Dara O'Rourke

Outsourcing Regulation: Analyzing Nongovernmental Systems of Labor Standards and Monitoring

A range of new nongovernmental systems for advancing labor standards and enforcement have emerged over the last 5 years. This article comparatively assesses these multistakeholder systems of codes of conduct and monitoring, discusses their underlying models of regulation, and proposes a set of criteria for evaluating their effectiveness, including their legitimacy, rigor, accountability, and complementarity. Critical issues are raised about the transparency of existing initiatives, independence of monitors, convergence of standards, and dynamics among nongovernmental regulation, unions, and state enforcement. The article concludes by arguing that with increased transparency, improved technical capacities, and new mechanisms of accountability to workers and consumers, nongovernmental monitoring could complement existing state regulatory systems.

Market Movements: Nongovernmental Organization Strategies to Influence Global Production and Consumption

Summary This article analyzes nongovernmental organization (NGO) “market campaigns” that seek to motivate changes in global consumption and production patterns. Through campaigns targeting products as diverse as paper, shoes, and computers, advocacy groups seek to use existing concerns of consumers to influence producers, and simultaneously, to expand and deepen consumer demand for more sustainable products and services. NGOs deploy both negative information to critique leading brands, and positive information to help build new markets for improved products. Successful market campaigns construct networks of actors that identify points of leverage within global production and trading regimes; coordinate research, exposure, direct action, and negotiations with brands; identify solutions; advance new multi-stakeholder standards and monitoring and certification schemes; build new nongovernmental regulatory institutions; and occasionally attempt to strengthen state regulation. Through an assessment of three market campaigns focused on Staples, Nike, and Dell, this article describes the nature of these campaigns, discusses how they function, assesses their central strategies and tactics, and analyzes whether they are actually having an impact. The article concludes by discussing the relevance and implications of these campaigns for the field of industrial ecology, and how industrial ecology might support future efforts to advance more sustainable production and consumption.

The science of sustainable supply chains

Recent advances in the science and technology of global supply chain management offer near–real-time demand-response systems for decision-makers across production networks. Technology is helping propel “fast fashion” and “lean manufacturing,” so that companies are better able to deliver products consumers want most. Yet companies know much less about the environmental and social impacts of their production networks. The failure to measure and manage these impacts can be explained in part by limitations in the science of sustainability measurement, as well as by weaknesses in systems to translate data into information that can be used by decision-makers inside corporations and government agencies. There also remain continued disincentives for firms to measure and pay the full costs of their supply chain impacts. I discuss the current state of monitoring, measuring, and analyzing information related to supply chain sustainability, as well as progress that has been made in translating this information into systems to advance more sustainable practices by corporations and consumers. Better data, decision-support tools, and incentives will be needed to move from simply managing supply chains for costs, compliance, and risk reduction to predicting and preventing unsustainable practices.

Lean manufacturing comes to China: a case study of its impact on workplace health and safety.

Abstract Lean manufacturing, which establishes small production “cells,” or teams of workers, who complete an entire product from raw material processing through final assembly and shipment, increases health and safety hazards by mixing previously separated exposures to various chemicals (with possible additive and cumulative effects) and noise. The intensification of work leads to greater ergonomic and stress-related adverse health effects, as well as increased safety hazards. The standard industrial hygiene approach of anticipation, recognition, evaluation, and hazard control is applicable to lean operations. A focus on worker participation in identifying and solving problems is critical for reducing negative impacts. A key to worker safety in lean production operations is the developmerit of informed, empowered, and active workers with the knowledge, skills, and opportunity to act in the workplace to eliminate or reduce hazards.

Mandatory planning for environmental innovation: evaluating regulatory mechanisms for toxics use reduction

This paper analyzes the Massachusetts Toxics Use Reduction Act (TURA), evaluating what TURA has achieved, how it has been implemented, how it motivates firms to change and how its underlying principles might be strengthened to better support innovation for toxics use reduction. Through this analysis recent debates are engaged about the potentials and limitations of using regulation to promote innovation for the environment. The analysis here shows that TURA is distinct from existing regulatory programmes in how it requires firms to self‐evaluate and plan for process improvements, supports implementation through technical assistance and focuses on pollution prevention rather than control. Mandatory planning, new mechanisms of accountability and improved processes of learning have all been critical to TURAs success in motivating firms to innovate for the environment. Taken together, these factors have supported incremental innovations in industry that may point the way toward policies to support even greater environmental improvements.

Motivating a conflicted environmental state: Community-driven regulation in Vietnam

The Vietnamese government, like many countries, faces significant conflicts between developmental goals and environmental protection. Although the government has proclaimed a commitment to protecting the country’s ecosystems, workers, and urban environments, and has recently created national environmental institutions and provincial enforcement agencies, Vietnam continues to experience problems in the implementation of its environmental laws. A lack of funds, trained personnel, and political influence severely constrain the effectiveness of state environmental agencies. More importantly, contradictions and conflicts within the state – between developmentalist and environmental concerns – create disincentives for enforcement of environmental regulations.

Economic and Environmental Dynamics of Reform in Vietnam

Vietnam is at a critical juncture in its economic development. Reforms currently underway are transforming the institutional framework that structures economic activity: the government has liberalized economic production and exchange; resource allocation has shifted toward market mechanisms with the goal of increasing flexibility and efficiency; state enterprise reform, the 1993 Land Law, and tax reforms have transferred assets to, and strengthened the role of, the private sector; and international trade and investment have been liberalized through the 1987 Foreign Investment Law and more recent foreign trade reforms. These institutional changes, while causing direct economic shifts, are exerting a profound influence on Vietnams environment. This article analyzes how two key effects of reform-shifts in the allocation of capital and shifts in control over production decisions-are altering human pressures on natural resources and environmental quality. Privatization and internationalization of the economy are altering patterns of capital accumulation among sectors and subsectors as capital allocation shifts to the market allocation. Control over production decisions is moving from the state and cooperatives to the private sector. We examine how these changes affect manufacturing, agriculture, and forestry and their impact on natural resource use and environmental quality. Reforms are having different impacts among economic sectors. In general, the consequences of reform vary according to the degree to which economic activities depend on public access to capital for efficient resource utilization, offer profitable opportunities for private investment, and change the relation-

Agricultural Certification as a Conservation Tool in Latin America

Along agricultural frontiers, non-governmental organizations are developing agricultural certification systems for use as conservation tools. In this article, we propose a typology of certification systems that we use to frame a critical examination of the efficacy of these systems and their limitations in achieving conservation goals. On the basis of these findings, we recommend improved management practices. Our analysis draws on case studies that examine the use of certification to regulate two very distinct production systems: smallholder shade coffee cooperatives in El Salvador and industrial scale soy and beef operations in the Brazilian Amazon. Despite their disparate contexts, both case studies demonstrate that agricultural certification to achieve conservation goals is difficult to design, implement, and evaluate. Certifiers must enroll consumers and firms who do not prioritize conservation goals, navigate scientific uncertainty regarding best conservation practices, and also market their brand as different from the conventional products. Yet certification continues to expand. In order to grow legitimacy, maximize long-term efficacy, and to achieve stated conservation goals, agricultural certifiers should focus their efforts on key leverage points along supply chains where changes made can have meaningful conservation impacts. They should straightforwardly communicate the limitations, kinks, and challenges of their systems alongside claims of successes without overstating the impacts of their schemes as part of marketing strategies. In doing so they can help to inform and advance environmental governance of agricultural production systems.

The Impact of Sustainability Information on Consumer Decision Making

This article presents an empirical analysis of the impact of sustainability information on consumer purchase intentions and how this influence varies by issue (health, environment, and social responsibility), product category, type of consumer, and type of information. We assess over 40,000 online purchase interactions on the website GoodGuide.com and find a significant impact of certain types of sustainability information on purchase intentions, varying across different types of consumers, issues, and product categories. Health ratings in particular showed the strongest effects. Direct users - those who intentionally sought out sustainability information - were most strongly influenced by sustainability information, with an average purchase intention rate increase of 1.15 percentage points for each point increase in overall product score, reported on a zero to ten scale. However, sustainability information had, on average, no impact on nondirect users, demonstrating that simply providing more or better information on sustainability issues will likely have limited impact on changing mainstream consumer behavior unless it is designed to connect into existing decision‐making processes.