1. Nudge Presentation: Environmental Protection
Katie Ablett
Hafiz Moledina

2. “Putting information about local pollution into the hands of the public is the single most effective, common-sense tool available for protecting human health and the environment”
Al Gore

3. Chapter 12, Health— Saving the Planet: Toxic Release Inventory (TRI)
Planning and Community Right to Know Act
Disclosure requirements in Ukraine
Created in 1986 after Chernobyl and Bhopal
Intended as a bookkeeping measure
“may be the most unambiguous success story in all of environmental law”
– Thaler and Sunstein p.190

4. Fung and O’Rourke
“Reinventing Environmental Regulation from the Grassroots Up: Explaining and Expanding the Success of the Toxics Release Inventory”
Environmental Management Vol. 25, No. 2, pp. 115–127
TRI vs. Command and Control

5. Populist Max-Min Regulation
Command-and-Control
Type of Approach
Bottom-Up/Grassroots-Up
Top-Down
What Standards are Based on
Levels of risk that informed citizens will accept
Expert analysis of acceptable risk
Who Firms Respond to
Public pressures to adopt prevention and abatement measures
Formalized agency standards or government sanctions
The role of PR/public involvement
Public focuses maximum attention on minimum performers—hence, “Max-Min Regulation” --
Role of Public Agencies
Establish information-rich context to facilitate environmental problem-solving by different actors
Set and enforce standards

6. What is Toxics Release Inventory?
Industries self-report toxic release information
Information is published, easily accessible
The public determines acceptable limit of toxic emissions, not “experts”
Environmental Blacklisting

7. How TRI is Used Why it Works
Environmental and community groups
Write reports – attract media attention
Legislative action or pollution reduction
State agencies
Evaluation of existing programs
Industry Groups
Identification of source reduction
Support negotiations with community groups

8. Improving TRI and Critiques
Gear data to specific health and environmental risks
Improve rewards, enforce harsher sanctions
Need BOTH community action and regulation
Non-litigious means of re-evaluating process
Underreporting (accidental and intentional)
Data Collection not perfect
Not Complete (chemicals, companies)

9. Policy Implications
Command-and-Control doesn’t work well alone; integrative strategy needed
Public perception very important to industry
Create awareness
Community involvement
Alternatives to regulation
Effective strategy
Reward Voluntary Actions

10. “An informed local community will always do a better job of environmental protection than some distant bureaucracy” Carol Browner