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"Umweltbelastung"
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The role of EU agencies in fighting transnational environmental crime : new challenges for Eurojust and Europol
\"The last decades have witnessed a growing emphasis on the relationship between environmental law and criminal law. Legislation aimed at tackling environmental crime has been adopted at national, EU, and international level and has been gradually evolving over time. These developments notwithstanding, the current legal framework faces a number of challenges in tackling the largely inter-related phenomena of transnational, organised and economic environmental crime. This study by Valsamis Mitsilegas and Fabio Giuffrida addresses these challenges by focusing on the role of the European Union- and more specifically its criminal justice agencies (Europol and Eurojust)- in tackling transnational environmental crime. The study analyses the role of Eurojust and Europol in supporting and coordinating the competent national authorities dealing with investigations and/or prosecutions on transnational environmental crime, and it shows that, for the time being, the full potential of these agencies is not adequately exploited with regard to fighting this phenomenon effectively\"--Back cover.
Book
Financial Constraints and Corporate Environmental Policies
This paper documents evidence that financial constraints increase firms’ toxic emissions given that firms actively trade off abatement costs against potential legal liabilities. Exploring three quasi-natural experiments in which firms’ financial resources are likely exogenously affected, we find that relaxing financial constraints reduces U.S. public firms’ toxic releases. The effects of financial constraints on toxic releases are amplified when regulatory enforcement and external monitoring weaken. Overall, our evidence highlights the real effects of financial constraints in the form of environmental pollution, which is a costly negative externality imposed on society and public health.
Journal Article
Exploring the Nexus between Environmental Degradation and Human Health in the MENAT Region: The Role of Financial Institutions’ Development
The paper examines the role played by financial institutions’ development on the nexus between environmental degradation and human health in countries in the region encompassing the Middle East, North Africa, and Turkey (MENAT). The paper argues that ecological degradation leads to better human health. However, financial institutions’ development (depth, access, and efficiency) weakens the impact of environmental degradation on human health. A comparison of oil-producing and non–oil-producing countries shows that financial institutions’ development influences the relationship between environmental degradation and human health. In oil-producing countries, enhanced financial institutions tend to significantly weaken the detrimental impact of environmental degradation on human health. However, in the non–oil-producing countries, human health tends to be weakly correlated with ecological degradation when the role of financial institutions is enhanced, confirming that financial institutions play a greater role in directing more funds to power plant projects, which enabled these countries to have less environmental degradation and stable levels of human health. These outcomes offer valuable guidance to policymakers regarding the role played by financial institutions’ development in the link between environmental degradation and human health, driving economies in the MENAT region to promote public health by adopting more effective ecofriendly programs associated with continued development of financial institutions.
Journal Article
The Economic Cost and Environmental Effects of Paper Consumption and Computers Usage
The study is aimed at investigating the environmental and economic impacts of paper consumption and computers used in the banking sector operating in Palestine. The descriptive and quantitative method has been used, and the data was annual covering the period 2016-2018. The study has found out that the total cost of using paper in banks operating in Palestine was about 3.24 million dollars since the banks consume about 658.4 tons of paper as it is necessary to produce this amount of paper to about 16 thousand pine trees, 25 million btus of energy, and 13.5 million gallons. As for the total costs of using computers in the banks operating in Palestine, they amounted to about 7.6 million US dollars, and about 122 tons of different minerals and materials are required to manufacture computers in the banks in Palestine. About 1.52 GW per year is required to operate all computers, which causes the release of greenhouse gases equivalent to the consumption of 2495 barrels of oil.
Journal Article
Why Is Pollution from US Manufacturing Declining? The Roles of Environmental Regulation, Productivity, and Trade
Between 1990 and 2008, air pollution emissions from US manufacturing fell by 60 percent despite a substantial increase in manufacturing output. We show that these emissions reductions are primarily driven by within-product changes in emissions intensity rather than changes in output or in the composition of products produced. We then develop and estimate a quantitative model linking trade with the environment to better understand the economic forces driving these changes. Our estimates suggest that the implicit pollution tax that manufacturers face doubled between 1990 and 2008. These changes in environmental regulation, rather than changes in productivity and trade, account for most of the emissions reductions.
Journal Article
Corporate Environmental Responsibility and the Cost of Capital: International Evidence
We examine how corporate environmental responsibility (CER) affects the cost of equity capital for manufacturing firms in 30 countries. Using several approaches to estimate firms' ex ante equity financing costs, we find in regressions that control for firm-level characteristics as well as industry, year, and country effects that the cost of equity capital is lower when firms have higher CER. This finding is robust to addressing endogeneity through instrumental variables, to using alternative specifications and proxies for the cost of equity capital, and to accounting for noise in analyst forecasts. We conclude that investment in CER reduces firms' equity financing costs worldwide.
Journal Article
The impact of carbon disclosure mandates on emissions and financial operating performance
We examine the impact of a disclosure mandate for greenhouse gas emissions on firms’ subsequent emission levels and financial operating performance. For UK-incorporated listed firms a carbon disclosure mandate was adopted in 2013. Our difference-in-differences design shows that firms affected by the mandate reduced their emissions by about 8% relative to a control group of European firms. At the same time, our tests indicate that the treated firms experienced no significant changes in their gross margins. Taken together, our findings indicate that the reporting mandate had a real effect on the variable to be disclosed without adversely affecting the financial operating performance of the treated firms.
Journal Article
Toxic heavy metals: impact on the environment and human health, and treatment with conducting organic polymers, a review
Water pollution by heavy metals has many human origins, such as the burning of fossil fuels, exhaust gases of vehicles, mining, agriculture, and incineration of solid and liquid wastes. Heavy metals also occur naturally, due to volcanoes, thermal springs activity, erosion, infiltration, etc. This water contamination is a threat for living beings because most heavy metals are toxic to humans and to aquatic life. Hence, it is important to find effective techniques for removing these contaminants in order to reduce the level of pollution of the natural waters. In this work, we have reviewed the toxicity of several heavy metals (mercury, lead, cadmium, chromium, nickel), their impact on the environment and human health, and the synthesis and characterization methods of conducting organic polymers (COPs) utilized for the removal of heavy metals from the environment. Therefore, this review was essentially aimed to present recent works and methods (2000–2020) on the environmental impact and toxicity of heavy metals and on the removal of toxic heavy metals, using chemically and/or electrochemically synthesized COPs. We have also stressed the great interest of COPs for the removal of toxic heavy metals from waters.
Journal Article
Institutional Investors and Corporate Environmental, Social, and Governance Policies: Evidence from Toxics Release Data
This paper studies the role of institutional investors in influencing corporate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) policies by analyzing the relation between institutional ownership and toxic release from facilities to which institutions are geographically proximate. We develop a local preference hypothesis based on the delegated philanthropy and transaction-costs theories. Consistent with the hypothesis, local institutional ownership is negatively related to facility toxic release. The negative relation is stronger for local socially responsible investing (SRI) funds, local public pension funds, and local dedicated institutions. We also find that the relation is more negative in communities that prefer more stringent environmental policies and in communities of greater collective cohesiveness. Local institutional ownership, particularly local ownerships by SRI funds and public pension funds, is positively related to the probability that an ESG proposal is either introduced or withdrawn. The paper sheds light on the drivers behind institutions’ ESG engagement and their effectiveness in influencing ESG.
This paper was accepted by Gustavo Manso, finance.
Journal Article
Do Board Expertise and Networked Boards Affect Environmental Performance?
We examine the resource provision role of the board of directors in ensuring substantive corporate sustainability practices. Specifically, we examine two channels of resource provision (i.e., the presence of non-executive directors with previous experience in environmental issues—EEDs—and network connections of EEDs) that can affect a firm's ethical and environmental behavior. Using greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data from FTSE 350 firms, as a measure of environmental performance, we show that the presence of EEDs on the board is associated with lower GHG emissions. Further, firms with better-networked EEDs have better environmental performance. A possible mechanism is that firms with EEDs invest more in environmental technology. These results suggest that, in addition to the traditional role of shareholder value maximization, the board of directors also caters to the interests of wider stakeholders of the firm by facilitating substantive ethical practices.
Journal Article