Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Impact of Standardization
on Markets Affecting
Environmental Sustainability
control equipment systems) some markets (e.g.,
professional and labor) are still often bounded by
national borders. The U.S. antitrust enforcement
agencies, the Department of Justice (DoJ) and the
Federal Trade Commission (FTC), define three
market levels relevant to collaborative actions
like SDA, joint ventures, IP licensing and trade
association activities: (a) goods/services markets,
(b) technology markets and (c) research and de-
velopment markets (R&D, hereinafter innovation
markets) (DoJ/FTC 1995).
As depicted in Figure 2, goods and services
markets are almost always relevant to a regula-
tory analysis of SDA. With IP as an increasing
component of most technical standards and a likely
component in all three tiers of environmental
standards (e.g., emissions controls, technologies
& technology markets, conformity assessment/
monitoring/testing) regulatory analysis of en-
vironmental SDA will likely be focused on IP,
antitrust, and public participation questions. The
U.S.'s antitrust focus will concentrate on indus-
trial organization matters such as those markets
dominated by monopolists. Similarly the EU's
antimonopoly focus will concentrate on how the
SDA can remain pro-competitive, that is, not
anticompetitive as a collusive practice leading to
This section introduces market structure and in-
dustrial organization concepts that are essential
background to the regulation of environmental
standardization. The regulation of standardization
that this market taxonomy informs, will directly
affect competitor collaboration because SDA
intimately involves coordination among most
industry and supply chain participants.
At least three types of markets are relevant to
the regulation of environmental standardization:
(1) relevant markets impacted by collaboration
for (i) products/services, (ii) particular technolo-
gies and (iii) innovation (R&D), (2) markets for
emissions rights and (3) markets directly impact-
ing operational activities for entities who must
address environmental concerns such as their
labor markets, factor/resource markets and the
financial markets. Some of these markets are
relatively unregulated (e.g., innovation markets),
while others can be expected to be more closely
regulated in the near future (e.g., emissions rights
markets). While almost any of these markets
might span international borders (e.g., emissions
Figure 2. Regulation of collaboration: The relevant markets
