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Do non-governmental regimes improve firms’ compliance with environmental regulations? This paper investigates whether joining ISO 14001, perhaps the most prominent international non-governmental regime in the environmental policy area, improves firms’ regulatory compliance. Non-governmental regimes can be conceptualized as club goods that provide non-rival but potentially excludable benefits to participants. ISO 14001 is a ‘weak’ club because it offers meager inducements for joining, provides low sanctions for noncompliance with club standards, and carries questionable legitimacy because it requires members to adopt management systems rather than meet outcome-based standards. ISO 14001 is therefore a ‘hard case’ to test for the efficacy of non-governmental regimes. Our analysis of air pollution practices of nearly 4,000 facilities suggests that facilities that join ISO 14001 are somewhere between environmental leaders and laggards and that joining ISO 14001 improves facilities’ compliance with government regulations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]