Suchergebnisse

This dissertation studies one of the newest tools in environmental policy in the developing world context – that of voluntary environmental programmes (VEPs). Developed and promoted in the past few decades by policy practitioners looking to regulate environmental pollution without saddling enterprises and governments with high regulatory costs, VEPs remain vastly under-studied, especially when compared with market instruments and the long-standing command and control approach. Fundamental questions such as who the likely participants are, why firms would voluntarily take on added costs of environmental improvement, and whether any financial and environmental benefits arise from participation remain largely unanswered. This gap in the literature is particularly severe for the case of developing countries. While VEPs in general and ISO 14001 in particular have rapidly increased across the developing world, the understanding of their implications in the academic literature trail far behind. This dissertation aims to fill some of this gap in the existing literature by using unique firm level data and applying rigorous empirical micro-econometric methods to analyse the adoption of the ISO 14001 international voluntary scheme in Thailand. The study focuses on three core manufacturing industries – food and beverages, textiles and wearing apparel, and electronics and electrical appliances, chosen to represent three main types of manufacturing activities in the country. The study finds that both macroeconomic and industry-specific factors influence firms' participation in the ISO 14001 scheme. It also finds that the degrees of environmental impact from programme adoption vary by industry, and that although participation in the programme requires non-trivial commitments of the firm's resources, participating firms are not placed at a financial disadvantage when compared with non-adopting firms.

While the institutional infrastructure to coordinate climate change policy in Thailand already exists, previous studies have identified an important gap in this infrastructure. An institutional arrangement/coordinating mechanism is needed to oversee coordination of resource allocation and utilization among government agencies in order to achieve the national goal of a low carbon and resilient society. This paper reviews current policies and institutions related to climate change and recommends a new Sub-committee on Climate Finance be established under the National Climate Change Committee (NCCC). Alternatively, the existing sub-committee could be renamed as a Sub-committee on Climate Finance and Planning. Having a specific coordinating mechanism on climate finance would facilitate the government's oversight of allocation of financial resources, tracking and monitoring of resource use, and also serve as a check point for resource allocation to prevent redundancy in terms of activities and allocated climate change funds. This institutional proposal may also be relevant and applicable to other developing countries facing similar challenges.