This study evaluates whether and when, if at all, voluntary programs can be relied upon as tools for pollution reduction. First, to determine whether selected programs do indeed achieve their goal, we ask: do the programs lead to significant pollution decline among participants? Do they unwittingly worsen environmental quality in poorer neighborhoods because facilities in such neighborhood do not participate in these programs or do not reduce pollution? Do these programs lead to firms substituting to more harmful chemicals? Second, to identify the appropriate target for applying such programs and the institutional features necessary to ensure its effectiveness, we ask: how do consumer, investor, community and regulatory pressure and pollution charges influence program participation and pollution reduction? This study improves upon present studies in three ways: (1) extending the scope of study to several facilities owned by non-publicly traded firms (2) using more accurate data and more reliable estimation methods and (3) testing new hypotheses. The PI is currently assembling a novel GIS-database that links facility-level toxicity weighted pollution, neighborhood demographics, county/state level regulatory pressure and pollution charges. This study provides a more careful assessment of the true impact of the voluntary programs on pollution reduction than previous studies, by isolating the reductions that are due to participation in the voluntary program from those that result from mandatory phase-outs of Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) chemicals and changes in TRI reporting requirements. Multivariate regression analysis is implemented in this study.
