Measuring environmental performance: use of the toxics release inventory (TRI) and other US environmental databases

Abstract

This article examines the most comprehensive databases that measure US corporate environmental performance that have become available during the 1990s. These include the US Environmental Protection Agency's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) and databases maintained by Kinder, Lydenberg, Domini, and Co., the Council on Economic Priorities and the Investor Responsibility Research Center. We describe these databases and identify the significant studies on environmental performance in the field of management that use these databases. We indicate three trends that should improve the quality and quantity of publicly available environmental performance data. Copyright © 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd and ERP Environment

Measuring corporate environmental performance: the trade‐offs of sustainability ratings

“…Because the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) published by the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is one of few publicly available sources of comparable data on environmental performance in the US, it has been used as the main impact measurement indicator in academic studies (Chatterji et al, 2009;Ilinitch et al, 1998;Gerde and Logsdon, 2001;King and Lenox, 2001;Terlaak and King, 2006). Because of this lack of publicly available data, socially responsible investors have been complementing TRI information with an analysis of corporations' environmental reports or have been asking corporations directly about their environmental management practices and performance through survey questionnaires.…”

“…This is a complex database that provides data on approximately 650 toxic chemicals (US EPA, Offi ce of Pollution Prevention and Toxics). In this analysis, for the sake of simplicity, we compare fi rms based on their total pounds of toxic releases, which has been the indicator most used by scholars and screening organizations (Chatterji et al, 2009;Gerde and Logsdon, 2001;Ilinitch et al, 1998;King et al, 2005).…”

CSR Performance in Emerging Markets Evidence from Mexico

“…But even regarding US datasets, it has been noted that assessing actual performance is not 5 unproblematic (e.g. Gerde and Logsdon, 2001). These particularities complicate generalization and make extrapolation to under-researched settings like emerging markets difficult if not impossible.…”

An Examination of Seven Sociopolitical Factors and Their Connection with State Environmental Expenditures

“…More direct environmental quality measures such as air pollution (Heckman, 2012), extent of impaired waters (Reimer et al, 2013), and pollutant emission reported under the Toxic Release Inventory (Gerde & Logsdon, 2001;Delmas & Blass, 2010) have been used as measures of "problem severity". The underlying hypothesis being that those businesses or states with significant environmental quality problems will, under pressure from stakeholders, tend to be more assertive in addressing those issues (Ellison & Newmark 2010;Reimer et al, 2013).…”