Do Plants Make Less Pollution Reduction Efforts during Recession? Plants’ Response to Local Economic Condition  

Oleh:

Bae, Hyunhoe ; Han, Seunghye

Jenis: Article from Proceeding
Dalam koleksi: The International Symposium on Social Sciences (TISSS) and Hong Kong International Conference on Education, Psychology and Society (HKICEPS) at Hongkong, December 2013, page 993-1009.
Topik: Recession; pollution reduction effort; plant closing; unemployment; toxic release inventory.
Fulltext: Hong Kong-Conference 173.pdf (578.3KB)

Isi artikel

The U.S. communities are experiencing economic hardship with plant or business closings contributing to high unemployment rates. In this circumstance, communities and local governments may prioritize economic recovery over environmental improvement, thereby weakening community and government pressure against nearby polluting plants. Under this weakened public pressure, plants may make less effort to reduce their emission. In an attempt to explore the concern, this study examines the impact of local economic downturn on nearby chemical plants’ toxic release reduction behavior. A total of 352 chemical use plants in upstate New York and their toxic release inventory data were traced for five years (2006- 2010) and analyzed with local economic condition variables (unemployment rate and plant closing rate) along with other socio-economic and regulatory environmental variables. The results show plants’ toxic release reduction effort, which incorporated both toxic release level and production increase ratio in its measurement, was reduced when unemployment and plant closing rates are high. The results indicate recession weakened community pressure, finally decreasing polluters’ pollution reduction efforts. The findings of this study may reveal the limitations of the recent regulatory approach, which employs a public pressure mechanism to achieve polluters’ better environmental performance, such as information-based regulation or voluntary programs.

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