Using Volunteer Programs to Encourage the Adoption of Clean Technologies in the United States

The paper reviews the movement in the United States to supplement environmental regulations with volunteer programs that encourage institutions and industry to go beyond compliance to achieve greater reductions in their waste and emissions than might otherwise be accomplished through the exclusive reliance on increasingly rigorous "end of the pipe" regulations. These volunteer programs have as a common element the encouragement of "pollution prevention" as a preferable strategy. Pollution prevention is a term used in the US to describe strategies, technologies, policies, etc. that focus on eliminating waste and emissions at the source rather than just treating and controlling them. In some countries the term "Clean Technologies" is used rather than pollution prevention. In the paper the author reviews selected voluntary programs and reports on accomplishments to date for those programs.