Conflicts between economic development, environmental protection and social equity underlie efforts to promote sustainable development. The author proposes a simplified framework for integrating economic, environmental, and social policies in order to foster development that is ecologically and socially more sustainable. The paper analyzes the specific forms these policy areas are assuming in Vietnam, and the underlying political forces (both internal and external) driving policy implementation. An examination of how these policies are currently integrated and balanced follows. The analysis shows that contrary to government pronouncements, development patterns are unlikely to be altered toward more sustainable ends under existing institutions and laws. Finally, the article discusses the potential for integrating current policies to achieve sustainability goals.

The pursuit of more sustainable consumption and production of consumer goods has taken an inside-out turn. Instead of external stakeholders devising carrot-and-stick methods of influence, industry players like brands, retailers, and platforms are increasingly finding value in sustainability governance. Able to collect data streams inaccessible to stakeholders, with the market power to implement rapid changes transnationally, and guided by a vision of Industry 4.0, there has been renewed hope in private solutions to public issues. Firms are arguing that they can leverage their considerable power to achieve what NGOs and governments have struggled to achieve in thirty or so years: comparable and actionable data, market transparency, supply chain and product innovation, and enforcement of labor and environmental standards. Using interdisciplinary methods and novel empirical research, I describe and assess the emerging phenomenon of private, networked, data-centric governance (PNDG). First, I present a literature review of sustainable consumption. I demonstrate that the potential impact of so-called citizen consumption is extraordinarily limited, and argue that structural policies and politics are more likely to yield the necessary transformative change. My empirical work, in turn, focuses on production networks. In chapter three, through data analysis, surveys, and case studies, I examine the Higg Index, an apparel-industry wide initiative to collect and utilize environmental and social data. I find that after ten years, the Higg Index is a scale without a diet—it solves a number of measurement issues, but fails to address root issues of incentives and transparency. In chapter four, I perform a primarily econometric analysis of an intervention in a Thai clothing factory. My analysis demonstrates factory worker compensation formulas can incent higher productivity through higher wages, thereby showing a financially viable path towards living wages. And yet, the project highlights limitations on potential gains absent further external pressure by organized labor, NGOs, governments, or consumers. By offering novel empirical insights, as well as describing the phenomenon of PNDG, my findings inform ongoing policy debates, industry investments, and stakeholder projects. While PNDG holds promise, it needs to be complemented with more external accountability mechanisms that promote stronger incentives.

We humans are literally eating all the fish in the sea. As a direct result of overfishing, nearly all major wild seafood stocks are now a fraction of their original size. Confronted by a seemingly insatiable appetite for wild fish and the apparent failure of regulations and management strategies to stop rapacious overfishing, conservation organizations seeking to reduce overfishing and promote better fishing practices have increasingly turned to consumer-focused, market-based mechanisms such as environmental sustainability labels ("eco-labels") in order to shift patterns of household consumption towards more environmentally sustainable fish products. Given the recent proliferation of eco-labels, it is imperative to ask: are eco-labels a successful and economically efficient way to reduce the environmental costs such as overfishing that the seafood industry imposes on society? The research presented in this dissertation contributes to the suprisingly sparse empirical literature on this subject by analyzing consumer response to the FishWise Advisory, a sustainable seafood eco-label that was adopted by a supermarket chain in the United States. The FishWise Advisory consisted of a label placed on the pin tag of every fresh seafood product to inform consumers about the relative environmental sustainability of seafood products. The Advisory coded the labels using a system of three traffic light colors: green meant "best choice", yellow meant "proceed with caution", and red meant "worst choice". Using reduced form and structural econometric models, this research examines the effect of the Advisory on overall seafood sales and on seafood sales of each color label, consumers' willingness to pay for an environmentally sustainable seafood label, the effect of the Advisory on own- and cross-price elasticities of demand for each color of seafood, and the effect of a counterfactual policy scenario of not selling red-labeled seafood on the prices and market share of green- and yellow-labeled seafood.

Total seafood sales declined slightly (-15.5%, p<0.10). Yellow-labeled seafood sales significantly decreased (-31.3% to -34.9% depending on the specification, p<0.01). Green- and red-labeled seafood sales did not change.Yellow-labeled seafood on the mercury safe list had the largest sales decline (-41.3%, p<0.05). Consumers had a negative willingness to pay for both yellow labels (-$0.155) and red labels (-$0.0872) seafood and were indifferent to green labels. The Advisory decreased the own-price elasticity of demand for green-labeled seafood (-2.27 to -1.81) and red-labeled seafood (-2.06 to -1.58) and only slightly decreased it for yellow-labeled seafood (-1.99 to -1.89). Cross-price elasticities of demand were essentially zero for all seafood colors, and remained virtually unchanged after implementation of the Advisory. In the counter factual policy scenario of no red seafood sales, the optimal price of green-labeled seafood remained the same at $7.87 (s.e. = 0.1013 in policy simulation and 0.1037 in base case) per pound. The optimal price for yellow-labeled seafood dropped significantly to $9.65 (s.e. = 0.1436) per pound versus $13.15 (s.e. = 0.1187) per pound. The market share of green-labeled seafood remained essentially unchanged at 2.02% (s.e. = 0.000) versus 2.06% (s.e. = 0.040). The optimal market share of yellow-labeled seafood increased significantly to 0.85% (s.e. = 0.000) from 0.75% (s.e. = 0.010).

One implication of this research is that conservation organizations and other groups seeking to reduce overfishing need a much better understanding of whether and when eco-labels achieve their goals before continuing to rely so heavily on using them to change household consumption patterns as a primary conservation tool for wild fisheries. As a complement to any consumer-focused efforts, conservation organizations may want to explore other types of market-based interventions, such as company boycotts; work with governments to enact regulations that would make labels more effective, such as common standards and requirements for information disclosure; and continue to use traditional forms of regulation, such as catch limits and protected areas.

The growth of carbon markets over the past decade has emerged as a powerful form of pro-poor financing that has quickly increased the number of rural household energy efficiency programs implemented in the global south. This dissertation explores the role that market-based policy instruments can have in advancing the dual goals of rural energy access and sustainable development in the global south. Historic low carbon prices combined with contentious international climate negotiations and an uncertain future for emission trading systems serve as the context for this study, which offers insights for policymakers in structuring future market mechanisms for increasing energy access for the global poor. My findings highlight the important role of nonstate actors in creating predominantly private and voluntary systems of market-based policy initiatives that are only now emerging in the face of faltering international action for climate change in a post-Kyoto Protocol era. Through grounded case studies I examine key assumptions that underlie carbon accounting rules and metrics to understand the consequences for practical monitoring, reporting, and verification (MRV) under market-based policies. I also present empirical data from household air pollution and fuel consumption measurements from village homes in China to highlight the importance of developing robust monitoring protocols for new technologies prior to inclusion into market-based programs.