Richard D. Morgenstern and William A. Pizer, editors

"A thoughtful and thorough analysis. It shows how voluntary approaches and corporate leadership can help mobilize the effort against climate change, but, in the end, are not substitutes for concerted government action."
-- Eileen Claussen, President of the Pew Center on Global Climate Change

"This important book cuts through the rhetorical fog that surrounds voluntary environmental programs to provide hard evidence on how well they work. Policymakers should take heed of the book's central conclusion - voluntary programs can work but cannot produce major change - and the editors' thoughts on the design of these programs. Analysts can learn much from the substantive findings and methodological advances in the seven case studies that are the heart of the book."
-- Richard Schmalensee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology

"This rich collection expands the empirical base for assessing voluntary programs as alternative options for addressing environmental problems and has much to offer scholars, policy makers, and analysts. The contributors report results of several new, independent empirical analyses, adding significantly to a growing body of program evaluation research on environmental policies."
-- Cary Coglianese, University of Pennsylvania Law School

Since the early 1990s, voluntary programs have played an increasingly prominent role in environmental management in the U.S. and other industrialized countries. Programs have attempted to address problems ranging from climate change and energy efficiency, to more localized air and water pollution problems. But do they work? Despite a growing theoretical literature trying to explain how and why voluntary programs might be effective, there is limited empirical evidence on their success or the situations most conducive to the approaches. Even less is known about their cost-effectiveness.

Getting credible answers to these questions is important. Research to date has been largely limited to individual programs, and protagonists and antagonists to the trend are at ever greater disagreement, sometimes drawing opposite conclusions about the same program. This innovative book seeks to clarify what is known by looking at a range of program types, including different approaches adopted in different nations. The focus is on assessing actual performance via seven case studies, including the U.S. Climate Wise program, the U.S. EPA's 33/50 program on toxic chemicals, the U.K. Climate Change Agreements, and the Keidanren Voluntary Action Plan in Japan.

The central goals of Reality Check are understanding outcomes and the relationship between outcomes and design. Most of the programs it studies have positive results, but they are small compared with business-as-usual trends and the impact of other forces--such as higher energy prices. Importantly, potential gains may be quickly exhausted as the "low-hanging fruit" is picked up by voluntary programs. By including in-depth analyses by experts from the U.S., Europe, and Japan, the book advances scholarship and provides practical information for the future design of voluntary programs to stakeholders and policymakers on all sides of the Atlantic and Pacific.

Editor Bios

Richard D. Morgenstern is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. He designed and directed voluntary programs as Director of the Office of Policy Analysis and, subsequently, as Assistant Administrator for Policy, Planning and Evaluation (acting) at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

William A. Pizer is a Senior Fellow at Resources for the Future. He has published in subjects such as the measurement of regulatory costs and was involved in government-wide evaluation of voluntary programs while serving on the U.S. Council of Economic Advisers.