Greening the networked economy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 184

the best example of a new role of environmental NGOs in the infor-
mational politics of the networked economy. It gives evidence that
legitimation and reputation, codified in a symbolic and informational
'instrument' as a logo, has power. But similar to brands, the power
and value of such NGO logos also can be damaged, and with that the
reputation and legitimacy of the NGO, as will be further explored in
Chapter 8 .
5. Monopolies, distortion and public relations
With the increasing importance of information in environmental gov-
ernance within and between private producers and consumers, we also
should be aware of the weaknesses, strategic company behaviour and
problems that come along with it. What are the dangers and downsides
of private or company informational governance? With the emerging
importance of information in regulating environmental performance
questions of access and transparency, verification and control, uncer-
tainties, presentation, liability/accountability and information mis-
leading become crucial. Some of these downside aspects run paral-
lel to what we have identified in the previous chapter of state-related
informational governance; some problems are specific for the private
sector.
First, as has been noted earlier, in informational governance access
to information is crucial. Notwithstanding the developments in com-
pany environmental reporting, tracking and tracing and transparency
that can be witnessed in various sectors and commodity chains, and
the increasing codification of that in laws, access to relevant environ-
mental information for private environmental governance of economic
actors, chains, and networks is far from routine practice. It is more
than incidental that information is not available, restricted in access
for various reasons, or impossible to relate to specific companies. A
too-heavy reliance on informational governance with limited access
and transparency rebounds negatively on environmental reforms. This
is even more so when information is spread unequally, both within eco-
nomic networks and chains and between these networks and chains, on
the one hand, and public agencies, consumers and nongovernmental
organisations, on the other. In that sense, (new) regulatory arrange-
ments on information access, transparency and verification are essen-
tial for supporting well-functioning private informational governance.