Voluntary Approaches for Environmental Policy Effectiveness, Efficiency and Usage in Policy Mixes

Do voluntary approaches deliver the expected environmental benefits? Do they help reach environmental targets in a cost-effective way? This report provides an assessment of the use of voluntary approaches building on a number of new case studies. Analysis is on the environmental effectiveness, economic efficiency and the administrative costs either used in isolation or as part of "e;policy mixes"e;. The book concludes that the environmental effectiveness of voluntary approaches is often questionable, and their economic efficiency is generally low.