Greenwashing and public demand for government regulation

IF 1.9 2区社会学 Q2 POLITICAL SCIENCE

Journal of Public Policy Pub Date : 2022-12-12 DOI:10.1017/S0143814X22000277

Dennis Kolcava

引用次数: 1

Abstract

Abstract Environmental governance in many high-income democracies relies to some extent on self-regulation by the private sector. Yet, this policy mode is contested and proponents of top-down government regulation argue that voluntary corporate sustainability commitments remain shallow and rarely are more than greenwashing. I assess to what extent firms’ business conduct is subject to societal checks and balances, in particular, whether public support for regulation constitutes a control mechanism of corporate contributions to environmental goods. I rely on an original survey experiment (N = 2112) conducted with a representative sample of the Swiss voting population. The analysis shows that accusing firms of greenwashing reduces both citizens’ perceived effectiveness of self-regulation and perceived synergy of corporate profits and environmental protection. However, this attitudinal shift only translates into modest updates in respondents’ policy preferences. As a result, short-run shifts in public support for regulation are an unlikely societal control mechanism of business conduct.

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洗绿和公众要求政府监管

许多高收入民主国家的环境治理在一定程度上依赖于私营部门的自我监管。然而，这种政策模式受到了质疑，自上而下的政府监管的支持者认为，企业自愿的可持续发展承诺仍然很肤浅，很少比“漂绿”更多。我评估了企业的商业行为在多大程度上受到社会制衡，特别是公众对监管的支持是否构成了企业对环境产品贡献的控制机制。我依靠的是一项原始调查实验(N = 2112)，该实验是用瑞士投票人口的代表性样本进行的。分析表明，指责企业洗绿既降低了公民对自我监管有效性的感知，也降低了公民对企业利润与环境保护协同效应的感知。然而，这种态度的转变只能转化为受访者政策偏好的适度更新。因此，公众对监管支持的短期转变不太可能成为一种对商业行为的社会控制机制。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Journal of Public Policy Multiple-

CiteScore

4.40

自引率

8.30%

发文量

期刊介绍： The Journal of Public Policy applies social science theories and concepts to significant political, economic and social issues and to the ways in which public policies are made. Its articles deal with topics of concern to public policy scholars in America, Europe, Japan and other advanced industrial nations. The journal often publishes articles that cut across disciplines, such as environmental issues, international political economy, regulatory policy and European Union processes. Its peer reviewers come from up to a dozen social science disciplines and countries across three continents, thus ensuring both analytic rigour and accuracy in reference to national and policy context.