IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/tpr/glenvp/v25y2025i2p106-140.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Is It Just About Sustainability? Politics at Home and the Trade Impacts of Voluntary Standards Abroad

Author

Listed:
  • Rodrigo Fagundes Cezar
  • Juliana Camargo
  • Eduardo Mello

Abstract

Voluntary sustainability standards (VSS) can promote environmental and socioeconomic benefits, yet critics contend that they can also create trade barriers. While prior research reports have been mixed with regard to VSS effects, our study examines whether domestic political dynamics and public–private interactions significantly explain some of these outcomes. We investigate Bonsucro certification for Brazilian sugar and ethanol exports to the EU. Bonsucro verifies that exports meet EU biofuels regulations and additional EU criteria. Should influential European interests drive these criteria to be overly stringent, Brazilian exports could suffer. Through qualitative analysis, we show that import-competing interests do not solely account for EU meta-regulation of VSS. Our staggered difference-in-differences analysis reveals that Bonsucro certification correlates with increased EU exports, although its benefits are concentrated mainly among the largest exporters, contributing to export concentration. These findings have broad implications for debates on hybrid governance and the legitimacy of VSS as environmental policy instruments.

Suggested Citation

  • Rodrigo Fagundes Cezar & Juliana Camargo & Eduardo Mello, 2025. "Is It Just About Sustainability? Politics at Home and the Trade Impacts of Voluntary Standards Abroad," Global Environmental Politics, MIT Press, vol. 25(2), pages 106-140, Spring.
    • Handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:106-140
    DOI: 10.1162/glep_a_00776
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1162/glep_a_00776
    Download Restriction: Access to PDF is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1162/glep_a_00776?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:tpr:glenvp:v:25:y:2025:i:2:p:106-140. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: The MIT Press (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://direct.mit.edu/journals .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.