Egregious Polluters: A socially-structured explanation of disproportionality in the production of pollution

University Of California-Santa Barbara, Santa Barbara CA

Investigators

Abstract

Non-Technical Description This project is a three-year program of basic research designed to examine the social structures that give rise to patterns of inequality (i.e. disproportionalities) in the production of pollution. Although others have noted that a key feature of economic and social impacts on the environment is unevenness in the creation of and exposure to impacts, few have sought to evaluate the socially-structured factors that create and support such disproportionality. Towards this end, this prjoect focuses on three research questions: 1) How has disproportionality in the production of pollution changed over time? 2) What drives changes over time in disproportionality in the production of pollution? 3) What factors account for the persistence of egregious polluters? This project will answer these questions by using both quantitative and qualitative comparative techniques that analyze facility-level emissions for over 600 establishments in the pulp and paper milling, printed circuit board manufacturing, and PVC pipe manufacturing industries in the U.S. This inquiry offers a new framework within which to analyze the production of environmental harm, challenging several common assumptions; namely the notion that environmental harm is proportional to economic growth and that firms are disconnected decision-making units. In addition to theoretical and empirical insights, a disproportionality approach also has direct implications for the regulation of pollution. Rather than setting absolute standards for an entire industry, a disproportionality approach focuses on identifying egregious polluters and enabling the reconfiguration of production among those who are the worst actors. Improving the environmental performance of a select few egregious polluters can significantly reduce the pollution burden generated by an industry. Technical Description The focus of this project is on facility pollution production metrics and socially-structured drivers of change over time. The analyses will rely on US EPA's Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) data from 1988 to 2012 for three industry classifications: printed circuit board manufacturing (NAICS 334412), PVC pipe manufacturing (NAICS 326122), and pulp and paper milling (NAICS 3221). To answer the first research question (assessing the temporal dimensions of disproportionality), TRI data will be used to calculate several annual measures of disproportionality (Gini coefficients, lower-tail inequality ratios, relative ranking scoring, and spatial techniques) within each case study industry, using both raw and size adjusted facility-level data. To answer the second question (an assessment of the drivers of temporal changes in disproportionality in industrial pollution), analytical techniques such as regression and/or Qualitative Comparative Analysis (QCA) will be used to to evaluate eight hypotheses, related to industry visibility, capital costs, contribution to GDP, offshoring, growth and decline, regulation, and niche-seeking behavior. The dependent variable in this will be annual measures of disproportionality by industry and/or ranks of individual facilities within the disproportionality distribution, yielding a total of seventy-five observations of disproportionality over the twenty-five year study period. To answer the third research question (assessing the persistence of disproportionate patterns), two most polluting facilities will be selected, based on multi-year average, size-adjusted TRI data, from each case study industry. The research team will then develop profiles of these six facilities, collecting data on operational characteristics, financial performance, characteristics of the communities in which they are located, interactions with regulators and the history of the facility within the community. Data will be gathered both through archival sources and through on-site interviews with facility managers, representatives of local government, and community organizations. Interviews will focus on the relationship between the facility and the local community. The goal of these facility profiles is to analyze the socially-structured factors that allow for the persistence of egregious pollution.