IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bpj/buspol/v12y2010i3n3.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Private Standards in the Climate Regime: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol

Author

Listed:
  • Green Jessica F

    (Case Western Reserve University)

Abstract

This paper seeks to explain the success of two NGOs in creating standards for calculating and reporting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions at the level of an entire company. These emissions accounting standards, called the Greenhouse Gas Protocol, have been widely adopted by multinational firms, emissions reporting registries, and even an emissions trading scheme. The paper traces the widespread adoption of the standards, and then offers an explanation for this successful instance of private regulation. It presents a supply and demand model of private entrepreneurial authority-where private actors project authority without delegation by states. The two NGOs were successful rule-makers because they were able meet a demand for three benefits to potential users of the standard: reduced transaction costs, first-mover advantage, and an opportunity to burnish their reputation as environmental leaders. The paper also explains the supply of private authority-that is, why we see entrepreneurial authority rather than delegation by states. The disagreement among developed countries on the appropriate role for emissions trading in the climate regime delayed action on developing firm-level accounting methodologies. Moreover, the relative weakness of the focal institution in the climate regime-the climate change Secretariat-meant that there was no obvious international organization to take up the task of creating new measurement tools.

Suggested Citation

  • Green Jessica F, 2010. "Private Standards in the Climate Regime: The Greenhouse Gas Protocol," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-39, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:buspol:v:12:y:2010:i:3:n:3
    DOI: 10.2202/1469-3569.1318
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.2202/1469-3569.1318
    Download Restriction: For access to full text, subscription to the journal or payment for the individual article is required.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.2202/1469-3569.1318?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Victor, David G. & House, Joshua C., 2006. "BP's emissions trading system," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 34(15), pages 2100-2112, October.
    2. Karan Capoor & Philippe Ambrosi, "undated". "State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2009," World Bank Publications - Reports 13403, The World Bank Group.
    3. Jon Skjærseth & Jørgen Wettestad, 2008. "Implementing EU emissions trading: success or failure?," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 8(3), pages 275-290, September.
    4. repec:wbk:wboper:13402 is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Prakash,Aseem & Potoski,Matthew, 2006. "The Voluntary Environmentalists," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521860413, October.
    6. Braithwaite,John & Drahos,Peter, 2000. "Global Business Regulation," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521784993, October.
    7. Prakash,Aseem & Potoski,Matthew, 2006. "The Voluntary Environmentalists," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521677721, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Engineering Uncontestedness? The Origins and Institutional Development of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-64, October.
    2. Auld Graeme & Cashore Benjamin & Balboa Cristina & Bozzi Laura & Renckens Stefan, 2010. "Can Technological Innovations Improve Private Regulation in the Global Economy?," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-42, October.
    3. Baudot, Lisa & Cooper, David J., 2022. "Regulatory mandates and responses to uncomfortable knowledge: The case of country-by-country reporting in the extractive sector," Accounting, Organizations and Society, Elsevier, vol. 99(C).
    4. Nicolas Schmid & Leonore Haelg & Sebastian Sewerin & Tobias S. Schmidt & Irina Simmen, 2021. "Governing complex societal problems: The impact of private on public regulation through technological change," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(3), pages 840-855, July.
    5. Binh Bui & Muhammad Nurul Houqe & Muhammad Kaleem Zahir-ul-Hassan, 2022. "Moderating effect of carbon accounting systems on strategy and carbon performance: a CDP analysis," Journal of Management Control: Zeitschrift für Planung und Unternehmenssteuerung, Springer, vol. 33(4), pages 483-524, December.
    6. Rainer Kasperzak & Marko Kureljusic & Lucas Reisch & Simon Thies, 2023. "Accounting for Carbon Emissions—Current State of Sustainability Reporting Practice under the GHG Protocol," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(2), pages 1-17, January.
    7. Hoogerbrugge, Coen & van de Kaa, Geerten & Chappin, Emile, 2023. "Adoption of quality standards for corporate greenhouse gas inventories: The importance of other stakeholders," International Journal of Production Economics, Elsevier, vol. 260(C).
    8. Janina Grabs & Graeme Auld & Benjamin Cashore, 2021. "Private regulation, public policy, and the perils of adverse ontological selection," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 15(4), pages 1183-1208, October.
    9. Jessica F Green, 2017. "Policy entrepreneurship in climate governance: Toward a comparative approach," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 35(8), pages 1471-1482, December.
    10. João Paulo Cândia Veiga & Fausto Makishi & Murilo Alves Zacareli & Thiago Augusto Hiromitsu Terada, 2016. "Corporate Leadership, Multilevel Enforcement and Biodiversity Regulation," Journal of Business, LAR Center Press, vol. 1(3), pages 43-53, July.
    11. Meenakshi Sharma & Rajesh Kaushal & Prashant Kaushik & Seeram Ramakrishna, 2021. "Carbon Farming: Prospects and Challenges," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(19), pages 1-15, October.
    12. Markus Lederer, 2012. "Market making via regulation: The role of the state in carbon markets," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 6(4), pages 524-544, December.
    13. Samuel Tang & David Demeritt, 2018. "Climate Change and Mandatory Carbon Reporting: Impacts on Business Process and Performance," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 27(4), pages 437-455, May.
    14. Thiemann Matthias, 2014. "The impact of meta-standardization upon standards convergence: the case of the international accounting standard for off-balance-sheet financing," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 16(1), pages 79-112, April.
    15. Jessica F. Green, 2017. "The strength of weakness: pseudo-clubs in the climate regime," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 144(1), pages 41-52, September.
    16. Julian Baehr & Florian Zenglein & Guido Sonnemann & Markus Lederer & Liselotte Schebek, 2024. "Back in the Driver’s Seat: How New EU Greenhouse-Gas Reporting Schemes Challenge Corporate Accounting," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(9), pages 1-20, April.
    17. Mayer Frederick & Gereffi Gary, 2010. "Regulation and Economic Globalization: Prospects and Limits of Private Governance," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-27, October.
    18. Jason Thistlethwaite & Matthew Paterson, 2016. "Private governance and accounting for sustainability networks," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 34(7), pages 1197-1221, November.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Private Regulation in the Global Economy: A (P)Review," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-40, October.
    2. Büthe Tim, 2010. "Engineering Uncontestedness? The Origins and Institutional Development of the International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC)," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-64, October.
    3. Stefan Renckens, 2015. "The Basel Convention, US politics, and the emergence of non-state e-waste recycling certification," International Environmental Agreements: Politics, Law and Economics, Springer, vol. 15(2), pages 141-158, May.
    4. Christine Parker, 2013. "Twenty years of responsive regulation: An appreciation and appraisal," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 7(1), pages 2-13, March.
    5. Johannes Urpelainen, 2011. "Frontrunners and Laggards: The Strategy of Environmental Regulation under Uncertainty," Environmental & Resource Economics, Springer;European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 50(3), pages 325-346, November.
    6. Oliver Westerwinter, 2021. "Transnational public-private governance initiatives in world politics: Introducing a new dataset," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(1), pages 137-174, January.
    7. Rebecca Edwards & Graham Smith & Milena Büchs, 2013. "Environmental Management Systems and the Third Sector: Exploring Weak Adoption in the UK," Environment and Planning C, , vol. 31(1), pages 119-133, February.
    8. Holtmaat, Ellen Alexandra & Adolph, Christopher & Prakash, Aseem, 2020. "The global diffusion of environmental clubs: how pressure from importing countries supports the chemical industry's Responsible Care® program," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 102658, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    9. Kenneth Abbott & Duncan Snidal, 2010. "International regulation without international government: Improving IO performance through orchestration," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 5(3), pages 315-344, September.
    10. Bullock Graham, 2015. "Signaling the credibility of private actors as public agents: transparency, independence, and expertise in environmental evaluations of products and companies," Business and Politics, De Gruyter, vol. 17(2), pages 177-219, August.
    11. Mélodie Cartel & Eva Boxenbaum & Franck Aggeri & Jean-Yves Caneill, 2017. "Policy making as collective bricolage: the role of the electricity sector in the making of the European carbon market," Post-Print hal-01615460, HAL.
    12. Seong‐gin Moon, 2008. "Corporate Environmental Behaviors in Voluntary Programs: Does Timing Matter?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 89(5), pages 1102-1120, December.
    13. Hoang, Phi Cong & McGuire, William & Prakash, Aseem, 2018. "Reducing Toxic Chemical Pollution in Response to Multiple Information Signals: The 33/50 Voluntary Program and Toxicity Disclosures," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C), pages 193-202.
    14. Mark Anthony Camilleri, 2022. "The rationale for ISO 14001 certification: A systematic review and a cost–benefit analysis," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 1067-1083, July.
    15. Mary Gugerty, 2009. "Signaling virtue: voluntary accountability programs among nonprofit organizations," Policy Sciences, Springer;Society of Policy Sciences, vol. 42(3), pages 243-273, August.
    16. Bui, Linda T.M. & Kapon, Samuel, 2012. "The impact of voluntary programs on polluting behavior: Evidence from pollution prevention programs and toxic releases," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 64(1), pages 31-44.
    17. Richard W. Carney & Sadok El Ghoul & Omrane Guedhami & Jane W. Lu & He Wang, 2022. "Political corporate social responsibility: The role of deliberative capacity," Journal of International Business Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Academy of International Business, vol. 53(8), pages 1766-1784, October.
    18. Aseem Prakash & Matthew Potoski, 2016. "Dysfunctional institutions? Toward a New Agenda in Governance Studies," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 10(2), pages 115-125, June.
    19. Bu, Maoliang & Qiao, Zhenzi & Liu, Beibei, 2020. "Voluntary environmental regulation and firm innovation in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 89(C), pages 10-18.
    20. Zhenyu Jiang & Zongjun Wang & Yanqi Zeng, 2020. "Can voluntary environmental regulation promote corporate technological innovation?," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 29(2), pages 390-406, February.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bpj:buspol:v:12:y:2010:i:3:n:3. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Peter Golla (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.degruyter.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.