Using Non-profit Organizations to Reduce Regional Variation in Environmental Quality

When environmental quality is poor and also varies widely between individual regions, new ways ofaddressing environmental problems are needed with special emphasis on reducing differing impactthat these problems have on individual territories. Involving the third (non-profit non-governmental)sector more directly may be a means to that end. This study outlines environmental projects thathave been initiated and implemented by non-profit organizations in the Russian Federation and assesses their success in reducing regional variation. Data was analyzed from 5,853 projects submitted from 2017 to 2023 in competitions for Presidential Grants related to the environment. Indicatorsfrom the Federal State Statistics Service and Rosprirodnadzor were also employed. Content analysisof project applications relied upon descriptive statistics methods and calculation of correlation coefficients. The environmental projects that were submitted as well as those that won exhibited a highdegree of differentiation by specific topics and regions. In addition, there has been debate over thepast two years among some grant applicants and fund experts about the importance of certainenvironmental problems. Waste management projects developed by non-profit organizations oftendo not take into account the relative urgency of solving such problems for a given location andare largely guided by prior experience and expertise. The experts do consider the relative value ofprojects (although not to its full extent) for a territory along with the experience of grant applicantsand the region itself. As a result, the projects implemented contribute very little to reducing thedifferences in environmental quality among the country’s regions. There is also path dependencethat can have both positive and negative consequences. The article provides recommendations forchanging how the authorities and the officials at the Presidential Grants Fund work with non-profitorganizations.