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Article
Publication date: 3 July 2017

Li Sun

This study aims to examine the impact of managerial ability on the total amount of chemical releases reported to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) at the US Environmental…

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims to examine the impact of managerial ability on the total amount of chemical releases reported to the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) at the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Design/methodology/approach

Regression analysis is used to examine the association between managerial ability and chemical releases.

Findings

A negative relationship was found between managerial ability and TRI’s chemical releases, suggesting that more-able managers better reduce TRI’s chemical releases, relative to less-able managers.

Practical implications

By providing useful insights into what determines TRI’s chemical releases, this study should interest policy makers and practitioners.

Originality/value

This study contributes to and links two research schools: managerial ability in management literature and corporate social responsibility (i.e. pollution prevention) in the broad business literature. To the best of the author’s knowledge, this is the first empirical study that performs a direct test of the association between managerial ability and TRI’s toxic chemical releases.

Details

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, vol. 8 no. 3
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8021

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 14 August 2017

Lean Yu, Ling Li, Ling Tang, Wei Dai and Chihab Hanachi

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-agent-based simulation model for the online opinion dissemination during hazardous chemical leakage emergencies into rivers in…

Abstract

Purpose

The purpose of this paper is to develop a multi-agent-based simulation model for the online opinion dissemination during hazardous chemical leakage emergencies into rivers in China, to explore an appropriate crisis information release policy of China’s government for controlling public panic.

Design/methodology/approach

In the proposed model, two fundamental attributes of crisis information, i.e., truthfulness (for true or false news) and attitude (for positive, neutral or negative opinion), are considered. Four major agents in the online community system, i.e., citizens, the government, media and opinion leaders, are included. Using four typical accidents of hazardous chemical leakage into rivers in China as case studies, insightful policy implications can be obtained for crisis management and panic control.

Findings

The news about the terrible potential damages from such a type of accidents will instantly arise wide-ranging public panic; therefore, the corresponding crisis information release policy should be carefully designed. It is strongly advised against publishing false news to temporarily conceal the accidents, which will seriously hurt the government’s reputation and agitate much larger-scale public panic in terms of degree and duration. To mitigate public panic, the true news especially about treatment measurements should be published immediately. If the government does nothing and releases no crisis information, the public panic will go out of control.

Research limitations/implications

This paper only focuses on the crisis information release policies from the perspectives of the government. Furthermore, this study especially focuses on the cases in China, and extending the proposed model study for general contexts is an important direction to improve this study. Finally, the proposed model should be extended to other types of emergencies to further justify its generalization and universality, especially various natural catastrophes like storms, floods, tsunamis, etc.

Originality/value

This paper develops a multi-agent-based model for online public opinion dissemination in emergency to explore an appropriate crisis information release policy for controlling public panic stemming from hazardous chemicals leakage accidents into rivers. The proposed model makes major contributions to the literature from two perspectives. First, the crisis information about emergency accidents are divided into true and false news based on the truthfulness attribute, and into neutral, positive and negative emotions based on the attitude attribute. Second, the proposed model covers the main agents in the online virtual community.

Article
Publication date: 10 May 2013

Elizabeth Connors, Holly H. Johnston and Lucia S. Gao

The study aims to evaluate the informational value to investors of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) as an external outcome measure of corporate environmental performance…

Abstract

Purpose

The study aims to evaluate the informational value to investors of the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) as an external outcome measure of corporate environmental performance. Emphasis is placed on the market response differences between three highly polluting industries.

Design/methodology/approach

The study uses pooled cross‐sectional, time‐series data and an event study methodology to examine the effects of TRI emissions on abnormal market returns.

Findings

There is empirical evidence that market reactions to TRI emissions information vary by industry. Investors reward decreases in emissions in the electric utility industry, but do not penalize increases. In the chemical industry, increases in emissions are penalized, but decreases are not rewarded. Models do not capture any reaction to emissions changes in the pulp and paper industry. These results may be explained by the significant difference between industries in the US percentage of total firm sales.

Research limitations/implications

This research analyzes only data from US firms in three industries and evaluates a single measure of environmental performance, TRI. The value of TRI information is measured for one stakeholder group. Future research should attempt to address these limitations.

Practical implications

The results suggest that research on the effects of environmental performance on market‐based measures should estimate models by industry, whenever possible. From a public policy perspective, the results suggest that regulators may want to consider alternative methods of reducing chemical emissions beyond TRI disclosure in the chemicals and pulp and paper industries.

Originality/value

The study distinguishes between the value of TRI as a “message service” and the content of the “message”. TRI may provide information of value to investors, but performance changes may not be sufficient to merit a price response. The study also specifically addresses industry differences and clearly shows how average coefficients can be misleading relating to this one environmental performance indicator. The use of pooled industry coefficients may lead to inefficient resource allocation decisions within industries and ineffective policies at the regulatory level.

Details

Sustainability Accounting, Management and Policy Journal, vol. 4 no. 1
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 2040-8021

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 December 2004

Sa'ari Mustapha, Tan Chye Hee, Mohanad El‐Harbawi, Abdul Rashid Shariff, Thomas S.Y. Choong, Abdul Aziz Zakariaz and Razali Mispan

Chlorine is a liquefied gas, and is stored in large quantities for use in the chemical industry or in water treatment (e.g. the chlorination of swimming‐pool water). Chlorine is…

1825

Abstract

Chlorine is a liquefied gas, and is stored in large quantities for use in the chemical industry or in water treatment (e.g. the chlorination of swimming‐pool water). Chlorine is highly toxic and if released accidentally has the potential to kill or injure people in the vicinity of the storage tank. A geographic information system (GIS) is used to determine the impact of the release of chlorine from a tank in the area surrounding a swimming‐pool at the University Putra Malaysia (UPM). Spatial impact is determined using GIS software (GeoMedia Professional 5.1). Spatial analysis and buffering command are performed to locate affected residential areas near the UPM swimming‐pool. The findings mean that the affected residential area and its population can be evacuated more quickly and smoothly.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 13 no. 5
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 20 December 2013

Michael R. Edelstein

Bill Freudenburg’s concept of recreancy is used as a frame for explaining processes that perpetuate questionable regimes of emergency response planning. The specific instance of…

Abstract

Bill Freudenburg’s concept of recreancy is used as a frame for explaining processes that perpetuate questionable regimes of emergency response planning. The specific instance of tar sands upgrading in Alberta, Canada, is used as a case in point. When recreancy is institutionalized so that the results correlate across permitted hazardous facilities, it must be concluded that recreancy is less of a situational response than a normative dynamic.

Book part
Publication date: 16 May 2007

Boris N. Filatov, Valentina V. Klauchek, Nikolay G. Britanov and Sergei V. Klauchek

The world community has long striven for the liquidation of chemical weapons of mass destruction. The 1925 Geneva treaty “On the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating…

Abstract

The world community has long striven for the liquidation of chemical weapons of mass destruction. The 1925 Geneva treaty “On the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous or Other Gases, and of Bacterial Methods of Warfare” was the first international accord on chemical weapons prohibition. Signed by 125 countries, the USSR ratified the treaty in December 1927. The later development of the “Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and their Destruction” (henceforth “the Convention”) followed this early step and was undertaken with Russia's active participation. The Convention was signed by the Russian Federation in January 1993 and ratified by the State Duma in November 1997 with the decision to end chemical weapons stockpiling by 2007. As a signatory, Russia accepted international responsibilities for solving many interrelated problems, paramount among them was the protection of people and the environment (The Convention…, 1994, item 4).

Details

Cultures of Contamination
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-7623-1371-6

Book part
Publication date: 16 October 2014

Yu Cong, Martin Freedman and Jin Dong Park

In 2009, Newsweek published a report in which they ranked the 500 largest US companies and the 100 largest global companies based on its environmental performance measures …

Abstract

In 2009, Newsweek published a report in which they ranked the 500 largest US companies and the 100 largest global companies based on its environmental performance measures (http://greenrankings2009.newsweek.com/). This ranking is referred to as Newsweek’s Green Ranking. Included in this ranking is information about water and air pollution, solid waste disposal, toxic wastes, carbon emissions, and enforcement actions. The question we are addressing in this study is how well it measures pollution performance? The question is relevant to environmental accounting/reporting since it is part of a dilemma yet to be answered: Aggregated environmental indices/scores are easy for average information users to percept, while specific information may not be preserved when it is aggregated into the overall score(s).

Specifically, we examine whether Newsweek’s Green Ranking is correlated with pollution measures based on Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) in order to determine how valid or reliable Newsweek’s Green Ranking is – in other words, how much Newsweek’s Green Ranking can explain the pollution by the toxic releases. We find that there is no significant correlation between Newsweek’s Green Ranking and the TRI measures except for the firms in the utilities industry. Concluding that on one measure, which we consider a very important one, there is no justification for the overall Green Ranking Score presented by Newsweek. However, in Newsweek’s three-part score the element that is termed the Environmental Impact Score captures pollution performance measured based on TRI. The contrast between the overall ranking and performance ranking indicates that a composite index that incorporates hard performance and soft measures can dilute the information carried by performance data.

Details

Accounting for the Environment: More Talk and Little Progress
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-1-78190-303-2

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 May 2003

Amlan Mitra, Gideon Falk and Casimir C. Barczyk

This paper is a part of some on‐going research to evaluate environmental compliance by chemical facilities with Title III requirements. The purpose of this paper is to report on a…

403

Abstract

This paper is a part of some on‐going research to evaluate environmental compliance by chemical facilities with Title III requirements. The purpose of this paper is to report on a case study in Lake County, Indiana. We evaluate environmental compliance of chemical facilities through the perceptions and opinions of the members of the Lake County Local Emergency Planning Committee. We find that major problems perceived by the local emergency planners are the lack of knowledge of reporting requirements by the small chemical facilities and the difficulty of monitoring these facilities. Recognizing the limitations of this study, we hope that it will help to understand how local communities can effectively encourage facilities to comply with Title III without direct government involvement.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 12 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Article
Publication date: 1 April 2004

Mohanad El‐Harbawi, Sa'ari Mustapha, S. Abdul Rashid, Thomas S.Y. Choong and Mohamed AL‐Shalabi

It is known that there are hazards associated with the storage, handling and use of liquefied petroleum gas. Storage process plants of dangerous substances define the set of risk…

2196

Abstract

It is known that there are hazards associated with the storage, handling and use of liquefied petroleum gas. Storage process plants of dangerous substances define the set of risk sources. Release of chemical due to accident could be severe and poses an immediate effect to workers on‐site and communities off‐site as well as it causes adversely a potential effect on the environment. LPG is considered to be a very important fuel and chemical feed stock. The material has been involved in many major fires and explosions. This paper presents the most recent analysis techniques for evaluating several physical models. These models are used to calculate the physical effects of explosion and fire from LPG accidents and also to predict the affected area.

Details

Disaster Prevention and Management: An International Journal, vol. 13 no. 2
Type: Research Article
ISSN: 0965-3562

Keywords

Book part
Publication date: 6 September 2010

Shalini P. Vajjhala

Purpose – State and national environmental justice (EJ) programs have expanded in recent years to address new risks and challenges. Several programs including the Environmental…

Abstract

Purpose – State and national environmental justice (EJ) programs have expanded in recent years to address new risks and challenges. Several programs including the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Environmental Justice Small Grants (EJSG) program have helped to facilitate this growth. Since 1994, more than 1,000 small grants have been awarded through the EJSG to support communities in developing solutions to local environmental and public health problems. This chapter evaluates the collective impact of these investments.

Design/methodology/approach – Using Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to map the locations of EJSG funds relative to data from the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), this chapter addresses two main questions. First, are grants being awarded to the types of communities (low-income, minority areas facing major environmental hazards) intended to be served by the program? Second, have there been any significant environmental changes in EJSG areas since the start of the program?

Findings – Results of county-level spatial analysis reveal that EJ grants are only in part being awarded to minority or low-income counties facing higher than the national average TRI releases and that average toxic releases have increased significantly in EJSG counties in some EPA regions relative to non-EJSG counties.

Originality/value – These results and the novel application of mapping methods to tracking small grants allocations highlight the need for systematic EJ program evaluation and coordination.

Details

Environment and Social Justice: An International Perspective
Type: Book
ISBN: 978-0-85724-183-2

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