Global environmental standards for industry

Global environmental standards are emerging as an increasingly important influence on the environmental performance of industry. In this chapter, we develop a new definition and a categorization of global environmental standards that reflect the different agents involved in their development and the particular network architecture through which environmental standards achieve global reach. We examine new forms of global environmental standards, such as firm-based standards and standards initiated by third-party organizations, such as nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) and industry associations. The growing interest in global environmental standards is shown to arise from processes of economic globalization as well as from increasing external pressure on firms and industries with respect to environmental concerns. The chapter reviews what is known about the prevalence of different types of global environmental standards and the efficacy of these standards in influencing the environmental performance of firms and industries.