ISO 14001 and Pollution Reduction: A Cross-Country Panel Study.

ISO 14001 is the most widely adopted voluntary environmental program in the world. While several single country studies have explored the effect of ISO 14001 participation on pollution reduction at the facility level, this is the first paper to assess (1) national level pollution reduction effects of national ISO 14001 participation levels, (2) across a large number of countries, and (3) across a range of pollutants. We examine whether, all else equal, the national level uptake of ISO 14001 are associated with reductions in air emissions (sulfur dioxide, SO2 and Carbon dioxide, CO2) and water pollution (biochemical oxygen demand, BOD). Because firms, regulators, and environmental groups tend to focus more on visible types of pollution in relation to less visible ones, we hypothesize that ISO 14001 uptake should be associated with more pronounced reductions in air pollution (visible) in relation to water pollution (less visible). Our analyses of pollution levels for a panel of 134 countries for 1991-2005 period suggests that one percent increase in aggregate levels of ISO 14001 adoption are associated with 0.04 percent reductions in air pollution (both SO2 and CO2) but not water pollution. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]