New Book Announcement ==> Sorry for cross-posting <==
Industrial Transformation - Environmental Policy Innovation in the United States and Europe, Edited by Theo de Bruijn and Vicki Norberg-Bohm, The MIT Press, July 2005, ISBN 0-262-54181-5
A central question in the debate on sustainability in organizations is how to bring about fundamental changes in production and consumption systems. Many public policy programs have embraced voluntary action and collaboration as important means to this end. This new book evaluates the effectiveness of these programs, not only regarding their own goals but measured against the demanding goals of industrial transformation. Do they stimulate beyond compliance behavior and the development and diffusion of environmentally superior technologies? Do they induce change throughout the production and consumption system? The programs -- six in the United States and six in Europe -- include Energy Star product labelling in the United States, R&D collaboration in US Department of Energy programs, the US Toxic Release Inventories, the EU's Eco-Audit Regulation as implemented in the UK, the Dutch Target Group Policy, and the German End-of-Life Vehicles Program, and others. The analysis of the programs show that they have the potential to create incentives for industry leadership, address environmental degradation not currently regulated, and encourage innovative solutions by involving a wide range of stakeholders. While the programs have these benefits, the comparative analysis of the twelve programs proves that these new approaches are not a panacea for industrial transformation: implementation is complex, the programs are not able to change the competitive environment of firms and sometimes they lack the fit with the policy system.
More about the contents and contributing authors, including order information, can be found at
http://mitpress.mit.edu/catalog/item/default.asp?ttype=2&tid=10568.
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Dr. Theo de Bruijn
European coordinator The Greening of Industry Network
School of Business, Public Administration and Technology
CSTM University of Twente
PO Box 217 - 7500 AE Enschede - the Netherlands
phone +31-53 489 4234 / fax +31-53 489 4850
e-mail:
theo.debruijn@utwente.nl
WEBsite CSTM:
http://www.utwente.nl/cstm
WEBsite GIN: http://www.greeningofindustry.org