The Environmental Law and Policy Annual Review (ELPAR) is published by the Environmental Law Institute’s (ELI’s) Environmental Law Reporter in partnership with Vanderbilt University Law School. ELPAR provides a forum for the presentation and discussion of some of the most creative and...

This Article examines the role of private environmental governance (PEG) in climate change adaptation. PEG occurs when private organizations perform traditionally governmental functions such as providing public goods and reducing negative externalities. PEG initiatives that target climate change...

Refrigerants are promising targets for private environmental governance initiatives. An unintended consequence of the 1987 Montreal Protocol was to increase demand for hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), which are potent greenhouse gases. Global demand for air conditioning units and other...

When the United States withdrew from the Paris Climate Agreement, 100 private corporations reaffirmed their commitment to fighting climate change. While governments are often tasked with facing climate change, many major private institutions are taking steps to significantly reduce carbon...

Solving environmental problems in a polarized era requires avoiding failures of imagination. The remarkable framework of constitutional interpretations, statutes, regulations, policies, agencies, and courts that developed over the last half century remains in place and dominates how we think...

On November 4, 2016, DOJ's Environment and Natural Resources Division convened an extraordinary group of legal scholars and practitioners to discuss “The Future of Environmental Law.” Speaking before the presidential election but mindful of the transition possibilities, the symposium...

Private sector action provides one of the most promising opportunities to reduce the risks of climate change, buying time while governments move slowly or even oppose climate mitigation. Starting with the insight that much of the resistance to climate mitigation is grounded in concern about the...

Environmental law has long been viewed as a public law field, with policymakers and practitioners conditioned to look to government for solutions to environmental problems, but private governance is playing an increasingly important role. Will private environmental governance become a mainstay...

In the last two decades, private environmental governance has emerged as an important component of environmental law and policy. Private environmental governance occurs when private organizations perform the environmental functions typically assigned to governments, such as management of common...

Over the past several years, labeling schemes that focus on a wide range of environmental and social metrics have proliferated. Although little empirical evidence has been generated with respect to carbon footprint labels, much can be learned from our experience with similar product labels. We...