Publications


Institutions and environmental governance: A reconceptualization

Research article by Jouni Paavola on 15 Jun 2007

This article presents the conceptual revisions needed to extend the new institutional approach to environmental governance from its current local and international domains of application to all governance solutions, including national environmental and natural resource use policies and multi-level governance solutions that are increasingly used to address global environmental change. The article suggests that environmental […]



Corporations and the governance of environmental risk

Research article by Andy Gouldson on 1 Feb 2007

The authors sketch a framework within which the contributions to this theme issue can be understood. In particular, they discuss various frames of reference or ways of thinking that can be brought to bear on the challenges that arise in evaluating attempts to govern environmental risks. The discussion is divided into three sections. First, they […]


The fourteenth session of the UN commission on sustainable development: The energy session

Research article by James Van Alstine on 22 Jan 2007

The fourteenth session of the United Nations Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD-14) convened 1–12 May 2006, at the headquarters of the United Nations in New York, for the first year in a two-year cycle of debates focusing on energy for sustainable development, industrial development, air pollution/atmosphere, and climate change. Specifically, CSD-14’s mandate was to undertake […]


Do firms adopt lower standards in poorer areas? Corporate social responsibility and environmental justice in the EU and the US

Research article by Andy Gouldson on 6 Dec 2006

Within the context of broader debates on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental justice (EJ), this paper examines three key questions: first, how the standards that corporations adopt at the global scale trickle down into local site-level practices; second, whether levels of corporate environmental performance vary from place to place; and third whether any variations […]


Interstate water pollution problems and elusive federal water pollution policy in the United States, 1900-1948

Research article by Jouni Paavola on 21 Nov 2006

This article examines water pollution and its control in the United States from the turn of the twentieth century until after the Second World War, a period during which water pollution became an interstate problem. State water pollution control policies existed at the time. However, states were unwilling to control the pollution of state waters […]



Corporate environmentalism: Tracing the links between policies and performance Using corporate reports and public registers

Research article by Andy Gouldson on 16 May 2006

Within this paper, we consider whether it is possible to trace the links between the procedural and the substantive dimensions of corporate environmentalism using information that is in the public domain – most notably in corporate reports and in pollutant releases and transfer registers (PRTRs) such as the US Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and the […]


Institutional ecological economics

Research article by Jouni Paavola, W. Neil Adger on 15 May 2005

New institutional economics and its forerunners have, we argue made important contributions to the evolving agenda of ecological economics. The conceptualisation of environmental problems as instances of interdependence and the acknowledgement of positive transaction costs are key insights into the nature of environmental problems. We also discuss how plurality of behavioural motivations and limited cognitive […]