| Over the past decade, the number of voluntary environmental initiatives (VEIs) in the United States has increased significantly as policymakers have increasingly relied on them to achieve a variety of policy goals. In 2001, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) managed over 40 voluntary environmental programs. What remains unclear, however, is the effectiveness of these programs. This study presented information on the positive and negative stakeholder perspectives of U.S. voluntary environmental programs, in general, and of 33/50, Climate Wise and Project XL, specifically, with the goal of increasing academic understanding of voluntary environmental programs and the roles of stakeholders related to these programs. In addition, the study fills a gap in the literature by providing a policy tool to measure the effectiveness of voluntary environmental programs.; A series of semi-structured interviews was conducted to ascertain stakeholder perspectives on the three programs among knowledgeable representatives of the federal, EPA, individual American companies and business associations, congressional staff, regional EPA, state environmental agencies, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). The study highlighted the fact that EPA and its stakeholders were still learning how to develop, execute, and assess multi-media, multi-stakeholder programs at the end of the 1990s. This study clarifies the importance of environmental improvement and the weighting of it as a metric compared to other goals for evaluating VEIs. Finally, the study concluded that, while stakeholders continued to express mistrust in one another, they generally viewed voluntary environmental initiatives as essential to building relationships and improving trust, which may be necessary components of effective multi-stakeholder environmental policy. |
