2018 Conference

Individual Paper Presentation

Information-based environmental governance initiatives, such as USDA Organic, ENERGY STAR, and LEED, are increasingly prominent and controversial features of the environmental politics landscape, both in the US and internationally.  Many university students are very interested in these strategies, as they are ever-present in their daily lives as labels and ratings on the products they buy and represent an appealing alternative to traditional approaches to environmental problems.  They are generally not covered, however, in environmental politics courses, as instructors understandably have focused on ensuring adequate coverage of both the history of the environmental movement and the mechanisms of environmental policymaking.  This paper presents the results of an experiment to include a five-class module on information-based strategies in an environmental politics course that builds on such a focus while engaging students on topics that are often of more immediate and personal interest to them.  The module is based on my new book, Green Grades: Can Information Save the Earth?, and centers on the debate between information optimists, pessimists, and realists over the value of eco-labels on food and other products, sustainability ratings of buildings and companies, and information-based strategies more generally.  Key themes of the book are the inclusivity, legitimacy, validity, usability, and effectiveness of these product eco-labels and corporate environmental ratings, and students explore these themes in the module through a series of small group discussions, role-playing simulations, and in-class projects.  Students attempt to market different food labels to each other, design trust and validity standards for information-based programs, identify best practices for communicating sustainability information to the public, and develop governance mechanisms to improve the quality of these efforts over time.  The module reinforces the more general themes related to the role of environmental values, stakeholders, science, and communication that are common to most if not all environmental politics courses.