The paper analyzes the adoption of various environmental management systems (EMS) by industrial firms in Central and Eastern Europe approximately eight years after economic transitions began.

Since the establishment of the People’s Republic of China, the state-owned forestry industry (SOFI) has contributed greatly to national construction and social development. However, since the end of the 1970s the SOFI has been affected by the “two crises” [poor economic performance and ecological degradation], and these to date have yet to be resolved.

The regulation of industrial pollution is difficult in a rapidly industrialising, low-income setting. This study looks at the efforts to regulate chemical plants in Ankleshwar, the largest chemical estate in Asia.

Understanding relationship between environmental protection and economic development is crucial to form practical environmental policy. At micro level, implementation of environmental regulations often causes production mills adjustment of technology which might leads to change of productive efficiency and cost, which, in turn, determine effort level of mills and even local government in pollution control.

We use firm-level data to study the adoption of Environmental Management Practices
(EMPs) in the most polluting industrial sectors in Bulgaria, Hungary, Lithuania, Poland,
Romania, and Slovakia during the 1990 – 1998 period when these countries were in a
transition away from a centrally planned economy.