Coming Clean

Coming Clean is the first book to investigate the process of information disclosureas a policy strategy for environmental protection. This process, which requires that firms discloseinformation about their environmental performance, is part of an approach to environmentalprotection that eschews the conventional command-and-control regulatory apparatus, which sometimesleads government and industry to focus on meeting only minimal standards. The authors of ComingClean examine the effectiveness of information disclosure in achieving actual improvements incorporate environmental performance by analyzing data from the federal government's Toxics ReleaseInventory, or TRI, and drawing on an original set of survey data from corporations and federal,state, and local officials, among other sources. The authors find that TRI--probably the best-knownexample of information disclosure--has had a substantial effect over time on the environmentalperformance of industry. But, drawing on case studies from across the nation, they show that theimprovement is not uniform: some facilities have been leaders while others have been laggards. Theauthors argue that information disclosure has an important role to play in environmental policy--butonly as part of an integrated set of policy tools that includes conventional regulation.

Troy D. Abel is Assistant Professor in the Environmental Studies Department at the Huxley College of the Environment at Western Washington University.