The role of negotiating tools in the environmental policy mix instruments: determinants and effects of the Environmental Agreement

The Environmental Agreement (EA) is a policy instruments to address the need to protect and improve environmental quality. From a legal point of view, the EA represents different types of agreement, which are mainly based on a contractual agreement between an individual and a third party to improve environmental performance To contribute to the current debate on this topic, our research paper aims, through a quantitative analysis, to answer the questions on how effective a stringent environmental agreement is in terms of a facility's environmental performance and what the role of stakeholders is on its impact on production activities. The econometric analysis shows that the impact of the environmental agreement on production activities significantly improves the facilities' environmental performance and that it is influenced by several external influence groups. (C) 2012 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.