IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/riskan/v27y2007i1p203-223.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

What Do We Learn from Emissions Reporting? Analytical Considerations and Comparison of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers in the United States, Canada, England, and Australia

Author

Listed:
  • Dorit Kerret
  • George M. Gray

Abstract

Pollutant release and transfer registers (PRTRs) are becoming a popular measure for addressing industrial pollution in many countries. PRTRs require reporting of emissions from specific industrial sectors and making the information publicly available. This article suggests a framework for comparing PRTRs in order to determine whether they attain their declared goals and which factors, if any, influence their effectiveness. The challenges to such a comparison can be divided into three groups. The first refers to changes that are directly linked to the characteristics of PRTRs: both the changes within a specific system over time and variations among different systems. The second refers to parameters that affect the outcomes of the systems without being directly a part of them. The third involves the relations between the emissions reported to the PRTRs and the associated environmental risk. We suggest an approach that relies on relative comparison, commensurate with the unique characteristics of each PRTR, that compares their actual outcomes. Such an approach is necessary both due to significant variations among current PRTRs as well as for following the unique policy objectives that are manifested in different PRTRs. Application of this comparative approach in the United States, England, Canada, and Australia demonstrates significant differences in PRTR systems across countries and suggests that the mere presence of a PRTR may not lead to reduced industrial emissions. The analysis also demonstrates that emission reductions do not correlate with reductions in risk‐related measures. The article proposes several simple modifications to the composition of current PRTR databases that may facilitate more accurate analysis of results and effective oversight of implementation.

Suggested Citation

  • Dorit Kerret & George M. Gray, 2007. "What Do We Learn from Emissions Reporting? Analytical Considerations and Comparison of Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers in the United States, Canada, England, and Australia," Risk Analysis, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 27(1), pages 203-223, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:riskan:v:27:y:2007:i:1:p:203-223
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00870.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00870.x
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1539-6924.2006.00870.x?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Konar, Shameek & Cohen, Mark A., 1997. "Information As Regulation: The Effect of Community Right to Know Laws on Toxic Emissions," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 109-124, January.
    2. Mark Stephan, 2002. "Environmental Information Disclosure Programs: They Work, but Why?," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 83(1), pages 190-205, March.
    3. Michael W. Toffel & Julian D. Marshall, 2004. "Improving Environmental Performance Assessment: A Comparative Analysis of Weighting Methods Used to Evaluate Chemical Release Inventories," Journal of Industrial Ecology, Yale University, vol. 8(1‐2), pages 143-172, January.
    4. Linda T. M. Bui & Christopher J. Mayer, 2003. "Regulation and Capitalization of Environmental Amenities: Evidence from the Toxic Release Inventory in Massachusetts," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 693-708, August.
    5. Kathryn Harrison & Werner Antweiler, 2003. "Incentives for pollution abatement: Regulation, regulatory threats, and non-governmental pressures," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(3), pages 361-382.
    6. Cutter, S.L. & Scott, M.S. & Hill, A.A., 2002. "Spatial variability in toxicity indicators used to rank chemical risks," American Journal of Public Health, American Public Health Association, vol. 92(3), pages 420-422.
    7. Hettige, Hemamala & Huq, Mainul & Pargal, Sheoli & Wheeler, David, 1996. "Determinants of pollution abatement in developing countries: Evidence from South and Southeast Asia," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 24(12), pages 1891-1904, December.
    8. Manuel Pastor & James L. Sadd & Rachel Morello‐Frosch, 2004. "Waiting to Inhale: The Demographics of Toxic Air Release Facilities in 21st‐Century California," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 85(2), pages 420-440, June.
    9. Hua Wang & Jun Bi & Wheeler, David & Jinnan Wang & Dong Cao & Genfa Lu & Yuan Wang, 2002. "Environmental performance rating and disclosure - China's green-watch program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2889, The World Bank.
    10. Dasgupta, Susmita & Laplante, Benoit & Mamingi, Nlandu, 1998. "Capital markets responses to environmental performance in developing countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1909, The World Bank.
    11. Jeffrey C. Terry & Bruce Yandle, 1997. "EPA's toxic release inventory: stimulus and response," Managerial and Decision Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(6), pages 433-442.
    12. Hartman, Raymond S. & Huq, Mainul & Wheeler,David R., 1997. "Why paper mills clean up : determinants of pollution abatement in four Asian countries," Policy Research Working Paper Series 1710, The World Bank.
    13. Fung, Archon & Graham, Mary & Weil, David, 2003. "The Political Economy of Transparency: What Makes Disclosure Policies Sustainable?," Working Paper Series rwp03-039, Harvard University, John F. Kennedy School of Government.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Yao Chen & Liang Chen, 2025. "Does Pollution Information Disclosure Affect Corporate Employment? Evidence from China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 17(3), pages 1-22, January.
    2. Yong-Su Kwon & Mi-Jung Bae & Young-Seuk Park, 2014. "Changes of Heavy Metals in Pollutant Release and Transfer Registers (PRTRs) in Korea," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 11(3), pages 1-14, February.
    3. Tang, John P., 2015. "Pollution havens and the trade in toxic chemicals: Evidence from U.S. trade flows," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 112(C), pages 150-160.
    4. Eng, Li Li & Fikru, Mahelet G. & Vichitsarawong, Thanyaluk, 2021. "The impact of toxic chemical releases and their management on financial performance," Advances in accounting, Elsevier, vol. 53(C).
    5. Josef Kaenzig & Damien Friot & Myriam Saadé & Manuele Margni & Olivier Jolliet, 2011. "Using life cycle approaches to enhance the value of corporate environmental disclosures," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 20(1), pages 38-54, January.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Noor Muhammad & Frank Scrimgeour & Krishna Reddy & Sazali Abidin, 2015. "The Impact of Corporate Environmental Performance on Market Risk: The Australian Industry Case," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 132(2), pages 347-362, December.
    2. Blackman, Allen, 2009. "Alternative Pollution Control Policies in Developing Countries: Informal, Informational, and Voluntary," RFF Working Paper Series dp-09-10, Resources for the Future.
    3. Allen Blackman, 2010. "Alternative Pollution Control Policies in Developing Countries," Review of Environmental Economics and Policy, Association of Environmental and Resource Economists, vol. 4(2), pages 234-253, Summer.
    4. Rory Sullivan & Andy Gouldson, 2007. "Pollutant release and transfer registers: examining the value of government‐led reporting on corporate environmental performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 14(5), pages 263-273, December.
    5. Scott Marchi & James Hamilton, 2006. "Assessing the Accuracy of Self-Reported Data: an Evaluation of the Toxics Release Inventory," Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, Springer, vol. 32(1), pages 57-76, January.
    6. Hyunhoe Bae & Peter Wilcoxen & David Popp, 2010. "Information disclosure policy: Do state data processing efforts help more than the information disclosure itself?," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1), pages 163-182.
    7. Lori S. Bennear, 2008. "What do we really know? The effect of reporting thresholds on inferences using environmental right‐to‐know data," Regulation & Governance, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 2(3), pages 293-315, September.
    8. Andy Gouldson & Rory Sullivan, 2007. "Corporate environmentalism: tracing the links between policies and performance using corporate reports and public registers," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 1-11, January.
    9. Jin, Yanhong & Wang, Hua & Wheeler, David, 2010. "Environmental performance rating and disclosure : an empirical investigation of China's green watch program," Policy Research Working Paper Series 5420, The World Bank.
    10. Nicholas E. Powers, 2013. "Measuring The Impact Of The Toxics Release Inventory: Evidence From Manufacturing Plant Births," Working Papers 13-07, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.
    11. Hyunhoe Bae, 2012. "Reducing Environmental Risks by Information Disclosure: Evidence in Residential Lead Paint Disclosure Rule," Journal of Policy Analysis and Management, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(2), pages 404-431, March.
    12. Noor Muhammad & Frank Scrimgeour & Krishna Reddy & Sazali Abdin, 2016. "Emission Indices for Hazardous Substances: An Alternative Measure of Corporate Environmental Performance," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 23(1), pages 15-26, January.
    13. Susmita Dasgupta & Benoit Laplante & Hua Wang & David Wheeler, 2002. "Confronting the Environmental Kuznets Curve," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 16(1), pages 147-168, Winter.
    14. Hettige, Hemamala & Mani, Muthukumara & Wheeler, David, 2000. "Industrial pollution in economic development: the environmental Kuznets curve revisited," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 445-476, August.
    15. Gangadharan, Lata, 2006. "Environmental compliance by firms in the manufacturing sector in Mexico," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(4), pages 477-486, October.
    16. Jie Wu, 2015. "Differentiated Customer Pressures and Environmental Policies in China," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(3), pages 175-189, March.
    17. Kathuria, Vinish, 2007. "Informal regulation of pollution in a developing country: Evidence from India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(2-3), pages 403-417, August.
    18. Wang, Xiao & Deltas, George & Khanna, Madhu & Bi, Xiang, 2017. "Community Pressure and the Relocation of Toxic Facilities," 2017 Annual Meeting, July 30-August 1, Chicago, Illinois 258390, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association.
    19. Anbumozhi, Venkatachalam & Chotichanathawewong, Qwanruedee & Murugesh, Thirumalainambi, 2011. "Information Disclosure Strategies for Green Industries," ADBI Working Papers 305, Asian Development Bank Institute.
    20. Linda Bui, 2005. "Public Disclosure of Private Information as a Tool for Regulating Environmental Emissions: Firm-Level Responses by Petroleum Refineries to the Toxics Release Inventory," Working Papers 05-13, Center for Economic Studies, U.S. Census Bureau.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:wly:riskan:v:27:y:2007:i:1:p:203-223. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://doi.org/10.1111/(ISSN)1539-6924 .

    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.