ENVIRONMENTAL GOODS AND SERVICES

Environmental Goods and Services

Environmental Goods and Services

Executive Summary

The definition of environmental goods and services vary from country to country. In addition, there is no agreement on the definition of those products, which fall under the category of environmental goods and services. With respect to an appropriate definition, environmental goods and services include those products, which are significant to improve their market access according to the environmental priorities of countries, as well as those products with export advantages. There are a number of organizations, which have expertise in consultancy services on issues pertaining to the environment. Furthermore, there are companies which are involved in waste management. The environment goods and services industry incorporates the production of equipments such as pollution control, or waste handling equipments and related services, and a huge variety of other environmental services (Parry & Day, 2010). The performance of the environmental goods and services industry in the US depends on the increasing use of technological innovations and development. As a result, it assists in giving rise to new technological developments. Therefore, key drivers help in the development of new markets for environment goods and services. Furthermore, there is a significant change in the overall structure of the environmental goods and services industry along with “end-of-pipe” equipments and cleaning services to integrated and “clean” environmental technologies. Other goods and environmental services are not traditional, such as sustainable or environmentally preferable products, in which probably the Latin American countries are not included for export advantages. Other non-traditional environmental products are tourism, ecological and renewable energy.

There is a long list of advantages, which the OECD developed pertaining to the liberalization of trade of environmental goods and services. These include a wider range of collection services such as waste and sanitation. The existence of international organizations gives rise to a number of opportunities in the areas of environmental education, clean technology transfer technology and know-how. In addition, there is also the availability of a wider range of environmental technologies, which seek to solve environmental issues.

In addition, the incorporation of environmental goods and services in a nontraditional definition create other benefits for developing economies from environmental, economical, and social factors. The latter mostly have low tariffs in developing countries, and face high tariffs in industrialized countries. One of the leading companies is Covanta Energy in the EGS industry. The company owns and operates more than 40 facilities to create energy from waste. The company uses waste material and trash to produce clean and renewable energy. Another significant company in the sector is Waste Management. The company offers integrated waste services in North America. Moreover, the company also offers services pertaining to collection, transfer, recycling, disposal, and waste-to-energy services to commercial, industrial, municipal and residential customers, other waste management companies, electric utilities and governmental entities (Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, 2006).

Overview of the Industry and Description

There is no comprehensive definition at the multilateral level, pertaining to what constitutes environmental goods or services, nor any agreed criteria for ...