Society and Economy
Volume/Issue:
Volume 33: Issue 1
From eco-efficiency to eco-effectiveness? The policy-performance paradox
Author: Mária Csutora 1
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  • 1 Corvinus University of Budapest Department of Environmental Economics and Technology Budapest Hungary
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1556/socec.33.2011.1.12
Page Count:
161–181
Publication Date:
01 Apr 2011
Online Publication Date:
18 Apr 2011
Article Category:
Research Article
Restricted access

The internalisation level of sustainability issues varies among topics and among countries. Companies give up less internalised issues for more internalised ones. Discrepancies between legal, market and cultural internalisation lead to different escape strategies: firms develop a high level environmental management system and they have nice sustainability policy and reports. These achievements cover the fact that their total emission keeps increasing and they do not proceed in solving the most crucial global community or corporate governance problems. ‘Escaper’ firms are often qualified as ‘leading’ ones, as a current stream of research is also ‘escapist’: it puts too much emphasis on sustainability efforts as compared to sustainability performance. Genuine strategies focus on hardcore sustainability issues and absolute effects rather than on issues easily solved and having high PR effects. They allow for growth in innovative firms, if they crowd out less efficient or more polluting ones. They produce positive environmental value added when sector average eco-efficiency is used as benchmark and do not accelerate market expansion and consumerism.

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Cover Society and Economy
Society and Economy
Print ISSN:
1588-9726
Online ISSN:
1588-970X
Keywords:
trade-offs; sustainability; environmental strategies; multinational enterprises; environmental management systems; eco-efficiency; D22; Q55; Q51

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