Between 2006 and 2009, firms spent an estimated billion dollars lobbying on climate-related bills and issues. Although such spending is largely perceived as a strategy by industry to oppose regulation, recent research finds a U-shaped relationship between greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and lobbying expenditures (Delmas et al., 2016). These results suggest that both dirty and clean firms are active in lobbying, which challenges the view of adversarial corporate strategy. However, limitations on legal requirements for detailed disclosure make it impossible to hold companies accountable for their lobbying activity on specific issues. This chapter explores the existing disclosures, demand for additional disclosures by various stakeholders, and regulatory changes in process and on the horizon. Our discussion develops recommendations for enhanced disclosure of climate-related political activity, considering issues related to content, timing, disclosure users, disclosure regulators, and the value and role of third-party information intermediaries.

We live in an era in which the demand for governance arising from human–environment interactions or, more broadly, the quest for sustainable development is growing, while confidence in the capacity of government – the conventional mechanism for handling such matters – to address problems of governance is waning. What are the sources of this paradox? What can we do to address the rising demand for governance under these circumstances? How can we expand our repertoire of mechanisms for supplying governance to avoid the onset of crises attributable to this governance deficit? These are the questions that have motivated this inquiry into the rising demand for governance and the relative merits of alternative ways to address this social challenge, with particular reference to the pursuit of sustainable development.

Our examination of this problem has yielded two broad conclusions. There is, to begin with, a critical difference between governance and government, an insight that has stimulated a lively interest in arrangements that can be characterized as governance without government (Rosenau and Czempiel 1992). In addition, there is no need to put all our eggs in one basket when it comes to meeting the demand for governance for sustainable development. Hybrid systems in which several forms of governance operate simultaneously, and even with an element of coordination, are not only possible – they are also increasingly common in the realm of sustainable development.

The paradox of rising demand and waning confidence

It is not hard to identify factors that have given rise to a growing demand for governance to address problems of sustainable development.

Introduction

This volume brings together perspectives from economics, business management, and political science to produce a critical assessment of the current state of knowledge regarding environmental governance, in contrast to government. In this chapter, I describe recent achievements in this field of study and identify cutting-edge questions for future research. I turn first to the challenge of providing analytic distinctions of governance and those associated with the assessment of the effectiveness of environmental governance as an alternative to government. Next, I examine the various incentive mechanisms at play within alternative environmental governance mechanisms. Finally, I discuss how we can sharpen our understanding of the conditions under which specific types of environmental governance are likely to prove effective.

Analytic distinctions of governance

Our first objective was to identify the principal types or forms of environmental governance. The aim was to develop a set of analytic distinctions that allow us to think systematically about alternative mechanisms for the supply of governance and that provide a common terminology to guide research and discussion in this area.

Actors and governance

The authors of this volume have provided several definitions of governance, which range from general definitions encompassing the entire spectrum of environmental governance to more restrictive definitions focused on specific aspects of environmental governance, or the actors involved in environmental governance. Oran Young defines governance as “a social function centered on efforts to guide or steer societies toward collectively beneficial outcomes and away from outcomes that are collectively harmful” (Young, Chapter 1, this volume).

This book is a product of our collaboration in the unique setting of the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California (Santa Barbara). Unlike mainstream, discipline based departments, which often create barriers to collaboration across the boundaries of established disciplines, the Bren School facilitates and actually encourages such collaborative efforts. So, first and foremost, we are grateful to the School for providing an academic setting conducive to our work on new developments in understanding both the nature and the role of governance in various realms.

What has made this project particularly productive for us is that new thinking about governance is developing rapidly in several different research communities that so far have had relatively little contact with one another regarding new ideas about governance. In this project, we have brought together contributors from the fields of economics, management, and political science. Lawyers also participated in the workshop on which the book is based, although none of the chapters that make up the text of the book was prepared by a lawyer.

What this effort has revealed is interesting and challenging on two counts. It is clear that there is sufficient overlap in the thinking of researchers working in these fields on the nature of governance – treated as a social function rather than a specialized organization in society – to allow for fruitful exchanges and to open up the prospect of developing a unified body of knowledge about governance.