Voluntary approaches (VAs) are increasingly implemented in different countries as the main instrument in environmental policies. The authors focus on the economics of VAs, their advantages and disadvantages and how they compare with other climate policy instruments. Voluntary Approaches in Climate Policy illustrates how corporate voluntarism can be harnessed to mitigate the climatic impact of business, and assesses the economics of VAs at the firm level and in the context of climate policies. It goes on to explore their efficiency and effectiveness, how they compare and combine with other instruments, how they impact competition and why they get adopted. Many questions are addressed and answered, such as: * What kinds of VAs have been implemented in different countries? * How did they perform under various economic and environmental criteria? * What are the key factors in increasing firms' participation in VAs? * How do VAs combine with other climate policy instruments such as carbon taxes and emissions trading? * How could they be designed for better performance? The book also contains an overview of VAs with a summary of each contribution, their main policy implications and suggestions for future research. Highlighting the implications of VAs in policy terms, this accessible book will appeal to a wide-ranging audience including economists, social scientists, policymakers and business managers, as well as environmental scientists and practitioners with a specific interest in climate change.

Cities are growing worldwide and their sprawl is increasingly challenged for its pressure on open spaces and environmental quality. Economic arguments can help to decide about the trade-off between preserving environmental quality and developing housing and business surfaces, provided the benefits of environmental quality are adequately quantified. To this end, this book focuses on the use and advancement of the hedonic approach, an economic valuation technique that analyses and quantifies the sources of rent and property price differentials. Starting from theoretical foundations, the hedonic approach is applied to the valuation of natural land use preservation and noise abatement measures, as well as to residential segregation and discrimination, extending the analysis to the role of the buyers and sellers' identity on housing market prices and to the issue of environmental justice.

Carbon markets - both emission trading systems and baseline and credit systems - are an increasingly common policy instrument being introduced to address climate change mitigation. However, their design is crucial to ensure that they deliver cost-effective emission reductions while maintaining environmental integrity. This Element puts together a comprehensive, principle-based overview of the risks and abuses to environmental integrity and cost effectiveness that have emerged for carbon markets at all jurisdictional levels around the world, provides concrete examples, and offers effective policy and governance solutions to overcome such risks. This title is also available as Open Access on Cambridge Core.

Cities are growing worldwide and their sprawl is increasingly challenged for its pressure on open spaces and environmental quality. Economic arguments can help to decide about the trade-off between preserving environmental quality and developing housing and business surfaces, provided the benefits of environmental quality are adequately quantified. To this end, this book focuses on the use and advancement of the "hedonic approach," an economic valuation technique that analyses and quantifies the sources of rent and property price differentials. Starting from theoretical foundations, the hedonic approach is applied to the valuation of natural land use preservation and noise abatement measures, as well as to residential segregation and discrimination, extending the analysis to the role of the buyers and sellers' identity on housing market prices and to the issue of environmental justice.