Abstract
The failure of formal regulation and market-based approaches to control pollution has highlighted the significance of informal regulation in the form of ‘public disclosure’ and ‘rating’ for achieving environmental goals in the nineties. In developing countries where pollution information is often scarce, disclosure can make a firm’s emissions more costly. This is because it increases penalties from regulators, local communities, consumer organizations and factor markets. Public or information disclosure combines conventional environmental monitoring, self-regulation and public pressure using environmental ratings to promote better environmental management. Thus, it forms an effective tool to control pollution in developing countries like India, China or Kenya and countries-in-transition like Poland, Russia, etc. The different examples given in the paper indicate that effective public disclosure requires a credible scheme with scrutiny at different checkpoints similar to the one used for PROPER in Indonesia or GRP in India.
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Notes
See Kathuria (2006) for evidence of use of a mix of policy instruments to control water pollution in the case of three countries from three different parts of the world—Malaysia from Asia, Poland from Eastern Europe and Columbia from Latin America. Also refer Jordon et al. (2003) for evidence of use of a mix of policy instruments to control pollution in case of eight developed countries namely Austria, Australia, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, the Netherlands and the UK.
To give an example, a pollution control officer in a typical region in India has to look after nearly 700–800 polluting units scattered in a radius of nearly 2,500 km2, apart from monitoring bio-medical waste, air pollution, hazardous waste, etc. (Source: Discussion with the pollution control board officer in Sonipat, a Northern city in India, in June 2001).
This subsection builds on mainly from Tietenberg (1998).
Refer Kathuria (2007) for a brief review of studies looking into capital market reaction to positive and negative news in developed countries contexts.
The Amlakhadi creek with a length of 14 km carries effluents from Ankleshwar, Panoli and Jhagadia Industrial Estates in Gujarat—the second most industrialized state of India—and finally flows into the Narmada river, which meets the Arabian sea.
See Kathuria (2001) for comparison of results before and after installation of CETP.
This assumes wide Internet access to users, which may not be true in the present context in many developing countries, but over time with increasing connectivity, this can have far-reaching effect.
Source: www.truckandbarter.com/mt/archives/transparency_governance/ (accessed in July 2006).
The same can be extended to see equilibrium pollution in a region. For such analysis and its application, refer Kathuria (2007).
It is to be noted that many of these factors become somewhat irrelevant when the focus is on small scale units (SSIs). Most SSIs, being small and cater to the local market, are indifferent to external pressure.
Source: World Bank (2004) Beach Eco-watch program considered, Press Release No. 04/25. http://www.worldbank.org.ph/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/EASTASIAPACIFICEXT/PHILIPPINESEXTN/0,contentMDK:2021028 6~menuPK:332988~pagePK:141137~piPK:141127~theSitePK:332982,00.html (accessed in July 2006).
Refer www.downtoearth.org.in/cover.asp?foldername=20041015&filename=anal&sid=2 for details.
It is to be noted that a dedicated unit-level environment team was one of the GRP’s recommendations after the first rating, as very few mills had an environment department.
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Kathuria, V. Public disclosures: using information to reduce pollution in developing countries. Environ Dev Sustain 11, 955–970 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9161-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-008-9161-4