Recognition of Private Sustainability Certification Systems for Public Regulation (Co-Regulation): Lessons Learned from the EU Renewable Energy Directive

Abstract

In a globally acting economy with a growing demand for sustainable products and services there is an increasing interest to include sustainability aspects in state regulation. In doing so, state regulation can make use of private regulatory systems, or sustainability standards systems. In fact governments increasingly use private certification systems to implement their political interests. The use of private regulation systems in public regulation is called ‘co-regulation’. Co-regulation can have several benefits if implemented in an efficient and effective way. By using a co-regulation approach at national (or supra-national) level, governments are able to promote sustainable economic activities in globalised supply chains. Instead of establishing and maintaining costly control systems at state level, governments make use of already existing private control mechanisms that regulate and manage global supply chains. There are some examples how co-regulation can work in practice. The timber procurement regulations in the Netherlands, the UK and Germany are prominent examples. However, there is little academic literature available. Lister (2011, p. 29) analyses co-regulation from a governance perspective: “the mixing and temporal sequencing of various public, private, and co-regulatory instruments at the different stages of the policy cycle constitute a co-regulatory governance system”. In the context of environmental policy Gunningham and Grabosky (1998, p. 15 in Lister 2011, p. 29) explain that “recruiting a range of regulatory actors to implement complementary combinations of policy instruments tailored to specific environmental goals and circumstances, will produce more effective and efficient policy outcomes”.