Voluntary Approaches for Environmental Policy : An Assessment Voluntary approaches are schemes whereby firms make commitments to improve their environmental performance.They cover arrangements such as public voluntary programmes negotiated agreements or unilateral commitments. Until recently voluntary approaches have not been subject to systematic analysis inasmuch as unlike taxes and tradable permits they have not been prescribed by economic theory. Voluntary approaches were &quot;invented&quot; by those who devise and implement them: policy makers business associations individual firms non governmental associations etc. The use of voluntary ap