INTRODUCTION

Chapter 3 showed how corporate environmentalism can preempt new legislation and regulation. Preemption is by no means the only function for corporate environmentalism, however. Often legislation is passed, and the policy process moves on to the implementation phase. In such cases, corporate environmentalism takes on a different strategic role, that of influencing the formulation of new environmental laws. Examples of such influence on environmental, health, and safety regulation are legion. In the USA, interest group influence is virtually guaranteed by the Administrative Procedures Act of 1946, which requires regulators to give notice to all interested parties before promulgating new regulations, and requires that parties be allowed to provide commentary to regulatory authorities on proposed rules. Furthermore, it is often the case that Congress mandates the imposition of new health, safety, or environmental regulations, but delegates the technical details – which are determined only after considerable delay – to a regulatory agency such as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) or the Department of Energy (DOE). While previous work has focused on the use of traditional tools of influence, such as lobbying and campaign contributions, we emphasize the ways in which corporate environmental actions can influence policy.

In this chapter, we examine how corporate environmentalism shapes future regulations by using two distinct models, which we label quality leadership and signaling. The following paragraphs illustrate the settings in which each of these strategies is used, and sketch out the basic ideas behind the two models.