Grantee Research Project Results
2003 Progress Report: Environmental Management Systems: Do Formalized Management Systems Produce Superior Performance?
EPA Grant Number: R829440Title: Environmental Management Systems: Do Formalized Management Systems Produce Superior Performance?
Investigators: Andrews, Richard N.
Institution: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
EPA Project Officer: Hahn, Intaek
Project Period: November 19, 2001 through November 18, 2003 (Extended to May 14, 2005)
Project Period Covered by this Report: November 19, 2002 through November 18, 2003
Project Amount: $340,000
RFA: Decision-Making and Valuation for Environmental Policy (2001) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Environmental Justice
Objective:
The overall objective of this research project is to determine what similarities and differences in environmental performance result from the implementation of environmental management systems (EMSs), and what differences in organizational characteristics, motivations, and decisionmaking are associated with these differences. The specific objective of this research project is to determine whether there are systematic differences in EMSs and in resulting environmental performance among businesses that adopt EMSs for organizational reasons (“self-initiated”), or with government assistance or other incentives, or under coercion from enforcement actions or corporate or customer mandates. Both public policymakers and businesses will benefit from better information on the consequences of EMSs for environmental performance, and on their associated benefits and costs.
Many major businesses recently have mandated the introduction of EMSs by their subsidiaries and suppliers, and government agencies also have begun to promote such systems with public recognition and incentives. A key unanswered question is what differences in actual environmental performance are associated with the introduction of such systems, and specifically whether such systems produce positive changes in performance and other benefits when they are mandated or encouraged by external incentives.
Progress Summary:
During Year 1 of the project, we targeted key sectors for investigation, developed a sampling design, designed and pretested the survey instrument, secured approval from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institutional Review Board, developed a database for the data we were to collect, completed an extensive research bibliography, and determined the availability of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) environmental performance data sets for subsequent linked comparisons. In short, we completed essentially all of the preparatory work for the data collection phase of the project, and were about to begin data collection. Our sample targeted plant managers of 3,709 U.S. manufacturing facilities in four Standard Industrial Classification subsectors: Metal Coatings and Allied Services (3479), Chemical Preparations (2899), Motor Vehicle Parts and Accessories (3714), and Plastics Products (3089). These sectors were chosen to include a large number of certified EMSs, strong supplier relationships to the automotive sector (which has mandated supplier EMSs), and significant environmental impacts based on EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data. The sample included facilities that had adopted EMSs with and without external pressures or incentives to do so, as well as controls that have not adopted formal EMSs at all.
During Year 2 of the project, which we have just completed, the research project has continued essentially as proposed and as anticipated in our Year 1 annual report. From our original sample of 3,708 facilities, we discarded approximately 500 because of facility closures, relocation, and incorrect mailing addresses, and sent the survey to plant managers of more than 3,200 facilities, with follow-up reminders as planned. From these, we received 617 responses, a response rate of 20 percent, well distributed among the industries sampled. We coded and quality checked the data, entered them into the database, and now are well along in analyzing the data as planned.
Initial analyses of the survey results using chi-square and Fischer’s exact tests were reported at a national conference on management-based environmental incentive strategies in Washington, DC, in July 2003, cosponsored by Harvard University and Resources for the Future, and this paper subsequently was developed further into a peer-reviewed chapter that has been accepted for publication in a book to be published by Resources for the Future Press.
In the second stage of data analysis, we have developed and fitted several regression models to the data, adding exogenous variables from EPA’s IDEAS database to examine the potential influence of regulatory pressure as well (number of inspections, number of noncompliances, and the amount of fines at each facility during the 3 years prior to the study period). To control for potential regional differences, we also added dummy variables based on the EPA region in which each facility was located. Currently, we are drafting two papers reporting the results of these analyses, one focusing on environmental performance outcomes (to be submitted to a leading public policy journal) and the second focusing on reported costs and benefits of environmental management activities to business outcomes (to be submitted to a leading management research journal).
Finally, we have been invited to present preliminary information about this research project, as well as findings from the final report of our prior EPA cooperative agreement (several supplemental tasks of which also were funded by this grant), to a number of national audiences of federal, state, and business policymakers. These included EPA’s Innovation Action Council, the annual EPA-State Environmental Innovations Symposium, the annual national conference of the Multi-State Working Group on Environmental Management Systems, and the annual research conference of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management. We also participated (by invitation) as one of several researcher perspectives in an EPA-sponsored conference on the use of EPA databases, and in developing recommendations for making them more accessible and useful for research.
Future Activities:
We will continue to incorporate additional measures of environmental performance outcomes from EPA’s TRI, as planned, and have obtained valuable advice on this from other scholars who have used these data extensively. The results of this analysis will be incorporated into the first of the two papers described above. We will complete these analyses, manuscripts, and the final project report by late summer 2004.
As anticipated, we are requesting confirmation of a no-cost extension of the research project period through November 14, 2004, to complete the analyses and prepare, present, and publish papers based on the results so that we can extract the full value from the data we have collected. We have budgeted accordingly.
As an additional benefit of this research project at no cost to the grant, we also have begun to collaborate on comparative analyses using this instrument to survey facilities in the same sectors in two other rapidly industrializing countries that export to U.S. business customers: Thailand and Mexico. Faculty colleagues in the business school of Chulalongkorn University have translated our survey into Thai, administered it to managers of several hundred facilities in the same sectors in Thailand, and now are analyzing the results. We anticipate a further paper comparing the results for United States and Thai facilities later in 2004. Research assistant Andrew Hutson also is using our survey instrument to develop comparable research on facilities in the same sectors in Mexico as his dissertation project; many of these facilities also export to U.S. business customers, and thus will provide an additional and valuable comparison. We hope and anticipate that these comparisons may shed valuable light on similarities and differences in environmental management practices between supplier facilities within the United States and their overseas competitors.
Journal Articles:
No journal articles submitted with this report: View all 14 publications for this projectSupplemental Keywords:
risk management, pollution prevention, public policy, socioeconomic, social science, International Organization for Standardization, ISO, ISO 14000, Multi-State Working Group, MSWG, supplemental environmental projects, sustainable industry, sustainable business, corporate performance, economics and decisionmaking, economics and business, environmental engineering, environmental statistics, market mechanisms, new technologies, innovative technologies, technology for sustainable environment, cleaner production, pollution prevention, enforcement impact, environmental compliance, environmental decisionmaking, environmental impact comparison, environmental management systems, EMS, environmental performance, environmental policy, government regulatory costs, policy analysis, policymaking, statistical methods, valuation, voluntary programs, Economic, Social, and Behavioral Science Research Program,, RFA, Economic, Social, & Behavioral Science Research Program, Scientific Discipline, Sustainable Industry/Business, cleaner production/pollution prevention, Sustainable Environment, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Economics and Business, Corporate Performance, decision-making, Environmental Statistics, New/Innovative technologies, Social Science, Economics & Decision Making, Market mechanisms, environmental performance, environmental management systems (EMS), policy analysis, voluntary regulations, environmental management systems, policy making, valuation, environmental decision making, risk management, decision making, environmental impact comparison, socioeconomics, environmental policy, government regulatory costs, environmental Compliance, EMS, enforcement impact, pollution prevention, social sciences, voluntary programsRelevant Websites:
Progress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.