This collaborative project analyzes the transition process toward a greener economy by studying the potential consequences of, and reactions of our societies to, environmental changes. This topic being very broad, the project mainly focuses on two important objects of analysis, which are emblematic of issues related to environmental changes: pollution (as a main cause of environmental changes) and aquatic resources (which are severely impacted by changes in the environment). The project will benefit from complementary methodologies developed by GREQAM and LAMETA researchers, and from their integration within networks of interdisciplinary collaborations. The analysis of these two objects are tackled by relying on three work packages (WPs) which correspond to the required stages of a comprehensive economic analysis of environmental issues: (i) the identification of the issue and its assessment in economic terms (ii) the definition of short to medium-term solutions by developing dynamic environmental regulatory instruments and (iii) the study of the society's long term adaptation capacity to sustain an environmentally friendly development process. The first step of the analysis (WP1) is to provide a quantitative estimate of the costs resulting from pollution and of the costs and benefits related to the management of aquatic resources. Specifically, we focus on four main issues: (i) the assessment of the consequences of atmospheric pollution on human health, in particular the monetary gain obtained by the reduction of a long term exposure (ii) the benefit (on human health) from the change in the energy mix proposed by ADEME, (iii) the operational problems generated by the valuation of aquatic ecosystem services and (iv) a methodology to assess the costs and benefits related to the management of invasive species in aquatic ecosystems. The second step (WP2) is dedicated to the design of appropriate regulatory instruments to correct, in a short to medium term, the related environmental externalities. We not only focus on market-based instruments (curbing individual behaviors) but also on new institutional designs (definition of appropriate property rights, or new management methods exploiting spatial features) which all take into account the dynamic nature of the problem. A particular emphasis will be put on: (i) the regulation of the interaction between a polluting industry and the pollution abatement sector, (ii) the spatially-dynamic regulation of air pollution (iii) the dynamic regulation of common resources (mainly fisheries), and (iv) the management of invasive species which endanger ecosystems and economic activity. The third step (WP3) adopts a long term perspective. Since policy instruments remain short to medium term adjustment rules to environmental problems, it is thus crucial to understand how a society improves its own resilience to environmental changes and may reach a sustainable development path. This requires to identify ways to “green” the production process and raises the issue of sustainable growth under environmental goals. In the context of the present project, we focus on (i) the incentives that induce, in the agricultural sector, to adopt organic farming or at least less pollution-intensive modes of production (less use of polluting inputs such as fertilizer and pesticide), (ii) the problem of waste management and recycling, and the choice of an energy mix, (iii) the sustainable management of aquatic resources accounting for the threats raised by long-term environmental changes due to potential regime shifts (affecting the availability of these resources or their spatial distributions) or by the emergence of invasive species.

The energy transition cannot be achieved without dramatic changes in our society. The starting point of this research is the observation that the emergence of a huge number of non-governmental organizations (NGOs), particularly in the field of environment, constitutes a prominent lever for transforming markets, society and public policies. NGOs are now central actors of policy-making processes as well as initiators of public debates about the needs of environmental policies. They play a critical role in public politics by providing people with information about the environmental state of the world, bringing social and environmental issues to public awareness, and mobilizing support for political action on these issues. They also strongly influence corporate incentives to self-regulate. A better understanding of NGOs behavior and strategies seems thus crucial. However, their analysis has been so far mostly neglected in the economic literature. Most existing works are in political science, sociology, socio-economics, management, and business ethics. And yet economists have tools and approaches (e.g., experimental economics, political economy, and information economics), which could efficiently complement the existing literature. The project will seek to fill this gap. The project addresses six general questions: (1) How can green NGOs’ objectives and constraints be understood and thus modeled? (2) What are the specific strategies and tactics used by NGOs when interacting with corporations? (3) How do they influence corporate behavior? How do they affect firms’ profits? (4) How do they influence consumers and other stakeholders’ perceptions of corporate environmental and social behavior? (5) How and why do NGOs compete with each other, cooperate with corporations, governments or get involved in international negotiations? (6) Do green NGOs substitute or complement public regulators and how their strategies contribute to the energy transition? The research will combine theory and evidence. More specifically, we will develop theoretical models aiming at explaining NGOs strategies; we will construct a dataset describing NGO informational behavior, their funding sources and activities (extracted from press releases, NGOs websites). These data will then be used to test the predictions of some of the models. Although our approach is mostly economic, the main novelty of the project is the acknowledgment that green NGOs are specific political-economic agents whose objectives deserve to be thoroughly examined. In order to provide the basis for a sound understanding of the motive for NGOs objectives, claims and behaviors, the project will also take into consideration the findings of the sociological literature on this topic. The partnership includes highly skilled environmental economists, with deep expertise in industrial organization, welfare economics, behavioral economics and game theory. Until now, some of them have started working on this topic either in isolation or in bilateral collaboration. The ANR support will offer them the opportunity and the means to benefit from synergies by meeting regularly and working together in various configurations.