Environmental Standards and Trade

In many cases environmental standards apply to commodities that are destined for export markets (for the sake of environmental protection, minimizing health risks and enhancing consumer protection, see De Schutter in Trade in the service of sustainable development: linking trade to labour rights and environmental standards, Hart Publishing, Oxford, 2015; Wilson et al. in Dirty exports and environmental regulation: do standards matter to trade? World Bank, Washington, DC, 2002); given that not all exporters find it possible to comply with them (for reasons related to costs, access to technologies, information, know-how etc.), these standards in effect can become what is commonly referred to as ‘non-tariff or non-market barriers to trade’. As discussed earlier in Chap. 5, it is often certain groups (e.g. poorer and small-scale exporters, women, members of indigenous communities etc.) that struggle switching to new (compliant) production modes.