Abstract
Environmental Voluntary Agreements (VAs) were implemented in Portugal for the first time at the end of the 80s, but it was during the 90s that the VAs became an important environmental policy instrument with the creation of the “Environmental Adaptation Contracts”.
At the present moment the Portuguese Environmental Authorities are implementing a third generation Environmental Contracts — Contracts for the Continuous Improvement of Environmental Performance — with the objective of giving support to the companies that are willing to adopt “over-compliance” measures.
In this paper we will review the Portuguese experience with VAs: we will start with an historical review of its implementation and a characterization of the different experiences; we will then, move to a closer analyses of the “Environmental Adaptation Contracts”, presenting a characterization of the contracts, making a comparison with the European experience with negotiated agreements and we will conclude with some comments on its application.
Throughout the text we will use the Portuguese experience as a reference to make a theoretical review of the VAs characterization and to emphasise the factors that motivate public and private participation on this “voluntary” environmental regulation process.
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Cabugueira, M. (2005). Environmental Voluntary Agreements in Portugal. In: Croci, E. (eds) The Handbook of Environmental Voluntary Agreements. Environment & Policy, vol 43. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3356-7_10
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/1-4020-3356-7_10
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