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Important discretionary tasks such as quality improvement, process compliance, and energy efficiency (EE) require constantly focusing the attention of decision‐makers. Using a combination of archival data analysis and a field study, we show how nudges in the form of reminders can serve as a simple yet powerful managerial lever to focus attention on such tasks and increase the likelihood that these tasks will be completed. We study the effectiveness of reminders in the context of EE tasks in manufacturing facilities. Technical assistance programs make EE recommendations to participating manufacturing sites and remind them regularly to pay attention to implementation. Our analysis shows that these reminders lead to a more widespread implementation of EE improvement suggestions and are particularly useful when facilities undertake multiple EE tasks in parallel, or when other unrelated sustainability tasks are being pursued in parallel. Next, we conduct a field study by leveraging a policy intervention called "Touchbase Tuesdays" that was implemented by our partner organization based on the results from our analysis. This field study provides additional causal evidence of the effect of reminders on EE task implementation. Overall, we observe that simple reminders can deliver substantial increases in task implementation rates in this context. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Spill and pollution (SP) accidents cause significant damage to the natural environment. They also result in financial costs and reputational losses for the offending firm. As such, understanding how firms respond to such crises is of significant interest to firm stakeholders, such as investors, customers, regulators, NGOs, employees, and local communities. In this study, we examine whether publicly disclosed SP accidents cause firms to alter their approach to environmental management, as expressed by the adoption of environmental management practices (EMPs). Using a unique panel data from 2002 to 2013, representing over 400 publicly traded US manufacturing firms, we find that in the absence of a SP accident, firms adopt more EMPs each year. However, when firms experience a SP accident they respond in surprising ways: while sustainability leading firms do not alter their existing approach to EMP adoption, regardless of the severity of the accident, all other firms do. Firms which are not sustainability leaders escalate the number of EMPs they adopt after low severity accidents and de‐escalate the number of EMPs they adopt after high severity accidents. We also find that de‐escalation can last for up to 3 years and firms do not seem to recover from de‐escalation in future years. Finally, incurring more accidents or more severe accidents leads to greater de‐escalation. Given that the number of EMPs firms adopt determines a firm's environmental performance, de‐escalation can have significant negative consequences for both the natural environment and firms themselves. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many governing bodies have launched efforts to shape the operations of manufacturers, administration of civic entities, and behavior of individuals to limit waste generation. Typically, such efforts commence with the enactment of targeted legislations that create operational changes (e.g., recycling fees, collection centers) to the waste collection and disposal processes. For example, over 25 states in the United States have enacted legislations that aim to properly dispose used electronic and electrical goods (i.e., e‐waste) and divert such waste away from landfills. We argue that such legislations can have an impact that extends beyond just reducing e‐waste. This is because such laws may not only motivate individuals to restrict e‐waste but also induce broader behavioral spillovers that can prompt individuals to reduce waste in general. To explore this idea, we exploit a quasi‐experimental setup that arises from California's enactment of the Electronic Waste Recycling Act (EWRA). Specifically, a difference‐in‐differences analysis reveals that the introduction and implementation of the EWRA resulted in at least 4.93% reduction in municipal solid waste (MSW). A plausibility analysis illustrates that these MSW reductions are much larger than what can be attributed purely to the decline of e‐waste. Furthermore, we show that the effect of e‐waste laws is stronger when consumers have increased market access through (i) online connectivity and (ii) offline proximity. Our study informs policy makers on the effects of e‐waste legislation and the critical role of market access in enhancing the impact of such legislation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Online material and waste exchanges ( OMWEs) provide online channels to repurpose by-products, unused materials and waste from industrial and commercial facilities. Unfortunately, OMWE's also have challenges. First, sellers may have access to other disposal options and, as a result, may not fully commit to the exchange. Second, buyers can face high uncertainty about the product exchanged and the transaction being undertaken. Overcoming these challenges is the 'last hurdle' to making OMWEs successful. This study investigates the factors that reduce the buyers' uncertainty and increase the sellers' commitment to the OMWE. We analyze novel transaction-level data from an online exchange (MNExchange.org) combined with other archival public records on county-level repurposing and disposal statistics. First, we find that regional repurposing policies and alternatives have a complementary effect on sellers' commitment toward OMWEs, resulting in increased OMWE exchanges. However, regional disposal policies and alternatives have a substitution effect on sellers' commitment, resulting in reduced exchange success. Further, greater product and transaction information reduce the buyer's uncertainty and increase exchange success. Finally, the analysis shows that users' (buyers and sellers) heavily rely on their prior experience with OMWEs. Specifically, higher familiarity between the buyer-seller pair and familiarity with the OMWE system leads to higher likelihood of exchange success. This study lays the foundation for understanding OMWEs and has important implications for developing policies and operations to increase online transactions of by-products, materials and wastes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]