Next Generation Compliance: Environmental Regulation for the Modern Era

The most important driver of compliance results is not enforcement but the structure of the rule itself. Cynthia Giles' book Next Generation Compliance shows how well-designed regulations can achieve excellent implementation outcomes. Poorly designed rules can have dismal performance, and rampant violations have real consequences. There are tools to build better compliance into regulations, including strategies that can withstand the pressures of real life.

Format: Hardback
Length: 304 pages
Publication date: 21 November 2022
Publisher: Oxford University Press Inc

Nearly everyone believes two assumptions: compliance with environmental rules is high, and enforcement is responsible for making compliance happen. Both are wrong. In fact, serious violations of environmental regulations are widespread, and by far the most important driver of compliance results is not enforcement but the structure of the rule itself. In Next Generation Compliance, Cynthia Giles shows that well-designed regulations deploying creative strategies to make compliance the default can achieve excellent implementation outcomes. Poorly designed rules that create many opportunities to evade, obfuscate, or ignore will have dismal performance that no amount of enforcement will ever fix. Rampant violations have real consequences: unhealthy air, polluted water, contaminated drinking water, exposure to dangerous chemicals, and unrestrained climate-forcing pollution. They also land hardest on already overburdened communities, which is why Next Gen and environmental justice are tightly linked. The good news is there are tools to build much better compliance into regulations, including many tested strategies that can be the building blocks of programs that withstand the inevitable pressures of real life. Next Generation Compliance shows how regulators can avoid the compliance calamities that plague far too many environmental rules today, a lesson that is particularly urgent for regulations tackling climate change. It has an optimistic message: there are ways to ensure reliable results if regulators jettison incorrect assumptions and design rules that are resilient to the mess and complexity of the real world.

Weight: 568g
Dimension: 165 x 241 x 24 (mm)
ISBN-13: 9780197656747