The role of non-governmental organizations on internalization of negative externalities: Example of Greenpeace

It is a known fact that modern technology increases production and modern society is prone to consumption. The technology we've developed since the industrial revolution has rapidly increases production and consumption levels. This situation caused permanent changes in our production and consumption habits. Even though it sounds very normal at first, this change in our production and consumption habits causes irreversible damages to the environment. While the developments in technology and production opportunities are expected to increase the preservation of the environment, the loss of the environment is witnessed today. Misuse of resources, the release of wastes into the environment, the lack of knowledge and awareness about conservation of the environment by the society and industry, absolute profit-oriented approach etc. cause damage to the environment. Science of Economics has been developing some policies to internalize the externalities. There is no consensus among economists about the validity, applicability and effectiveness of policies developed the internalize these externalities and compensate for environmental harm. Besides that, economists gathered around certain ideas in internalizing externalities. Global Non-Governmental Organizations are active actors, especially since the 1970s, for the protection of the environment. Besides raising public awareness to create public opinion, they perform activities like education, revealing, researching, advocacy as well. In this way, They influence decision-making process of local governments on the small scale and international organizations on the large scale, provide significant assistance and gains in favor of the environment. In this thesis, the nature of negative supply externalities has been studied theoretically, the effectiveness of environmental non-governmental organizations on the fight against environmental problems caused by externalities has been assessed with the Greenpeace example and the relationship between environmental organizations and public finance instruments has been examined. Keywords: Negative Extenalities, Non-Governmental Organizations, Greenpeace, Civil Society, Environment.