The Application of the Voluntary Approach for Environmental Policymaking in China: Two Cases in Carbon Emission Reduction

Voluntary approaches are schemes whereby businesses volunteer to participate or make commitments to improve their environmental performance beyond legal requirements, although their environmental effectiveness and economic efficiency are questioned. China has taken various policy instruments and programs, including voluntary approaches to provide businesses flexibility in promoting innovative low-carbon behavior. This paper studies the working mechanism that drives the effectiveness and evolution of corporate voluntary initiatives in promoting climate mitigation activities. Two cases are selected to provide an in-depth understanding of the use of voluntary approaches in climate mitigation policy in China: the Greenhouse Gas Voluntary Emission Reduction (GHG VER) Program and the corporate voluntary involvement in the international science-based targets initiative (SBTi). The research contributes to the discussion of regime features of Chinese policymaking, the effectiveness of climate policy instruments, as well as the improvement of international climate governance strategies.