Emerging concerns for environmental flows translate into reforms that aim to preserve minimal flows in rivers. These policy measures have consequences for traditional right-holders: how to share between consumptive users the new scarcity created by the protection of instream flows? This paper...

There is an increasing interest in the use of voluntary approaches to environmental protection as an alternative to more traditional regulatory approaches. In many cases, entire industries are faced with possible imposition of costly environmental policies if environmental goals are not met...

This paper analyses the conditions under which a group of firms is incentivised to sign a voluntary agreement (VA) to control polluting emissions even in the presence of free-riding by other firms in the industry. We consider a policy framework in which firms in a given industry decide whether...

The city of León, Guanajuato, is Mexico’s leather goods capital and a notorious environmental hotspot. Over the past two decades, four high-profile voluntary agreements aimed at controlling pollution from León’s tanneries have yielded few concrete results. To understand why, this paper...

As potentials for energy savings are huge, industry can provide a major contribution to energy savings goals. This paper focuses on the energy savings realized under the Dutch voluntary agreements in the period 2001–2011. Participants in these schemes are obliged to plan and implement all...

Voluntary business activities, such as the voluntary action plans conducted by comprehensive business associations in Japan to reduce environmental damage, are viable policy instruments alongside regulations and economic incentives (e.g. taxes and emissions trading schemes). This paper examines...

<Para ID="Par1">This paper focuses on a type of voluntary pollution abatement agreement (VA) in which the regulator offers regulatory relief for the participating firm in exchange for environmental improvements. If the regulator does not have statutory authority to provide regulatory relief, the VA can leave...</para>

A scoping review was conducted to synthesise the findings of evaluations of voluntary agreements between business and government. It aimed to summarise the types of agreements that exist, how they work in practice, the conditions for their success and how they had been evaluated.