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Environmental Management Systems And Public Authority In Canada: Rethinking Environmental Governance, Stepan Wood

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Using the example of environmental management systems (EMS) and the ISO 14001 standard, I propose a typology of eight ways in which public authorities interact with voluntary environmental initiatives: 1. Steering (influencing the development, use or content of voluntary initiatives through official policy pronouncements, participation in standards development or creation of legal ground rules or backstops for voluntary initiatives), 2. Self-discipline (applying voluntary initiatives to government operations or agreeing to international trade rules that turn voluntary standards into constraints on regulatory authority), 3. Knowledge production (generating and disseminating ideas, information and expertise about the design, use or value of voluntary …