Voluntary programs have become widespread tools for governments and nongovernmental actors looking to improve industry Buchanan (1965). Clubs promulgate standards of conduct targeted to produce public benefits by changing members' behaviors. In return, club members receive excludable and nonrivalrous (club) benefits, such as affiliation with the club's positive "brand name." Successful clubs induce members to voluntarily undertake progressive environmental action beyond what they would have taken unilaterally. This is because the costs of joining the club and adhering to its standards are offset by the tangible and/or intangible benefits accruing to firms via the clubs' positive brand reputation.In (ISO 2001). Our central question is whether joining ISO 14001 reduces the amount of time member facilities spend out of compliance with government regulations. Drawing on the ISO 14001 literature, supplemented with interviews with plant managers of ISO 14001 certified facilities and U.S. environmental regulators, we show that ISO 14001 requires members to adopt extensive (and costly) environmental management systems (EMS) and that ISO 14001 enjoys a strong positive brand reputation. We then present a quasi-experimental empirical analysis of nearly 3,700 facilities regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The results imply that as a group ISO 14001 certified facilities have better compliance records than if they had not joined the program. Importantly, this result persists even while controlling for facilities' compliance histories as well as addressing potential endogeneity issues between facilities' (Brehm and Hamilton 1996;Winter and May 2001). In the remainder of this article, we first introduce voluntary environmental programs and place them in the context of governmental regulation and club theory. We then summarize ISO 14001 and its key institutional features. Next, we present our data and analytic methods for our empirical evaluation of ISO 14001. Finally, we discuss the results of our analysis and conclude by discussing the implications of our study.

Voluntary environmental programs are codes of progressive environmental conduct that firms pledge to adopt. This paper investigates whether ISO 14001, a voluntary program with a weak sword-a weak monitoring and sanctioning mechanism-can mitigate shirking and improve participants' environmental performance. Sponsored by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO), ISO 14001 is the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. Our analysis of over 3,000 facilities regulated as major sources under the U.S. Clean Air Act suggests that ISO 14001-certified facilities reduce their pollution emissions more than non-certified facilities. This result persists even after controlling for facilities' emission and regulatory compliance histories as well as addressing potential endogeneity issues between facilities' environmental performance and their decisions to join ISO 14001. © 2005 by the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management

Globalization critics argue that international trade spurs a race to the bottom among national environmental standards. ISO 14001 is the most widely adopted voluntary environmental regulation which encourages firms to take environmental action beyond what domestic government regulations require. Drawing on a panel study of 108 countries over seven years, we investigate conditions under which trade linkages can encourage ISO 14001 adoption, thereby countering environmental races to the bottom. We find that trade linkages encourage ISO 14001 adoption if countries' major export markets have adopted this voluntary regulation.

Green marketing subsumes greening products as well as greening firms. In addition to manipulating the 4Ps (product, price, place and promotion) of the traditional marketing mix, it requires a careful understanding of public policy processes. This paper focuses primarily on promoting products by employing claims about their environmental attributes or about firms that manufacture and/or sell them. Secondarily, it focuses on product and pricing issues. Drawing on multiple literatures, it examines issues such as what needs to be greened (products, systems or processes), why consumers purchase/do not purchase green products and how firms should think about information disclosure strategies on environmental claims. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment.