may find new ideas and arguments to convince their colleagues in being proactive in this matter. However, before presenting these examples, we must put the issue in a more...

We analyze 17 studies of the use of sustainable development indicators (SDI) in an urban setting. The analysis reveals a lack of consensus not only on the conceptual framework and the approach favored, but also on the selection and optimal number of indicators. First, by performing different...

Jaffe and Palmer (1997) present three distinct variants of the so-called Porter Hypothesis. The weak version of the hypothesis posits that environmental regulation will stimulate certain kinds of environmental innovations. The narrow version of the hypothesis asserts that flexible environmental...

The conventional wisdom about environmental protection is that it comes at an additional cost on firms imposed by the government, which may erode their global competitiveness. However, during the last decade, this paradigm has been challenged by a number of analysts. In particular, Porter...

Ecodesign is a method of designing products (goods and services) that takes into account their impact on the environment at all stages of their life cycle so as to minimize them. In order to promote ecodesign, it is necessary to see if it is profitable for the enterprises. Very little work has...

This paper examines the profile of workers who are willing to participate in a work sharing program by reducing their working hours. In contrast with national surveys which ask workers their intention about working hours reduction, we are dealing with Alcan's workers who have actually decided to...

We measure the effect of profit-sharing incentive schemes on productivity in the banking sector. We use data collected from the payroll records of different (and autonomous) branches of a Québec financial cooperative. Beginning in 1994, some of these branches introduced profit-sharing...