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Environmental impact assessment (EIA) is a process that examines the potential impacts of development projects on society and the environment. The concept of EIA originated in 1969 by the US National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), followed by other developed and developing countries all over the globe. This paper reviews the legal status of EIA and its implementation, effectiveness, and deficiencies in Pakistan. EIA received legal status in Pakistan when the Environmental Protection Ordinance (PEPO) was drafted in 1983. This ordinance was then converted into the Pakistan Environmental Protection Act (PEPA) in 1997. Currently, EIA is conducted for many development projects in Pakistan, including infrastructure and industry projects. Environmental protection acts containing sections related to EIA and Initial Environmental Examinations (IEE; a small preliminary study for an EIA project) have been established by all Pakistani provinces, which conduct its systematic facilitation in the country. The effectiveness of the EIA/IEE process in Pakistan can be enhanced by ensuring stakeholder participation, guaranteeing transparency, providing resources to environmental agencies, and post-monitoring of EIA/IEE processes. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2022;18:314-318. © 2021 SETAC.

Over the past 10 years, the concepts and objectives of circular economy have been increasingly detailed and become strategic issues of international, European, and national policies. However, the transition towards circular production models continues to be affected by several barriers and critical factors that make the transition difficult to achieve. The paper tries to design a relationship between sustainable production and lean production, highlighting the opportunity to invest in reverse‐logistics and how Industry 4.0 system represents a breeding ground for circular economy targets application. The aim of the current study is to examine the relationships among sustainable production, lean production, and Industry 4.0 in order to evidence the need to adopt a lean methodology and Industry 4.0 technologies in a sustainable development perspective for companies. Following a holistic vision, the authors summarize the production principles and formulas, which, although in parallel, lead to similar results and therefore represent the pillars of a competitive and sustainable business. In conclusion, exploring the circular economy principles and production chain model, challenges, opportunities, and future outlooks are formulated.

Dental amalgam from dental clinics in Kosova is an uncontrolled source of mercury. The environmental legislative framework related to its use does not fully provide measures that reduce amalgam use and the release of its waste into the environment. This paper highlights issues related to environmental policy covering mercury amalgam waste management. Existing national regulations on hazardous waste management in Kosova consider the waste from dental health care as hazardous. Currently, however, no regulations restrict the use of dental amalgam or specifically oblige the generators of amalgam to treat or dispose of waste properly, thus leading to inconsistent legislation. New regulations, revised hazardous waste management standards, and new infrastructure for waste treatment and disposal, in compliance with EU regulations, should be developed to create a holistic approach that prevents the adverse effects of amalgam waste. Integr Environ Assess Manag 2021;17:1037-1044. © 2021 SETAC.

Resource efficiency strategies are emerging on policy agendas worldwide. Commonly, resource efficiency policies aim at decreasing losses at the waste management stage and, thus, diverge from public interest in more comprehensive resource efficiency measures that include a focus the earlier material life cycle stages. Just in recent years, improvements in the lifetimes of products and increased repair and reuse ability have become policy objectives in some countries. However, the effectiveness of policy measures is usually not assessed, even though it is crucial to support informed policy‐making and efficiently decrease the environmental impact of resource use. In this paper, we provide such an assessment for the copper cycle, the third most consumed metal with sharply increasing demand. Under current practices, in Western Europe and North America, 50% and 44% of the losses by 2050 occur at end‐of‐life collection, and only 2% of losses take place at the recovery stage; in Middle East and Africa for 19% and 54%, respectively. By 2050, most copper would be lost in China with a proportion of 58%. We evaluate the resource efficiency by quantifying the two key parameters, circularity and longevity, that is, how often and how long the material is in use in the anthroposphere. Our results show that the current global longevity of high‐grade copper is 47 ± 2.5 years, and a copper atom is used in 2.1 ± 0.1 applications on average. Ambitious political measures across the life cycle can increase longevity by 85% and circularity by 45%., Ministry of Science, Research and the Arts of Baden Württemberg (Germany)

The demand for transparency in the mining sector has increased since the 1980s. Our study focused on the public reporting of four South African mining corporations and their disclosures on mine closure. South Africa was identified based on its history of mine abandonment. We found that reporting on mainstream environmental and financial matters, companies disclose little about the social aspects of mine closure. External reporting norms have evolved, with a widening scope of reporting themes presented in strategically parsimonious language. Reporting themes speak to where companies, and transparency initiatives, receive greatest external interest and much of the content in company sustainability reports appear to service this demand. This pattern is manifestly challenging for the social aspects of mine closure, where reporting is minimal and reveals little about the timing of proposed changes to the mine lifecycle, the anticipated societal effects, and how the company will address these.

Environmental regulations play an essential role in managing firm behavior and providing a reference point for the minimum standards of corporate environmental performance, yet certain firms fail to ensure their environmental performance meets these standards. This research focuses on public firms that the US government has penalized for violating environmental regulations and investigates whether these firms subsequently improved their environmental performance. Surprisingly, neither the receipt of a penalty for an environmental violation nor the imposition of a greater penalty was associated with improvements in environmental performance. Instead, a penalty for environmental violation predicted further, albeit mild, deterioration in environmental performance. While the existing literature has established that financial penalties deter most firms from committing environmental violations, this research contributes to this literature by revealing that these penalties fail to motivate firms that have violated environmental regulations to improve their environmental performance.

Relying on the cognitivist cost–benefit approach, this research investigates the antecedents of consumer boycotts. It examines the effects of poor performance on corporate social responsibility (CSR) dimensions (i.e., respect for the environment, ethics statements, philanthropic activities, respect for consumers, and respect for employees) on consumer intentions to boycott a retailer. A total of 602 consumers were surveyed in the province of Quebec, Canada. The findings of a logistical regression show that consumers are more likely to boycott retailers for abstract ideological motives (respect for the environment, philanthropic activities) than for more concrete purposes (respect for consumers, ethics statements, respect for employees), thereby confirming that consumers do not react in a similar fashion to the different CSR dimensions. This article is of interest to retailers as it provides actionable insights to improve CSR practices (social and environmental policy) to reduce the likelihood of consumer boycotts.

The effect of proactive environmental strategies (PES) on corporate performance has been debated extensively among academics; however, the significance of the pathway of those strategies—internal green integration (IGI) through greening the supplier (GTS) and environmental collaboration with suppliers (ECS)—remains undecided. This study examines environmental performance (EP) through GTS, IGI, and ECS. It also examines the direct link between PES and IGI. A conceptual framework was designed following a rigorous review of the literature. A survey questionnaire was used to collect cross‐sectional data from a random sample of manufacturing firms, obtaining 196 usable samples. Using AMOS, the structural equal modeling found a positive and significant impact of PES on IGI. Significant predictors of EP were GTS, IGI, and ECS. The findings of the study can provide managers with guidelines for dealing with business and environmental concerns. They can also contribute to creating strategies for environmental protection and management and reducing adverse effects on the environment. Finally, by examining the direct links between GTS, ECS, and EP, particularly in a developing context, the study may contribute to the literature of environmental policy.

We study the stock market reactions of the 500 largest U.S. firms that were included in 2017 Newsweek Green Ranking. The event study methodology is used to measure the 500 firms' stock market performances around the Newsweek “green score” release date. We find that in general stock market reacts negatively to sustainable development news release, while further investigation suggests that the negative abnormal returns seem to be driven mainly by the firms with green scores of zero. Our results suggest that the stock market is punishing the firms that devote little or no effort to their environmental policy to become socially responsible citizens.

This study examines the relationship between the heterogeneity of top management team (TMT) composition and firm performance by focusing on the mediating role of environmental policy: a greenhouse gas (GHG) emission strategy. Organizational slack is viewed as a moderating variable that influences the above mediated relationship. Based on data from Taiwanese public firms with CSR reports, it is found that TMT educational background heterogeneity and tenure heterogeneity negatively influence firm performance, and the GHG emission strategy mediates this relationship. Moreover, this study finds that unabsorbed slack significantly strengthens the influence of TMT educational background heterogeneity on the GHG emission strategy, and unabsorbed slack also moderates the mediation effect of the GHG emission strategy on the relationship between TMT educational background heterogeneity and firm performance. The theoretical and managerial implications of the results are discussed in the discussion section and conclusions of the study.

The fisheries industry is currently characterized by a social context where levels of competitiveness and economic development must continue to grow, while simultaneously ensuring commitment to and guarantee of levels of environmental and social sustainability. Such businesses, demonstrate an elevated sensitivity to the territory in which they operate, voluntarily implementing corporate social responsibility (CSR) policies in a sustainable development and stakeholder engagement perspective. This study will analyse—through an empirical analysis developed in the Italian context—the level of sustainable strategies and CSR of the large buyers in the fisheries industry, as well as willingness to invest to create a sustainable product. Using multivariate statistical techniques, such as principal component analysis and cluster analysis, we will identify the various groups of buyers in the adoption of sustainable strategies and CSR practices in their business.

As environmental problems worsen, eco‐innovation research has received increased attention. Korea is implementing an eco‐label policy to induce eco‐innovation. Eco‐labeling is a type of voluntary eco‐innovation. There are few empirical studies on the economic performance of eco‐labels in Korea and even fewer on the additional investment in the technology used for eco‐labeling. The present study quantitatively measured the effect of eco‐labels on additionally generated sales and research and development (RD moreover, investment in R&D typically increased for 3 years before certification. Interestingly, no additional R&D investment was made after certification. This study is mainly a basis for the introduction of environmental certification to government policymakers or product strategists who have yet to implement a certification system.

This study applies panel data regression models to investigate how the stock market values the environmental policy of the firm. The empirical analysis relies on a cross‐country sample of public firms for the period between 2014 and 2017 and uses the ratings of environmental performance (EP) released by Eikon Thomson Reuters. For the first time in the related literature, the price‐to‐sales multiple is used to capture the assessment of the stock market towards EP. The study reveals that firms with the highest (lowest) scores of EP are quoted at significantly lower (higher) price‐to‐sales multiples than other firms, indicating a negative perception of the stock market towards EP. This finding is mostly driven by firms from the American region (United States and Canada). However, even in the Scandinavian region, considered as the most advanced area with regard to the concern towards environmental issues, stock market participants do not seem to have a positive view of EP. These results are robust to various checks and, particularly, to the use of the Tobin Q ratio as an alternative indicator of the stock market perceptions. The inference of this analysis suggests that the negative assessment of the stock market towards EP may constitute a deterrent for achieving more environmentally committed firms, making it difficult to accomplish the United Nations' Sustainable Development agenda.

© 2020 The Authors. Fish and Fisheries published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd Concern over illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing has led to a number of policy, trade and surveillance measures. While much attention has been given to the impact of IUU regulation on industrial fleets, recognition of the distinct impacts on small-scale fisheries is conspicuously lacking from the policy and research debate. In this paper, we outline three ways in which the application of IUU discourse and regulation undermines small-scale fisheries. First, the mainstream construction of “illegal,” “unreported” and “unregulated” fishing, and also the categorical use of “IUU” in an all-inclusive sense, disregards the diversity, legitimacy and sustainability of small-scale fisheries practices and their governing systems. Second, we explore how the recent trade-related measures to counter IUU fishing mask and reinforce existing inequalities between different sectors and countries, creating an unfair burden on small-scale fisheries and countries who depend on them. Third, as IUU fishing is increasingly approached as “organized crime,” there is a risk of inappropriately targeting small-scale fisheries, at times violently. Reflecting on these three trends, we propose three strategies by which a more sensitive and ultimately more equitable incorporation of small-scale fisheries can be supported in the global fight against IUU fishing.

Despite the burgeoning interests in the environmental strategy, there is a limited understanding of how human resource slack drives sustainable innovation and environmental performance. This paper contributes to filling this gap by examining the effect of human resource slack on sustainable innovation and its impact on environmental performance. Besides, this paper investigates the contingent effects of intangible resource advantage on this relationship. The hypotheses are tested using data from 301 small and medium‐sized enterprises in Ghana. The results suggest that human resource slack positively relates to sustainable innovation and this relationship is moderated by intangible resource advantage. Also, we find that sustainable innovation mediates the relationship between human resource slack and environmental performance. The insights from our paper provide a nuanced understanding of the relationships among human resource lack, sustainable innovation, and environmental performance. Implications for theory and practices are discussed.

Economic sectors relying on the use of biological organisms, processes, and principles to create products and services are expected to experience accelerated growth due to innovation in the bioeconomy. Associated benefits and risks for sustainable development are increasingly subject to societal debate. We compiled expectation patterns from a global survey with bioeconomy experts and a systematic literature review identifying areas of consensus and controversy across dimensions of the sustainable development goals (SDG). Positive connotations dominated in both expert opinions and the scientific literature, but the level of consensus varied across sectors of the bioeconomy and in relation to applied methodological approaches (scientific literature) and type of employer (experts). In both sources, we found more differentiated views on potential impacts of bioeconomic development pathways on sustainability in more established bioeconomy-related discourses, which indicates that expectation patterns in more recent fields of bio-based innovation are subject to early “hype cycle” dynamics. Our findings suggest the need to systematically mainstream sustainability risk appraisals across relevant application contexts in technology impact assessments for the bioeconomy.

Combining the postulates of the upper echelons theory and the economic theories of information disclosure, one might expect that the effect of chief executive officers' (CEOs') managerial ability on their firms' disclosure policies has both a direct and indirect nature. The latter would be associated with the mediating role of corporate social responsibility (CSR) performance on the relationship between CEOs' ability and corporate transparency. Using a sample of 956 international firms over the period 2006–2014 (6,442 firm-year observations), we examine the role that the CEO ability plays in determining the relevance of CSR disclosures and whether this role is mediated by CSR performance. By proposing several regression models, we document that more able CEOs are more willing to disclose comparable and useful CSR information that favours stakeholder engagement. This relationship is mediated by the impact that CEO's ability has over the implementation of sustainability strategies that improve CSR performance.

The current study aims to answer dual, related questions: Does corporate environmental policy affect corporate reputation, and does this link also influence risk-adjusted profitability and company's risk? With a comprehensive framework involving analyses of each question, among a sample of firms traced by the Reputation Institute, this study reveals several notable results, after correcting for endogeneity biases. First, environmental engagement and green product innovation are both antecedents of corporate reputation. Second, corporate reputation has a positive impact on risk-adjusted profitability and Z score indicator of financial distress risk. Thus, corporate environmental responsibility and green practices represent cospecialized assets that enhances an intangible asset, namely, corporate reputation. The latter influence constitutes a missing link between sustainable development and the firm's financial performance. Overall, environmental engagement and corporate reputation act as insurance-like protections of firm competitiveness.

International audience; Researchers have widely studied the nexus between corporate environmental (“green”) policy and its green performance and firm financial performance, but with mixed findings. A potential explanation for these mixed findings is the focus of extant studies on the direct and immediate impact of environmental performance on financial performance to the exclusion of firm-specific boundary conditions. Furthermore, all prior research study the effect of environmental performance on either stock market-based performance measures (i.e., stock return) or accounting-based performance measures (i.e., return on assets). A missing third dimension of firm performance, product–market-based performance (i.e., market share), has so far remained unexplored despite representing a crucial objective when innovating. Using Newsweek's annual green ranking as a novel measure of environmental performance for a panel of U.S. firms from 2010 to 2015, this paper attempts to fill these voids in the literature. The results show a positive relationship between firms' environmental performance and market share as a measure of product–market-based performance. The findings further demonstrate that this relationship is positively moderated by the level of customer awareness and innovativeness of the firm: The higher the level of awareness of a firm's environmental credentials and innovativeness, the stronger the effects of environmental performance on market share. Our results are robust against endogeneity concerns and alternative measures of firm financial and environmental performance.

In the presence of environmental policy, how do regulated firms respond? The answer is crucial for the design and effectiveness of policy regimes intended to mitigate environmental damage. We investigate whether particular types of firms are more likely to be proactive; in other words, which firms tend to behave in a manner most consistent with the desired policy outcomes. Using data on per-firm 'verified' and 'allocated' emissions from the European Union's Emissions Trading System (EU ETS) from 2005 till 2016, and given that some firms exceed or undershoot the allocated allowances by a large margin, we posit that this and related measures are useful proxies for a firm's proactiveness in responding to environmental policy. We find that public firms are less likely than private firms to be proactive, whilst the same is found for firms in common rather than civil law countries and for state-owned firms. Strikingly, proactiveness is associated both with greater reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and poorer firm performance, suggesting there is an economic cost to good environmental behaviour. Whilst the EU ETS is reducing emissions, it is not yet adequately compensating proactive firms or penalizing those who pollute - better system design could aid this further.

The outcome of carbon disclosure, the importance of which has grown remarkably in recent years to become a strategic decision‐making issue for organisations in today's competitive environment, is a subject of lively debate but remains under‐researched in the environmental accounting literature. This study is motivated by this research gap and the growing interest in assessing the financial consequences of corporate involvement in climate change beyond regulatory compliance, as evidenced by firms' voluntary participation in the Carbon Disclosure Project. Using the resource‐based view of the firm as a theoretical framework and linking it to carbon disclosure through Carbon Disclosure Project, we conceptualise and empirically investigate the impact of adopting proactive carbon management policies and communicating them to stakeholders, focusing on the financial performance of the top FTSE350 companies between 2007 and 2015. By developing a comprehensive financial performance index and controlling for several firm characteristics, we find strong evidence that voluntary carbon disclosure is positively associated with firm financial performance. The findings in this paper provide new insights and policy implications for managers, financial stakeholders, and regulators.

Decision makers often cite data quality as a limitation in environmental management. Value of information approaches evaluate the benefit of new data collection for management outcomes. Pesticide exposure risk assessment for endangered species is one context where data limitations may affect decisions and a value of information type approach could be useful for identifying optimal data quality and resolution. Under the U.S. Federal Insecticide, Fungicide and Rodenticide Act, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is responsible for registering pesticides before they can be sold and regularly reviewing pesticides. Section 7 of the Endangered Species Act requires that the EPA consider potential impacts of pesticides to listed endangered species and critical habitats in this process, and for the Services—U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service—to complete a formal Section 7 consultation if the EPA deems it necessary. The current process is time‐intensive, lacks transparency and confidence among stakeholders, and leaves hundreds of unreviewed pesticides on the market. Increasing the resolution of pesticide usage data could address these concerns by improving estimated overlaps between species ranges and pesticide usage. Thus, we evaluated the relative importance of different resolutions of pesticide usage data for assessing expected carbaryl exposure to endangered plant species endemic to California. We found that spatially explicit, township resolution usage data (~36 mile2) excluded 33% of terrestrial plants (55/168) and 51% their critical habitats (27/53) from requiring a Section 7 consultation, while coarser resolution data excluded none. In contrast, the EPA's biological evaluation for carbaryl only excludes 4% of terrestrial plants (nationally) from requiring formal Section 7 consultation. This suggests high‐resolution data could increase pesticide review efficiency and decrease the amount of time pesticides remain on the market without a formal evaluation.

Ecological community and ecosystem “red lists” have been developed in several jurisdictions to improve ecosystem‐level biodiversity protection. However, a challenge for the conservation and management of listed ecosystems is consistent identification in the field or from plot records. Ecosystem descriptions must have enough detail for positive identification but be broad enough that most instances are included. In many jurisdictions, descriptions are not supported by dichotomous keys or thresholds of ecosystem collapse and identification relies on the interpretation of trained individuals, with potential for opposing opinions. Using a structured process, we assessed the ability of experts to identify a critically endangered ecological community from vegetation plot samples. We compared the allocations made by experts with a numeric classification that underpinned the legal definition of the community. Overall, experts correctly identified the presence or absence of the community in 81% of samples although individual classification rates ranged from 63% to 94%. False positive rates varied among experts (7–50%) and experienced botanists did not necessarily perform better. Disturbance increased uncertainty and experts differed in their opinion about when the community had collapsed and was no longer recoverable. Inconsistent interpretation, in the absence of diagnostic keys and consensus models of collapse, will have implications for recovery and conservation of listed communities and ecosystems, and could impact the effectiveness of laws and policies designed to protect them.

Spillover of novel pathogens from wildlife to people, such as the virus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic, is increasing and this trend is most strongly associated with tropical deforestation driven by agricultural expansion. This same process is eroding natural capital, reducing forest-associated health co-benefits, and accelerating climate change. Protecting and promoting tropical forests is one of the most immediate steps we can take to simultaneously mitigate climate change while reducing the risk of future pandemics; however, success in this undertaking will require greater connectivity of policy initiatives from local to global, as well as unification of health and environmental policy.