Greening the networked economy - Environmental Reform in the Information Age - page 188

responsibility and codes of conduct programs, on the other, are by far
not sufficient to correct the negative social and environmental side-
effects of a globalised economy. State involvement is essential to turn
nongovernmental monitoring and informational activities into on-the-
ground improvements. Stateless governance through information is not
a model that will work on its own, which puts our analysis of private
informational governance again in perspective. Kerwer ( 2005 ) adds
to this by arguing that the widespread emergence of private, volun-
tary, global standards raises the issue of accountability and relating
such voluntary standards to formal state directives is one way to deal
with accountability in a still largely state-organised global governance
system.
At the same time, as Seidman ( 2005 ) illustrates with the cases of
the Sullivan Principles, the Rugmark labelling program and the Com-
mission for the Verification of Codes of Conduct, these informational
governance arrangements beyond the state are new forces in a global
networked economy, addressing transnational practices beyond the
nation-state border and as such playing a role in 'taming globalisa-
tion' (Held and Koenig-Archibugi, 2003 )inanew era. Although the
'transformative powers' of stateless governance along these private
informational lines are indeed limited, this chapter has argued that we
can - and should - no longer ignore the nonconventional regulatory
dynamics that are emerging through private informational governance
arrangements in the networked economy. Private informational gov-
ernance can contribute to environmental reform because it is part of
and embedded in wider systems of state regulation, transparency, legit-
imacy and reputation. Especially in the latter three, the environmental
movement plays a major role.