This paper investigates the theoretical and empirical reasons why Japan leads the world in adoption of ISO 14001, while the US lags, and the comparative effect of ISO 14001 on environmental performance of adopters in both countries. Findings suggest that institutional barriers to adoption are much h...

In this study, 236 regeneration areas (mostly clear-cuts) in southern Norway were selected by random stratified selection: 118 of the study units were cut before and 118 after the introduction of forest certification in 1998. The degree of compliance with biodiversity measures established in the pre...

This paper uses new survey evidence to analyze the effects of regulation, plant-level management policies, and other factors on the environmental compliance of Mexican manufacturers. In Mexico and other developing countries, many plants avoid complying with regulations because monitoring and enforce...

By considering not only target species catch but also bycatch of non-target species and habitat damage, ecosystem-based fisheries management (EBFM) has the potential to minimize the environmental impact of fisheries. Defining and benchmarking EBFM strategies for these incidental environmental impact...

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) are stakeholder-derived principles with measurable and enforceable criteria to promote sustainable production outcomes. While institutional commitments to use VSS to meet sustainable procurement policies have grown rapidly over the past decade, we still have ...

Governments enact environmental regulations to compel firms to internalize pollution externalities. Critics contend that regulations encourage technological lock‐ins and stifle innovation. Challenging this view, the Porter‐Linde hypothesis suggests that appropriately designed regulations can spur in...

Many major corporations and countries have made commitments to purchase or produce only "sustainable" palm oil, a commodity responsible for substantial tropical forest loss. Sustainability certification is the tool most used to fulfil these procurement policies, and around 20% of global palm oil pro...

Certification schemes have emerged in recent years to become a significant and innovative venue for standard setting and governance in the environmental realm. This review examines these schemes in the forest sector where, arguably, their development is among the most advanced of the sustainability ...

Across Europe, there is considerable interest in establishing stronger links between environmental regulation and standards for environmental management systems (EMSs) such as ISO 14001. If it can be demonstrated that possession of an EMS results in improved environmental or regulatory performance, ...

As more forest entities worldwide consider pursuing Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certification, a critical question remains on whether stand-level management impacts differ between certified and uncertified forests. To begin to answer this question, we measured forest structure on three FSC-cert...

Export banana production in Latin America is pesticide intensive, receiving much negative publicity regarding human health problems and environmental degradation. The Rainforest Alliance (RA) certification scheme was established to certify farms that met a number of social, occupation health and env...

This paper is based on the systematic literature review method and investigates the impacts of the EMS and ISO 14001 Standards towards corporate performance. Two units are considered through the methodology of research; firm size and market orientation. The evidence comes from the analysed dataset o...

This paper analyses environmental, social and economic impacts of FSC certification in Estonian state forests. The rapid expansion in forest certification is causing the need to evaluate actual costs and benefits of certification at the organizational and macroeconomic levels. The authors have used ...

There are several concerns related to the increasing production of palm oil in Southeast Asia, including pollution, greenhouse gas emissions and land conversion. The RSPO (Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil) certification standard provides an incentive for reducing environmental impacts of palm oil ...

This paper estimates the effects of certification of nonindustrial private forest owners on forest degradation in Sweden-one of the countries with the largest total area of certified forests. We rely on official forest inventory data, information on certification status, and impact evaluation method...

Voluntary environmental programs are codes of progressive environmental conduct that firms pledge to adopt. This paper investigates whether ISO 14001, a voluntary program with a weak sword—a weak monitoring and sanctioning mechanism—can mitigate shirking and improve participants' environmental perfo...

This paper tests whether adopting the international norm ISO 14001 significantly impacts environmental performance in Quebec's pulp and paper industry. Using monthly data collected from 37 plants between 1997 and 2003, we show that: (i) ISO certification does not lead to a reduction in total suspend...

In this article, we respond to calls by previous researchers to clarify the function of decentralized institutions by analyzing the strategic motives of individual actors. We investigated an important type of decentralized institution, certified management standards, and theorized that firms use the...

In recent years, shade coffee certification programs have attracted increasing attention from forest conservation and development organizations. The certification programs could be expected to promote forest conservation by providing a premium price to shade coffee producers. However, little is know...

The objective of this paper is to analyze the adoption and outcomes of the ISO 14001 standard through a systematic review of the main studies on this issue published in peer‐reviewed journals between 1996 and 2015. The 94 papers analyzed make it possible to paint a comprehensive picture of the effec...