Open Access

Globalization has increased the speed, volume and spatial scale of global flows of people, information, finance, goods and services. Economic globalization is closely linked to the globalization of environmental problems, with the underlying causes and directly visible effects of environmental problems becoming increasingly geographically dispersed. For example, the products consumed in one place can have negative environmental effects in distal places of production. This poses challenges to territorially-based governance systems. Governments do not have legal authority to regulate environmental problems in other jurisdictions, even if their own policies or actions of domestic companies contribute to these problems. Likewise, companies face challenges with overseeing and governing the environmental effects that occur along their supply chains. Nevertheless, state and non-state actors increasingly aim to govern environmental problems outside their jurisdictional and organizational boundaries that arise from long-distance interactions between social-ecological systems – so-called telecoupled systems. This doctoral dissertation analyses the environmental governance of long-distance social-ecological interactions in telecoupled systems in two issue domains: global commodity chains and infrastructure projects as part of China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Although both domains involve different governance actors, institutions and processes, they both concern the question of how the involved actors develop governance structures and institutional responses to telecoupling. This dissertation aims to contribute to a deeper understanding of how to govern environmental problems that are associated with global flows. Since many multilateral environmental governance initiatives have not yet produced the desired solutions to global problems, particular attention is directed at unilateral state-led governance approaches. This dissertation addresses the questions of (1) how to achieve a spatial fit between the scale of telecoupled systems and the scale of governance institutions, (2) how governance actors exercise agency in governing telecoupled systems, and (3) how state actors can govern the domestic and foreign environmental effects of telecoupled flows. This dissertation draws upon, and contributes to, two fields of research: research on telecoupling and research on global environmental governance. The results show that creating a spatial fit in the governance of global commodity flows is challenging because boundary and resolution mismatches can emerge. Boundary mismatches denote situations where social-ecological problems transcend established jurisdictional boundaries, whereas resolution mismatches refer to governance institutions that have too coarse a spatial resolution to allow them to address the specific aspects of social-ecological problems effectively. No single governance institution is likely to avoid all mismatches, which highlights the need to align multiple governance approaches to effectively govern telecoupled systems. 2 Telecoupled flows are often governed at places where they originate and places where they arrive for processing, final consumption, or investment. If governance in the jurisdiction experiencing the environmental issue is weak, external governance actors can aim to fill this governance gap by introducing due diligence legislation and by promoting sustainability standards in international (trade) relations. State actors often rely on the actions of non-state actors to govern beyond jurisdictional borders. Despite efforts to govern environmental outcomes in distant jurisdictions, it is important to recognize the agency of governments that experience the direct environmental effects of telecoupling. They have great leverage to steer telecoupled systems towards sustainability through the formulation, implementation, monitoring and enforcement of stringent regulatory frameworks, in the context of both commodity supply chains and BRI projects. The findings of this dissertation are relevant for scholars and policy makers interested in what can be termed external environmental governance, which refers to the governance structures and institutions to shape environmental outcomes outside the borders of a given jurisdiction. This dissertation sets