Voluntary Environmental Governance Arrangements

Abstract

Voluntary environmental governance arrangements have focal attention in studies on environmental policy, regulation and governance. The four major debates in the contemporary literature on voluntary environmental governance arrangements are studied. The literature falls short of sufficiently specifying whether or not voluntary environmental governance arrangements are successful in addressing environmental risks. This is due to the narrow focus of many contemporary studies and a tendency to study the form and content of voluntary environmental governance arrangements in isolation from their contextual settings. In order to gain a better understanding of voluntary environmental governance arrangements, scholars are challenged to study differently structured voluntary environmental governance arrangements in different contextual settings, to move beyond single country or single voluntary environmental governance arrangements studies, and to combine quantitative and qualitative data in studying these arrangements.

Keywords: governance, environment, regulation, voluntarism, beyond compliance