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Measuring Corporate Environmental Justice Performance

Author

Listed:
  • Michael A. Ash

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

  • James K. Boyce

    (University of Massachusetts Amherst)

Abstract

Measures of corporate environmental justice performance can be a valuable tool in efforts to promote corporate social responsibility and to document systematic patterns of environmental injustice. This paper develops such a measure based on the extent to which toxic air emissions from industrial facilities disproportionately impact racial and ethnic minorities and low-income people. Applying the measure to 100 major corporate air polluters in the United States, we find wide variation in the extent of disproportional exposures. In a number of cases, minorities bear more than half of the total human health impacts from the firm's industrial air pollution.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael A. Ash & James K. Boyce, 2008. "Measuring Corporate Environmental Justice Performance," UMASS Amherst Economics Working Papers 2008-16, University of Massachusetts Amherst, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:ums:papers:2008-16
    as

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    File URL: http://www.umass.edu/economics/publications/2008-16.pdf
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    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. James K. Boyce, 2002. "The Political Economy of the Environment," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 2080.
    2. Michael Ash & T. Robert Fetter, 2004. "Who Lives on the Wrong Side of the Environmental Tracks? Evidence from the EPA's Risk‐Screening Environmental Indicators Model," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(2), pages 441-462, June.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Corporate social responsibility; corporate environmental performance; environmental justice; air pollution;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • M14 - Business Administration and Business Economics; Marketing; Accounting; Personnel Economics - - Business Administration - - - Corporate Culture; Diversity; Social Responsibility
    • Q52 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Pollution Control Adoption and Costs; Distributional Effects; Employment Effects
    • Q56 - Agricultural and Natural Resource Economics; Environmental and Ecological Economics - - Environmental Economics - - - Environment and Development; Environment and Trade; Sustainability; Environmental Accounts and Accounting; Environmental Equity; Population Growth

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