Abstract
This chapter discusses the extent to which Dutch experiences with negotiated agreements between firms and public authorities could be used as a tool to improve environmental policies and foster collaboration and innovation for sustainability in Mexico. The Mexican context is analysed both in terms of perceived effectiveness of environmental regulation/existing voluntary agreements and in terms of attitudes and opinions of key players in the Mexican Industry regarding feasibility of negotiated agreements. Our findings show that there is good receptivity to the use of negotiated agreements both from the point of view of policy makers and industry leaders. The comparison with Dutch experiences shows no important gap between Mexican business leaders’ expectations regarding results in terms of efficiency gains and positive side effects and the results obtained by negotiated agreements in the Netherlands. Mexico benefits from a history of trust and fair play between the industrial sector and the government; homogeneity or clear leadership in polluting industrial sectors. Polluting firms are also concerned with their public Image and there is a widespread belief that the government will resort to other measures if negotiation fails. All the latter factors, which were determinant of success in The Netherlands, support the feasibility of using negotiated agreements as a collaborative strategy towards sustainability in Mexico.
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- 1.
Spearman’s Rho is 0.727, p=0.002, n=13. Spearman’s Rho is a correlation coefficient for data on ordinal level. With these small numbers each correlation was also checked with cross tabulations. P is the statistical significance (the likelihood of the relation being just a coincidence). N is the number.
- 2.
Rho 0.415, p=0.079, n=13
- 3.
Rho 0.378, p=0.073, n=16
- 4.
Rho 0.727, p=0.001, n=16
- 5.
Rho 0.533, p=0.017, n=16
- 6.
Rho 0.570, p=0.021, n=13
- 7.
Rho 0.739, p=0.001, n=16
- 8.
Rho 0.317, p=0.115, n=16
- 9.
Rho 0.436, p=0.036, n=16
- 10.
Rho –0.780, p=0.001, n=13
- 11.
Rho 0.464, p=0.036, n=16
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Acknowledgments
We thank Alejandro Sosa, head of the Mexican office of IGEMI (Global Environmental Management Initiative), for his support in the survey distribution and the very helpful discussions which aided in the formulation of this chapter. Our gratitude to Raul Tornel, head of the “Subprocuradoria de Auditoria Ambiental” in the Environmental Mexican Ministry for his participation in the GIN symposium (Mexico City, 2007). We thank Cheryl de Boer (CSTM) for the re-edition work.
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Franco-García, M.L., Bressers, H.T.A. (2010). Towards Sustainability Through Collaboration Between Industrial Sectors and Government: The Mexican Case. In: Sarkis, J., Cordeiro, J., Vazquez Brust, D. (eds) Facilitating Sustainable Innovation through Collaboration. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-3159-4_14
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