Green tape measures up : Environmental regulation comes with lower compliance costs and greater innovation than previously thought

The The second Policy Brief, Overestimating the Costs of Compliance with of the emission of a certain type of pollution, and polluters must meet first Policy Brief Environmental Regulation and Innovation: Select Case Study Environmental Regulations, investigates the extent to which industry and Evidence of the Porter Hypothesis introduces the Porter Hypothesis, which the standard or face penalties [...] For example, •. The Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment and the Global Green Growth Institute recently looked at environmental regulations and found that the impacts Industry Society on employment and productivity are small and transitory, and this is particularly true for the pollution and energy intensive sectors.4 The report concludes “the available evidence sugges [...] This more modern perspective of environmental regulations considers the economic benefits that Firms in the Australian oil and gas industry They are 4 times more likely occur when well-designed environmental regulations encourage innovation on the part of those who are that face environmental regulation are to report introducing regulated. [...] Most of their analysis finds a significant and positive effect on productivity, so they costs to regulated firms and industries are too high; however, mounting evidence shows that the cost of com- conclude that it is possible that well-designed and targeted environmental regulations can plying with environmental regulations are often overestimated – by both regulated industry and by the gov- enhan [...] This lack of evidence may further the traditional view that green tape is detrimental to the economy, because the costs and benefits of environmental regulations are not properly identified.