Voluntary Agreements

Abstract

Voluntary agreements (VAs) in environmental policy can increase the attention and commitment of individual actors within defined groups and social contexts. However while VAs can be usefully applied in a general framework of responsive regulation, they have a significant potential to fail if they are intended to replace command‐and‐control or economic incentives. As VAs are neither cost‐effective nor equal to command‐and‐control in enforcing a given environmental goal, they should only supplement regular environmental policy instruments. The environmental effectiveness of agreements depends on certain characteristics. On the basis of four case studies this paper shows that cultural context matters as does a framework of clear targets and distinct responsibilities. Effectiveness is also high if the information gathered through regular monitoring, reporting and verification of performance is collected independently and made available to the public. Given this it is concluded that VAs are a treat in environmental policy if they are applied as a supplementary measure in a mixed policy approach, but once they replace command‐and‐control and economic incentives as a purely deregulatory measure VAs quickly turn into a trick.