Private Environmental Governance in Hard Times: Markets for Virtue and the Dynamics of Regulatory Change

Abstract

The past two decades have witnessed the emergence of corporateassociation- and standards-based forms of environmental selfregulation. Private environmental governance is commonly presented as being a market-driven phenomenon. Firms seek to manage their environmental impacts as a means of achieving cost-based or differentiation-based advantages. Yet, these innovations are necessarily embedded in the regulatory policies and institutions of nation states and thus subject to the dynamics of regulatory change. Historically, economic crises have stimulated significant regulatory changes that have, more often than not, resulted in an expansion of public regulation and a diminution of self-regulation. This Article considers the ramifications of the global financial crisis for the development of private environmental governance.