KENNETH ABBOTT/DUNCAN SNIDAL
The Governance Triangle: Regulatory Standards Institutions and
The Shadow of the State


We analyze the emergence of a plethora of innovative non-state and public-private governance arrangements focused on setting and implementing standards for global production in areas such as labor rights, human rights and environmental protection. Key examples include firm and industry self-regulatory codes; codes of behavior promulgated by NGOs with the aim of voluntary adoption by firms; and standards adopted by multi-stakeholder schemes involving different combinations of firm, NGO and (limited) state participation. To capture this range of regulatory standard-setting (RSS) schemes, we introduce the “Governance Triangle”, which depicts the potential transnational regulatory space in terms of the participation of three key types of actors: States, Firms and NGOs. To understand the diversity and uneven distribution among RSS schemes, we examine the tasks that an effective scheme would have to perform in terms of five stages (Agenda-setting, Negotiation of standards, Implementation, Monitoring and Enforcement – A N I M E) that are central to the regulatory process. To understand the role of different actors within these stages, we identify key “competencies” that are necessary (although not sufficient) for effective regulation and consider which actor groups possess, or can acquire, which competencies. We conclude that no single actor group – and hence no single-actor RSS institution – possesses all the necessary competencies for transnational regulation. Collaborative schemes are more likely to assemble a satisfactory bundle of competencies, although not all collaborations can do so. Yet single-actor RSS institutions far outnumber collaborative schemes. Thus the empirical pattern poses an even deeper puzzle: why do we see so many ineffective schemes? We explain the patterns of regulatory governance in terms of distributive bargaining. Firms, NGOs and other actors operating in the transnational regulatory bargaining space are not neutrals seeking “good governance,” but partisans pursuing their own interests and values with differential power and capabilities. We argue that actor competencies become power resources, supporting both the “go it alone power” that underwrites unilateral RSS schemes and the “inclusion power” that determines the participation and relative influence of different actors within collaborative schemes. The combinations of competencies that occur within different RSS schemes also determine their potential effectiveness – and many schemes are lacking in this regard. Finally, although states do not play a substantial direct role in many of the RSS schemes we observe, their multiple background roles create a potential for states to shift the bargaining balance between firms and NGOs in order to achieve socially preferable outcomes. These roles include promulgating and promoting standards, convening and facilitating bargaining, and creating transparency and other rules that enhance monitoring and enforcement capacities. States’ ultimate capacity, though largely unused, is the threat of direct regulation to encourage private actors to improve their regulatory performance. Whether states should play any of these background roles is a normative issue, but the opportunities are available.

MOTOKO AIZAWA



Approaches to CSR varies from region to region, country to country and sector to sector. The factors that contribute to the similarities and differences are multiple and complex. Some assume that the US and European CSR business models provide the prototypes to be emulated and duplicated in emerging markets. Others would like to see multilaterally agreed CSR principles (e.g., Global Compact, OECD Guidelines, Equator Principles/IFC Performance Standards) to be adopted by all, including enterprises in developing countries. Yet the drivers and CSR patterns we see in emerging markets today are not necessarily directly modeled on those from the north or the west. In many cases, the new patterns arise independently of northern or western influences, from businesses' immediate needs to adapt to and compete in their unique business environments, which are subjected to widely fluctuating macroeconomic and regulatory dynamics of these countries. This is particularly the case with companies that wish to be part of the value chain of transnational companies, but similar motivation and innovations extend to all sectors. Considering the volatile fluctuations of these emerging markets, the innovations of the east and south are very impressive. They also tend to be persuasive to a vast majority of audiences in these regions and countries, as they can be received without being associated with any political, trade or regulatory agenda of the north/west. With the exciting trends in south-south/east-south trade, there are new opportunities for transnational corporations headquartered in developing countries to spread their CSR practices to its subsidiaries and affiliates in the south and east. In this context, any patterns and lessons learned form the US and European CSR experiences as well as multilaterally developed CSR principles would also provide a useful backdrop for and insight in the discussions. But any message from these north/west lessons and evaluations should be very specific and concrete, and preferably focused at the enterprise level, so that they can be understood and evaluated directly by businesses in the south/east as business propositions. As a result, the most important challenges for academics and practitioners in the CSR area would be to promote CSR learning and the success stories (as well as failures), through academic institutions, business associations, workshops and other networking opportunities, building on concrete experiences of the north/west institutions, and made more tangible through experiences of the south/east enterprises. There may be instances where multilateral institutions can convene these meetings and networks.

MONICA ARAYA
CSR in the South: Recent Trends in Research and Next steps


My paper will offer a literature review of scholarly work in the area of corporate responsibility in the Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa--the so-called BRICS countries--written between 2004 and 2006. By corporate responsibility work I mean articles that cover the analysis of business practices that seek to improve business environmental and social performance beyond legal requirements. The review will look at both quantitative and qualitative analysis. The sources to be reviewed are journal articles and academic books available in English and Portuguese. The goal of the paper is to (a)distill the main trends in the research of BRICS-based firms, (b) to analyse whether these works identify something new in southern business responsibility that differs from the analyses of developed country firms; and (c) to identify the main gaps in the literature that require further attention.


DAVID BARON
Corporate Social Performance: Framework and Research Agenda


Corporate social performance (CSP) differs from corporate social responsibility (CSR) in that the latter is motivated by a consensus moral duty and the former need not be. The distinction matters because a firm motivated by moral considerations can be expected to deal with new problems as they arise, whereas others require incentives. CSP activities can be taken for a variety of reasons including moral motivation, social pressure, government pressure, and self-interest. If a CSP activity is profitable, it is like other business decisions. Any firm would be willing to do it regardless of motivation, although in a market equilibrium some may choose not to do so. CSR is the more interesting phenomenon, particularly when it involves activities that do not increase profits.

Research questions include: 1) From a positive perspective, where would CSP be observed and how much would be supplied? Does it occur where there is a market failure? Does it occur where there is a government failure? Is there a management failure in that managers fail to recognize profitable CSP opportunities or consensus moral duties? In which situations does a firm act individually in a CSP activity and in which do the firms in an industry act collectively? If CSP is motivated by profits or self-interest; e.g., it constitutes product differentiation, what does the firm gain and who rewards it? 2) Is it possible empirically to identify the motivation underlying CSP? Is it intended to forestall public or private politics? Is CSP a consumption activity for managers; e.g., a form of feel-good advertising? 3) Is CSP profitable? If it is not profitable, who bears the cost? What are the characteristics of those activities that are profitable and those that are not? 4) What are the costs, benefits, and duties fulfilled from a firm’s CSP, and who bears them? Should the firm report all CSP activities, and should they be socially audited? 5) What limits CSP? Answers might include self-interest (costs that exceed benefits), the absence of moral consensus, the market for control, government assumption of responsibility, and people and markets resolving issues.


TIM BARTLEY
CSR and Transnational Private Regulation of Labor and the Environment: A Political-Institutional Perspective


My research examines standard-setting and certification systems in the areas of labor and environmental standards. Using a comparative case study approach, I have analyzed why and how a particular form of private regulation (the certification association) has emerged across different industries and issue areas. Most of my research compares labor standards systems in the apparel industry and forest management systems in the forest products industry. Many scholars are theorizing CSR and these sorts of private governance systems as solutions to market-based problems (driven by “naming and shaming” campaigns and firms’ attempts to protect their reputation). I show that this view has some explanatory power, but that it tends to overlook the broader political roots of much private governance including neoliberal rules and scripts, institution-building projects outside the market, and international conflicts about the regulation of global supply chains. Perhaps the main contribution of my research is to bring these types of factors to the forefront of research on CSR and private regulation in an empirically rich and rigorous way. This approach has far-reaching implications. For instance, my research draws attention to the analytical importance of the “organizational field” that is, the set of mutually-regarding, interdependent (though potentially conflicting) actors in a particular arena, beyond just those that are normally thought of as part of an “industry.” In this conference, I hope to show how thinking about organizational fields can help us explain why firms are engaging with CSR initiatives (particularly given the few tangible market benefits) and what the future of transnational private regulation might be.


STEVEN BERNSTEIN
Global Social Structure, Legitimacy and CSR


My presentation will focus on three themes that have animated my research to date on transnational non-state governance systems in the social and environmental issue areas. First, my research has aimed to differentiate from among the myriad of transnational systems designed to “socially embed” the global marketplace those systems that can be identified as “governance,” that is, systems with meaningful political authority. Second, I have focused on the social structural or normative setting of global environmental governance as it has evolved over the last 30 years. This environment has created a demand and opening for private transnational non-state governance in the environmental area, but also creates significant constraints and challenges for it to gain acceptance in the global marketplace. Elsewhere, I have summarized this setting as “liberal environmentalism”, which has had the effect (for better or worse) of creating a supportive normative environment for market-friendly mechanisms and the institutional effect of reinforcing tendencies to fragmentation in the global environmental governance architecture. Liberal environmental norms have also developed alongside increasing demands for global and local democracy and accountability. Similar trends in the global governance architecture of development and social regulation also suggest a supportive, though challenging, environment for non-state governance to gain acceptance in those issue areas. Third, my work with Ben Cashore has focused on developing a theoretical framework that addresses how such systems gain or fail to gain legitimacy. My presentation will discuss why we focus on legitimacy, and briefly introduce the framework. Specifically, our framework addresses how NSMD initiatives must navigate international norms and regulatory rules – especially trade rules which are an important point of contact with intergovernmental authority - as well as gain acceptance among firms, local communities, and engaged social and environmental NGOs. Since Cashore and I collaborate on much of this work, we will work out a division of labor on our joint work that best suits the needs of the workshop.

JENNIFER BIRINGER
Is reporting on corporate social responsibility leading to improvements in performance?


Over the past few years, there has been a rapid evolution in the scope and scale of reporting on corporate social responsibility (CSR). There are now several thousand companies reporting, with many of the Fortune 500 included amongst in this list. In the very near term, multinational firms with significant sustainability impacts have adopted sophisticated means of engaging stakeholders and reporting on the impact their business operations have on society. Yet while companies such as Ford, British Petroleum, Shell, Nike, and Gap are ranking among the top reporters on CSR, questions persist as to whether sophistication in reporting is occuring in tandem with performance improvements. As a response to continuing scepticism relating to this question, formal and informal standards against which companies are encouraged to disclose information are continually and rapidly shifting. Tools and a variety of methodologies continue to evolve in order to better assess the degree to which companies with substantial societal influence are operationalizing key sustainability concepts. Some of the emerging key themes include:
 Materiality – the degree to which companies are reporting on those aspects of their business which are of key interest to a broad range of stakeholders and to which the companies themselves exert at least a moderate degree of control;
 Integration – are companies mainstreaming sustainability values throughout their business systems, for example in their business strategy, broader communications and also management processes?
 Influence – are companies disclosing enough information on the actions they are taking to shape the wider public policy, customer and industry debate? What are the boundaries of company influence and reporting? These themes will be explored using real world examples of leading corporate reporters and also stakeholder opinions of these companies’ performance.

LAWRENCE BUSCH
From Pareto Optimality to Corporate Social Responsibility: How Supply Chain Management Is Changing Our Notion of Social Welfare

In recent years supply chain approaches to business development have become commonplace, replacing older (generally neoclassical) economic notions of management and marketing. In the older models social welfare is taken care of not by the actions of any particular company, or other economic actor, but rather by an updated version of Adam Smith's invisible hand. Specifically, in such an economy it is assumed that Pareto optimality will produce the desired welfare result without positive action on anyone's part. In contrast, supply chain approaches to economics jettison older notions of equilibrium, and abandon the rigid distinction between the rules of the game and the game itself. From this perspective, supply chain actors both determine (at least some of) the rules and play the game. Moreover, rather than assuming that final consumers are interested solely in maximizing utility, supply chain approaches acknowledge that at least some consumers and companies desire to optimize other values such as fairness and justice as well. As such, they promote Corporate Social Responsibility (and other rule-changing behavior) as consonant with profit-seeking behavior. However, CSR is a two edged sword; making claims about it while failing to live up to those claims may be worse than not making claims at all. This issue is evaluated in light of the growing role of standards of all kinds in the global economy.

JOANN CARMIN


Many governments in resource rich countries are attracted to the economic benefits associated with mining. Although it can enhance development, the environmental impacts and perceptions of inequitable exposure to risk are leading many local communities and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) to oppose mining proposals. My research investigates the responses that local communities and local, national and transnational NGOs have to mining proposals and the actions they take to affect corporate decision-making and practices. Drawing on cases of gold mines in Eastern Europe, I argue that corporate approaches to siting (as well as collaborative ventures) are flawed from the outset. Just as domestic and international institutions fail to provide adequate voice and representation for local communities, so too do the data collection and participatory processes initiated by corporations. Based on these patterns, I suggest that the time is ripe to develop new approaches to participatory processes, locally-based agreements, and certification programs.

BEN CASHORE
CSR a “Private Sector Hard Law”


This presentation draws on my existing collaborative work on environmental and social certification systems (especially in the forest sector) by identifying five key features of a particular form of private authority that I have labeled “non-state market driven” (NSMD) governance. I identify the five features and contrast them with other forms of private authority to which they have been inaccurately conflated. Undertaking this classification exercise reveals unique legitimacy achievement requirements that these systems must obtain to gain rule-making authority. I conclude by offering a new acronym, “Private Sector Hard Law”, which better characterizes the certification phenomenon.

PETRA CHRISTMANN
International certifiable standards as tools for self-regulation in the global economy: Prospects and limitations of ISO 14001


This presentation provides an overview of existing academic research on the ISO 14001 Environmental Management System Standard, which was launched by the International Organization for Standardization in 1996. Firms can voluntarily implement environmental management systems conforming to the ISO 14001 standard and obtain certification by independent third-party auditors. ISO 14001 is currently the most widely diffused CSR standard with more than 100,000 certifications as of January 2006. ISO 14001 is a mechanism for firm self-regulation that allows firms to signal their environmental responsibility to customers, so that customers can consider environmental responsibility of their suppliers in their purchasing decisions (Christmann & Taylor, 2002; King, Lenox & Terlaak, 2005; Terlaak & King, 2006). On stream of research on ISO 14001 has addressed reasons for firms’ certification of the standard and for standard diffusion (e.g., Bansal & Hunter, 2003; Christmann & Taylor, 2001, 2003; Corbett & Kirsch, 2001; Delmas, 2002; Potoski & Prakash, 2004; Russo, 2002). Much of this research has drawn on institutional theory to examine the role of external pressures, while other studies have drawn on the resource-based view of the firms and examined the role of firm characteristics. A key finding of this literature is that customer pressures are an important driver of ISO 14001 certification. Another stream of research has examined whether ISO 14001 is an effective mechanism for firm self-regulation in the global economy (Christmann & Taylor, 2006; King, Lenox & Terlaak, 2005). ISO 14001 is only an effective tool for firm self-regulation if certified firms actually comply with the ISO 14001 requirements and have superior environmental responsibility to non-certified firms. Findings show that certification does not improve firms’ environmental performance and that weaknesses in the third-party monitoring system allow firms that are not continuously complying with the ISO 14001 standard to obtain certification.

JENNIFER CLAPP
Corporate Responsibility and Accountability in the Agricultural Input Industry: Governance Dilemmas over Illegal GMO Releases

This paper explores transnational corporate responsibility and accountability in the agricultural input sector, in particular with respect to the global implications of ‘accidental’ releases of GMOs. Recent years have seen a number of cases of ‘accidental’ or ‘unintentional’ releases of genetically modified organisms that were not approved for human consumption or in some cases even for commercial planting. In at least three of these cases, crops produced with the unapproved seeds entered into the global food chain via international shipments. The environmental, economic, and social implications of the release of unapproved varieties of GMOs are potentially significant. The agricultural input industry has recently embraced Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting and some of its major players are members of the UN’s Global Compact. While CSR and the Global Compact encourage internalization of environmental costs and application of the precautionary principle amongst firms, in the case of illegal GMO releases these measures have proven extremely weak. I argue that the high degree of scientific uncertainty surrounding GMOs in the agricultural sector in general has meant that there is no obvious meshing of environmental and economic goals within the agricultural input firms, resulting in poor practices that enable illegal GMO releases to continue to occur. This is in large part due to the ability of firms to cite scientific uncertainty when GMOs are illegally released, as a means by which to downplay the risks and avoid responsiblity. The result is that firms tend to externalize environmental costs and fail to practice precaution. In the case of illegal GMO releases, where the products marketed by the agricultural input firms are mired in uncertainty and debate, external, state-based regulation which places liability squarely on firms is likely to be much more successful as a means to encourage firms to internalize environmental costs and exercise precaution.

MICHAEL E. CONROY
From Virtue to Moral Liability: How 20th Century 'Corporate Social Responsibility' has become 21st Century 'Corporate Social and Environmental Accountability


The last 15 years have been a period of fundamental transformation in both societal expectations for corporate social and environmental performance and civil society capacity to enforce higher standards. This has meant a redefinition of the fundamental ground rules associated with corporate social license, recognized more in some countries and some industries than others. It has also meant that old-fashioned corporate social responsibility, self-defined and associated with virtue beyond the requirements of the market, has now become a market-based characteristic of firms, with value to brand enhancement and the need to create professional attention to social and environmental risk management. What had been peripheral is now mainstream. This paper will trace the origins and evolution of this change and present evidence of the transformation across many corporate sectors

KEN COUSINS
Information in Market-driven Environmental Policy: Scale and
the limits of global markets


Although non-state market-driven (NSMD) policies are increasingly promoted as alternatives to state-based regulation, few studies have focused on their reliability as a means of policy delivery. NSMD "authority" * and its persistence as both a market and policy alternative * is predicated on informed demand, yet the tendency for communication errors to increase as people are separated by culture and experience (i.e., social distance) has been well-established by communications and marketing researchers. To determine whether such dynamics are relevant for specific NSMD systems, I analyze media content throughout the global product chains of two forest certification systems currently operating in Chile (FSC and CertFor/PEFC), controlling for geography, culture, and professional audience. I determine that awareness of non-FSC labeling systems * and the quality of communication about NSMD systems in general * declines significantly with geographical distance. The data suggest that we may want to question the long-term persistence of non-FSC labels in the global marketplace, and therefore their viability as policy alternatives. Moreover, the apparent "narrowing" of discourse about what constitutes NSMD policies (e.g., social, environmental, or economic goals) implies that consumers may be ill-informed about the character of the non-state policy systems available to them. As a whole, these results suggest that we may be replacing governmental systems of safeguarding public goods (however flawed) with governance alternatives that may be less-desirable * and possibly less-effective * in the long run.



CLAIRE CUTLER
Bilateral Investment Treaties, CSR, and Africa


This paper examines the promotion of corporate responsibility norms in Africa through the utilization of bilateral investment treaties (BITs). BITs are the preeminent means for establishing the legal framework for foreign investment in the world and are increasingly being used throughout Africa. This paper explores the empirical and theoretical dimensions of governance through BITS. It documents the use of BITS in Africa, illustrating the increasing pervasiveness of these agreements in a number of sectors and industries. They are of particular significance in the extractive sectors and serve to regulate the oil, gas, and mining industries. BITS are of considerable theoretical and analytical interest because they constitute bilateral contracts as mechanisms of global governance. The typical BIT is entered into by investor and host states to govern the investment relations of their nationals. As such, BITS form instruments of public international law that impose obligations upon and grant rights to states. However, in doing so BITS bind host states to certain conduct that limits policy and legislative autonomy, simultaneously creating private contractual rights for the investing private corporations. BITs thus form curious governance mechanisms that partake of both public and private law, as well as public and private methods for dispute settlement. This paper argues that BITs may be fruitfully analyzed and theorized as a mechanisms of private or non-state authority that challenge conventional approaches to governance in international relations and international law. Conventional approaches regard the state as the main actor, subject, and source of law and conceive of governance in terms of state-led regimes, treaties and the like (Cutler 2001). In contrast, this paper advances an alternate conception of BITs as legal forms that reflect considerable pluralism and heterogeneity in terms of the sources and subjects of international relations and law and methods for dispute resolution (Cutler 2003). The paper thus contributes to the growing literature on non-state or private authority (Cutler, Haufler, and Porter 1999; Haufler; Hall and Biersteker 2002). The paper also develops a theory of international law as a form praxis with profound emancipatory potential (Cutler 2005). The governance dimensions of BITs are of particular concern to peoples who live and work in close proximity to foreign corporations, particularly in zones of conflict in Africa. This raises the significance of BITs for the rule of law and the corporate security responsibility of foreign corporations and states.

MAGALI DELMAS
Collective Corporate Political Activity: Are late joiners the Free riders?


This paper analyzes how free riding affects the effectiveness of environmental voluntary agreements (VAs). We demonstrate that substantive cooperative strategies are more likely to be pursued by firms that enter a VA at its initiation while free riding or symbolic cooperation is more likely to be adopted by late joiners. We demonstrate that late joiners and early joiners within VAs adopt different cooperative strategies because they face different pressures from their institutional environment. We also find that late joiners that cooperate only symbolically may endanger the overall effectiveness of a VA. Our analysis is based on the strategies of firms participating in the Climate Challenge Program established in 1995 by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) and the representatives of the national electric utilities to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

RALPH ESPACH
Where Does Global Greening Take Root?: Private Environmental Standards Regimes in Argentina and Brazil


My recent research examines the local-level factors that condition the effectiveness of global private environmental standards regimes in developing nations. The conventional wisdom is that regime implementation is driven by international factors that create demand for standards compliance and certification, such as pressures from export markets and advocacy by major transnational firms and NGOs. I argue, instead, that effectiveness [measured as a combination of a) levels and composition of membership, and b) impacts of membership on practice] depends on the capacities of local industry actors to supply operative programs, specifically through the local institutionalization of regime rules and principles. My study tests this local capacity argument across four cases within two industries (chemicals [Responsible Care] and forestry [the FSC]) in Argentina and Brazil. Using data from interviews, surveys, and local industry and regulatory reports, I trace the sources of industry-level capacity primarily to two historical events: previous national experiences with environmental crisis and legacies of national industrial policies. In Brazil, developmental industrialization policies and past environmental crises generated competitive national industries open to collaborative environmental programs from abroad, and networks among environmental groups and firms that provide essential operational support to these programs. Argentina’s industrial policy encouraged rent-seeking and created industries that are chary of foreign models, reluctant to invest in collaboration with other stakeholders, and disinterested generally in environmental practice beyond legal compliance. Variation in the effectiveness of these regimes reduces their legitimacy as sources of global standardization, and increase their utility as sources of competitive advantage. However, programs with open participatory administrative structures are more effective across a wider range of conditions than those directed by industry groups alone.

GEOFFREY HEAL
How does Corporate Social Responsibility fit into an overall understanding of how the market economy works?


What is the connection between environmentally and socially responsible behavior and financial performance? The presentation will address these two issues. It starts by developing a framework for thinking about the relationship between CSR and the functioning of the market, then reviews the literature on the connection between CSR and financial performance and presents some new results in this area. In developing a framework for thinking about CSR and the allocation of resources in the economy, CSR is seen as an institution that compensates for some classic cases of market failure, specifically negative external effects and distributional inequities. Such empirical evidence as there is, is consistent with this conceptual approach. The effectiveness of CSR as an institution for correcting market failure depends on the actions of civil society and on the values of consumers: effectiveness requires both an active civil society and consumers who are socially and environmentally aware and willing to vote with their spending dollars on social and environmental issues.

JENNIFER A. HOWARD-GRENVILLE
Corporate Social Responsibility and Managerial Decision Making


There can be little doubt that the external demands firms face on issues of corporate social responsibility have changed remarkably in recent years. Similarly, there has been a significant shift in the corporate discourse on such issues, and in at least some cases significant changes in actions and strategies. But the case for corporate social responsibility is not a simple one, and there may be little correlation between the myriad pressures firms face, the actual actions of individual firms, and associated outcomes. Indeed, researchers have documented how firms facing similar regulatory, social and economic pressures on environmental issues nonetheless adopt different approaches due to internal differences in managerial attitudes, leadership styles, or organizational culture and identity (Prakash, 2000; Gunningham, Kagan, & Thornton, 2003; Howard-Grenville, Nash, & Coglianese, 2006). This suggests that to advance our understanding of CSR we must consider how managers and other decision makers in companies interpret these issues in response to both external and internal pressures. Work in organizational behavior has long suggested that problems are not given to organizations, but are formulated by managers as they selectively attend to cues (Lyles & Mitroff, 1980). This process is guided by the norms of the organization, the nature of problems it typically addresses, and the strategies it favors for solving such problems, as well as by managers’ own personal experience and commitments (Thomas, Shankster, & Mathieu, 1994; Howard-Grenville, 2006). Explicit attention to how internal organizational factors influence the attention and action of individual managers on CSR issues is essential to developing a more complete understanding of the determinants of CSR activities and hence the effectiveness of efforts to motivate them.

MADHU KHANNA
Effectiveness of Corporate Voluntary Environmental Initiatives


Corporations are increasingly undertaking pro-environmental initiatives to improve environmental performance and go beyond compliance with environmental regulations. These initiatives include firm-structured efforts at self-regulation, participation in programs designed by international certification organizations and trade associations, as well as in public-private partnerships to voluntarily reduce toxic wastes, greenhouse gases and solid waste. The effectiveness of these efforts can be quantified by examining the number of participants in these programs and the extent to which these efforts have led to environmental improvements (either in the form of an increased likelihood for compliance with regulations or through improvements that go beyond compliance) over and above those that would have occurred otherwise. Growing evidence on the effectiveness of a broad set of environment initiatives being undertaken by firms, ranging from internal environmental self-auditing, participation in ISO 14001, Responsible Care and programs such as the 33/50, Climate Challenge and Climate Wise will be presented and discussed. Inferences from these studies will be made to identify the key determinants of effective voluntary initiatives by firms. Additionally, evidence from an in-depth study of the effectiveness of a specific type of voluntary environmental initiative by firms, namely the adoption of Total Quality Environmental Management (TQEM), in leading to environmentally friendly innovations will be discussed. The effect of TQEM on different types of innovations is analyzed and used to make inferences about the channels through which organizational change in the firm operates and affects environmental outcomes. Policy implications for the extent to which policy makers can rely on voluntary initiatives for environmental protection will be discussed.

ANDREW KING
Good Fences Make Good Neighbors: An Institutional Explanation of Industry Self-regulation


Understanding of decentralized institutions has been hampered by a lack of longitudinal research on their formation and function. We conduct a 21-year panel analysis of conditions in the chemical industry before and after the emergence of a decentralized institution. We find that a critical event created a potentially damaging industry commons, and we find evidence that a newly formed self-regulatory institution reduced the risks associated with this commons. Surprisingly, however, we find that the institution accomplished this role not by protecting member organizations from the acts of other firms, but by protecting the entire industry from the acts of member firms. Overall, our findings support a functionalist view of institution formation, where that function is to parcel the reputation of individual firms from that shared with their rivals.

MICHAEL J. LENOX
The Prospects for Industry Self-Regulation of Environmental Externalities


In an attempt to avoid costly government regulation and other liabilities as a result of environmental externalities, a growing number of firms have promoted industry self-regulation --the association of firms to voluntarily control their collective behavior. In the last twenty years, environmental self-regulatory programs have proliferated in both the U.S. and abroad. Growing environmental regulations in industrialized nations and increasing environmental activism of consumers and the public in general have driven many industries to look for alternative strategies to deal with stakeholders. Industries have attempted to avoid costly government regulation and to placate concerned stakeholders by promising to voluntarily reduce their environmental impacts.

In this paper, I explore the conditions under which effective industry self-regulation is likely to emerge. Formally, I define “self-regulation” as the provision of public goods beyond that required by law. As opposed to unilateral self-regulation by a single firm, industry selfregulation entails collective action by member firms to improve the reputation of the industry as whole. In the sections to follow, I will discuss the incentives for firms to self-regulate and how the costs of failure to self-regulate are often bourn by the collective, e.g. the industry, rather than narrowly by individual firms. Given this collective nature, I will discuss a number of challenges to industry self-regulation, in particular, adverse selection, moral hazard, and free riding. In the latter half of the paper, I will discuss the various strategies firms adopt with regards to self regulatory efforts and identify potential public policies that may help facilitate industry self regulation.




DAVID LEVY/RAMI KAPLAN
CSR as a Mode of Global Governance

Calls for multinational corporations (MNCs) to demonstrate greater responsibility, transparency, and accountability are leading to the establishment of a variety of new governance structures - rules, norms, codes of conduct, and standards. The day-to-day production, employment, research and marketing practices of large companies play a critical role in shaping environmental impacts, labor practices, income distribution, and even consumer identities. MNCs’ global reach highlights spatial differences in living and labor standards, healthcare, and individual rights. MNCs have, de facto, become part of the fabric of global governance, the emerging multi-layered and multi-actor system of global authority. Their strategies and operations are thus inherently political.

MNCs have been put in the spotlight by the confluence of the rise of CSR discourse and the growth of social movements with the capacity to monitor and publicize MNC operations. CSR, as a system of rules, standards, norms, and expectations, serves as a form of global governance that shapes MNC practices and constructs them as moral agents. CSR can be viewed as a more socially-embedded and democratic form of governance that emanates from civil society, or alternatively, as a privatized system of corporate governance that lacks public accountability. We argue that CSR represents contested political terrain as well as a strategic tool deployed in struggles over corporate governance. The meaning of CSR itself is a key point of political struggle: business could assume a degree of responsibility for social outcomes, while retaining full authority and autonomy, or it could be held responsible and accountable to society in ways that cede substantive authority to multiple stakeholders.

Where CSR differs most sharply from historical efforts to restrain markets is in its reliance on the private realm rather than the state. CSR can shape assumptions regarding consumer behavior, competitors' reactions, and regulatory responses, thus molding the market environment within which corporate strategy is developed. Though CSR has clearly achieved considerable success in shifting corporate practices and attitudes, CSR does not compromise the core economic structures and managerial prerogatives of contemporary market societies. Indeed, it proclaims the harmony of financial and social interests. Yet the harmony of business and social interests posited by CSR advocates is thus not something to take for granted, but rather represents a discursive and material compromise that emerges from the strategies of various parties. Advocates for CSR can generate legitimacy for stakeholders, shift societal expectations of business, create media attention, directly pressure business, bring attention to win-win opportunities, and even shape market environments. For business, CSR comprises an element of corporate political strategy that offers social legitimacy, some attractive market opportunities, and protection against more severe activist demands and regulatory pressure. CSR therefore rests on a rather precarious balance of conflict and cooperation.

CSR is thus an emergent form of governance that can redress, to some degree, the governance deficit that exists in the international arena. This political-strategic approach stands in sharp contrast to more conventional perspectives that develop an ethical and business case for CSR. CSR is not just a struggle over practices, but over the locus of governance authority, offering a potential path toward the transformation of stakeholders from external observers and petitioners into legitimate and organized participants in decision-making.

RICHARD LOCKE
Does Monitoring Improve Labor Standards?: Lessons from Nike


Using a unique data set based on factory audits of working conditions in over 800 of Nike's suppliers in 51 countries, this paper seeks to explore whether or not monitoring for compliance with corporate codes of conduct -- currently the principal way both global corporations and labor rights non-governmental organizations (NGOs) address poor working conditions in global supply chain factories -- actually leads to remediation in terms of improved working conditions and enforced labor rights. The evidence presented suggests that notwithstanding the significant efforts and investments by Nike and its staff to improve working conditions among its suppliers, monitoring alone appears to produce only limited results. Instead, our research indicates that when monitoring efforts are combined with other interventions focused on tackling some of the root causes of poor working conditions -- by improving the ability of suppliers to better schedule their work and improve their quality and efficiency -- working conditions appear to significantly improve. This suggests that the current (highly polarized) debates over monitoring and labor standards need to be recast and new, more systemic approaches towards tackling these problems need to be pursued.



THOMAS P. LYON
Corporate environmentalism: Why Does it Happen?


The most notable trend in environmental policy over the last decade has been the emergence of voluntary approaches to the control of pollution, including both industry self-regulation and non-coercive government programs. I argue that corporate environmentalism is most importantly a strategic tool for influencing the public policy process, and that it is typically motivated by developments along the policy life cycle. I summarize the results of a set of economic models that capture key facets of the shift toward voluntarism. They show how voluntary pollution abatement can be an effective part of a company's overall non-market strategy, and can play a variety of roles depending upon the political forces at play and the stage of the policy life cycle at which the firm finds itself.

DIRK MATTEN
‘Implicit’ and ‘Explicit’ CSR: A conceptual framework for a comparative understanding of corporate social responsibility


This paper addresses the questions of how and why styles and forms of corporate social responsibility (CSR) differ among countries and of how and why these change. It does so by comparative investigation of corporate social responsibility (CSR), historically and contemporarily in the USA and in Europe. The paper is inspired by two commonplace observations. The first observation is that whilst many US corporations have long been expressly associated with social responsibility this has not been very common elsewhere, even in relatively similar systems. The second observation is that recently corporations elsewhere in the world have begun to adopt the language and practice of CSR, particularly in Europe, but also in Africa, Australasia, South America, and South, East and South-East Asia. Although we use CSR in the USA and Europe as the empirical backdrop of our argument, we also address the wider canvas. We investigate two research questions. First, comparatively, why have US corporations long made explicit attachment to their CSR whereas European business responsibility to society has tended to be more implicit such that few specific corporate claims have been made? In order to explore this question we present a theoretical argument about the social responsibility of corporations reflecting the historical institutions of their national business systems. Secondly, temporally, why have European companies recently adopted a more explicit commitment to CSR resembling that of their US counterparts? We develop our argument with reference to ‘new institutional’ theories about corporate responses to changes in their environments.

JOHN W. MAXWELL
Informational Issues of CSR Actions


The number of businesses engaged in activities that may be classified as corporate social responsibility has been rising for many years. Much of the academic literature on CSR has been concerned with what the drivers are for CSR actions and whether these actions have made concrete improvements to society. Findings have been mixed. An area of study that needs much more attention is that of the informational aspects of CSR. There is little doubt that whether CSR is motivated by legislative, regulatory or NGO actions (e.g., boycott threats), or whether CSR arises proactively, the root motivation for CSR activities is to shape the public’s opinion of the corporation. Thus CSR is inherently intertwined with information issues. A presentation on the informational aspects CSR activities would benefit researchers immensely. These activities include the voluntary disclosure of CS activities, how government and non-governments organizations and the general public view these disclosures, and the implication of these views on firm actions. I have recently written a few papers on this subject and in doing so have become aware of literatures in other fields, such as accounting, that address some informational aspects of CSR activities. My research has also led me to the conclusion that much more research is needed on the subject. I believe that a presentation that covers some of the findings of my current research, relates these to studies of informational aspects of CRS in other fields and points to the areas in greatest need of further research would be beneficial to attendees.

ERROL MEIDINGER
Corporate Social Responsibility and Democracy


Corporate responsibility standards are widely assumed to be desirable, and ‘higher’ standards better than ‘lower’ ones. Yet the bases for such judgments are often fuzzy, particularly to the degree that they claim to reflect public will. Corporate responsibility standards are largely developed outside the nation-state framework, often by business or public interest advocacy networks, and very often in transnational settings. Hence, most received conceptual frameworks for assessing the democratic legitimacy of such standards seem either inapposite or underdeveloped. This paper is a preliminary attempt to clarify some of the issues involved in analyzing the democratic bases of corporate responsibility standards and to suggest some possible approaches to thinking about democracy and corporate responsibility standards in light of rapidly evolving practices.

MATT POTOSKI
Green Clubs and Architecture of Voluntary Programs


Voluntary programs are non-mandatory codes of conduct that firms pledge to apply to their internal operations. Applying club theory to voluntary environmental programs reveals how effective programs induce members to take progressive environmental action beyond what they would take unilaterally. Effective programs offer an excludable benefit via the club brand reputation that induces firms to take on the non-trivial costs of adhering to the club’s membership standards. To create a positive brand identity, green clubs must first overcome the Olsonian dilemma of inducing potential members to take on the costs of club membership, and second, overcome the shirking dilemma to insure members adhere to club standards. From this theory, we present a typology of green clubs and examine the policy implications for improving the design of voluntary programs.

ASEEM PRAKASH
Institutional Foundations of Corporate Social Responsibility


The key objective of a firm is to generate profits for its shareholders while adhering to the laws and regulations. Any firm pursuing this objective is indeed socially responsible. However, the term “Corporate Social Responsibility” (CSR) typically refers to firms’ adoption of beyond-compliance policies with the explicit objective of creating positive social externalities. In other words, CSR pertains to policies which require firms to incur private costs with an objective to create social externalities which may have the characteristics of public goods, club goods, or private goods. My presentation will explore how formal rule structures, institutions in short, influence profit-seeking firms' responses to such policies. While such institutions can be internal as well as external to firms, much of the CSR literature focuses on external institutions which are established by a variety of stakeholders. The key questions in the institutionalist research program therefore are: how do such CSR institutions get established, how do they function and get diffused, and how do they affect firm’s social and economic performance?


JOSE ANTONIO PUPPIM DE OLIVEIRA
Understanding “Social Upgrading” of Clusters and Small Enterprises in Developing Countries


Many clusters of small firms (SFs) in Less Developed Countries (LDC) are going beyond the “race to the bottom”, and being competitive and at the same time “socially upgrading”, which is to improve successfully their innovation capacity, social, environmental and labor standards, and health-and-safety issues. There is a significant literature on the competitiveness of cluster and SFs, but little research about how and why competitive small firms in LDC are socially upgrading. Issues like Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and public policies have influenced the initiatives for cluster social upgrading. The objective of this paper is to discuss a conceptual framework to understand what factors may lead SFs to organize themselves to overcome obstacles to collective action for social upgrading. The traditional cluster literature relies on the internal dynamics of the clusters for upgrading. Through interaction among cluster members (firms, supporting organizations, etc..), firms would learn from each other. This would help firms to innovate and develop new products, processes, functions and markets. Besides this literature, three other basic frameworks that explain the way firms can upgrade have been developed recently in the literature: upgrading through markets, through CSR and through better enforcement of regulation. Those frameworks can bring insights to understand social upgrading, though with limitations.

ROBERT REPETTO
Corporate Responsibility in the Public Policy Arena


One of the most important aspects of corporate social responsibility is the corporation’s role and actions in the public policy domain. Lobbying by corporations on public policy issues, at state, federal and international levels, has increased rapidly and is now a major enterprise. The consequences of such activities can have major repercussions, good or ill, on the corporation, its shareholders and other stakeholders. Recent research has shown that corporations differ markedly in their internal governance of lobbying, political contributions, and related activities. Best practice calls for internal oversight of important public policy interventions by the board of directors.

KARSTEN RONIT
Legitimacy and effectiveness of outside-participation


The many experiences with CSR (corporate social responsibility) forms part of a larger current of business activity concerned with the creation of norms and rules that relate to and benefit important stakeholders, and the society at large. These strategies are manifested in a huge variety of rule-systems and their formulation and implementation typically involve business through single corporations or representative industry outfits. They range from relatively vague statements to rigid rules making corporations comply. It is a very interesting feature that other stake-holders have been involved in the processes of developing rules and monitoring and sanctioning business behavior. Thus, some cases of corporate social responsibility are not reducible to pure industry self-regulation where firms elaborate their own rules. Most scholarly work has been concerned with either single firms or industry association but since the practices of regulation are much broader there is reason to highlight the role of other actors, diverse as they are. Outside-participation brings new elements to regulation, and this presentation discusses the different features of this “outside-participation”. Thus, in terms of legitimacy, broader concerns are typically involved in creating and running such arrangements but as participation varies, so does legitimacy. In terms of their effectiveness, these new participants may bring new knowledge and different experiences into arrangements and thus assist business in the development and operation of rules but the abilities of outside-participants to become partners that effectively match corporations vary.

DAVID VOGEL
Civil Regulation and Global Economic Governance


The last decade has witnessed a significant expansion of private, non-state or market-based regulatory frameworks to govern multinational firms and global supply networks. These global civil regulations seek to embed international markets into a framework of global norms and rules by establishing standards for responsible conduct, primarily with respect to environmental and labor practices, as well as mechanisms for promoting compliance with them. My recent research examines civil regulation as a dimension of global economic governance. It explains its contemporary growth as a political response to the perceived inability of national governments and inter-government organizations to adequately govern global firms and markets and describes the role of the role of governments, NGOs, firms, and international organizations in promoting it. It then assesses its effectiveness though a set of case-studies, two of which illustrate relatively effective private global governance, namely the Kimberley Accord and the Cambodian Textile Agreement, two of which reveal mixed or uneven results, namely Fair Trade and the Forest Certification Council, and one of which reveals little progress, namely the effort to reduce corruption in countries with important extractive industries. I argue that the relative effectiveness of global civil regulation is best compared to that of international treaties, many of which also rely on soft law and ‘naming and shaming’ and whose record of compliance and impact is also decidedly mixed. The long-term future of civil regulation depends on two factors. The first is the extent to which both global firms and producers in developing countries are able to derive clear economic benefits from acting more responsibly. Unfortunately to date the evidence that there is a business case for CSR remains weak. The second is the extent to which governments in developing countries are both willing and able integrate civil regulations into their own regulatory systems. Civil regulation is at best a second-best solution; it can compliment effective governmental institutions but it cannot substitute for them. Drawing on these findings and my current theoretical work, my proposed presentation will elaborate on the need for future research to stress the importance of: (1) understanding how national contexts shape CSR behavior; and (2) recognizing that proactive CSR is just one the of multiple corporate political strategies adopted in response to governmental and stakeholder demands (other strategies may include increasing levels of resistance to these demands).

CHARLENE ZIETSMA
Contests among Signals of Legitimacy in Uncertain Institutional Environments


Organizations require financial performance and social legitimacy to survive and thrive. When business environments are changing, the path to financial and social performance may be difficult to ascertain. We focus on situations in which stakeholders question the legitimacy of firms’ social and environmental performance, when the means by which firms should achieve this performance, and the standards to which they should conform, remain opaque. In the past, firms could count on regulators to identify the social and environmental standards which they should uphold. In the global business context, with globalizing non-governmental organizations (NGOs) seeking a say in governance of business operations (Teegan, Doh and Vachani, 2004), firms can no longer expect immunity from criticism if they simply comply with regulations. Under such uncertainty, firms often seek mechanisms to signal their legitimacy, such as certifications, awards, or participation in consultation processes. When such signalling mechanisms are themselves competing for the ability to confer legitimacy upon firms, however, the environment becomes difficult to navigate. We focus on contests for dominance among legitimacy-signalling mechanisms, which we identify as “proto-institutions” (Lawrence, Hardy & Phillips, 2002) since they are institutional arrangements which have been proposed, but not yet accepted, within the forest industry. We present a typology of strategies that firms, governments and NGOs use to promote their preferred proto-institution, and examine the success of these strategies in attracting support for each proto-institution. While the primary empirical context is the BC coastal forest industry, comparative data from the Finnish forest industry and the Dutch lumber trading industry is also discussed.

KENNETH W. ABBOTT
Professor of Law and Professor of Global Studies
Arizona State University



Kenneth W. Abbott joined Arizona State University in January 2006. He is Professor of Law and Willard H. Pedrick Distinguished Research Scholar in the ASU College of Law, and Professor of Global Studies in the ASU School of Global Studies. Before joining ASU, he was Elizabeth Froehling Horner Professor of Law and Commerce at Northwestern University School of Law. From 1999-2003, he served as Director of Northwestern’s Center for International and Comparative Studies, in which position he organized, supported and participated in many public programs and conferences on diverse international topics. He has also taught at Cornell and Berkeley law schools. Professor Abbott graduated from Harvard Law School, magna cum laude, and was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He practiced corporate and non-profit organizations law before turning to teaching. Professor Abbott’s teaching and research focus on international institutions and governance in a variety of substantive fields. He was a pioneer in the interdisciplinary study of international law drawing on international relations theory. He has written on international organizations, soft law, framework conventions, private and public-private standard-setting organizations, and other subjects relevant to this workshop.


MOTOKO AIZAWA
Head of the Policy and Standards Unit in the Environment and
Social Development Department
International Finance Corporation



Motoko Aizawa is Head of the Policy and Standards Unit in the Environment and Social Development Department of the International Finance Corporation (IFC), a private sector arm of the World Bank Group. She managed IFC's Safeguard Policy Update process, a three year project that concluded earlier this year with the approval by IFC's Board of Directors of the new Policy and Performance Standards on Social and Environmental Sustainability. She also serves as IFC's environmental and social development policy liaison with other World Bank Group institutions, OECD, multilateral and bilateral financial institutions, export credit agencies, and private banks, including the Equator Principles Financial Institutions.

Prior to her present position, Ms. Aizawa headed the Environmental Unit of IFC's Legal Department, which provided advice on business and environmental issues related to project financing in emerging markets. Ms. Aizawa is qualified as a barrister in England and Wales and a member of the bar of New York and Illinois, beginning her career negotiating international business transactions.



MONICA ARAYA
Consultant, Environment & Globalisation Division Env. Directorate
OECD



Monica Araya is Costa Rican and since 2001 has been working on corporate sustainability issues with a focus on emerging markets. Last year, she obtained her Ph.D. from Yale where she wrote a dissertation looking at drivers for environmental disclosure in corporate Latin America. Since 2006, she has worked on business motivations to tackle climate change. She is currently working at the OECD in Paris developing case studies that look into drivers for innovation at large corporations in the areas of energy efficiency and renewable energy.

Previously, she played an active role in the Latin American trade and environment debate –initially working at the Ministry of Foreign Trade in Costa Rica and later in the US as the director of the Sustainable Americas Project at the Global Environment & Trade Study (GETS) and the Yale Center for Environmental Law & Policy.





GREGOR BARNUM
Director of Corporate Consciousness
Seventh Generation



Gregor Barnum is the Director of Corporate Consciousness at Seventh Generation. He holds a Masters Degree (MAR) from the Yale Divinity School with a focus on ethics.

Gregor is the grandson of Walter Rockwell of Rockwell International. In the late 1980's when Rockwell was sited for environmental injustices, Gregor thought it to be a call to educate corporate America on incorporating the environment into the very fabric of the corporate strategy. As a result, he helped start and grow a corporate environmental management-consulting firm in New Haven, CT.

Gregor was also the Director of Operations/Business Development for o.s.Earth, Inc., an educational company that builds global and regional simulation events for both education and corporate markets. (The product was originally created by R. Buckminister Fuller and called The World Game.)



DAVID BARON
David S. and Ann M. Barlow Professor of Political Economy and Strategy,
Graduate School of Business and
Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science,
School of Humanities and Sciences,
Stanford University



David Baron began his academic career at Northwestern University where he taught for thirteen years in the Kellogg Graduate School of Management. He joined the Graduate School of Business of Stanford University in 1981. He has also been a visiting professor at the Université d’Aix-en-Provence in France, the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven in Belgium, and Harvard University. At Stanford he is the David S. and Ann M. Barlow Professor of Political Economy and Strategy in the Graduate School of Business and Professor of Economics and Professor of Political Science by courtesy in the School of Humanities and Sciences. He received a BS from the University of Michigan, an MBA from Harvard University, and a Doctorate in Business Administration from Indiana University. In 2005 he was awarded an honorary doctorate degree by the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.

He has published in the fields of industrial organization, economic theory, political science, business strategy, operations research, statistics, and finance. He has authored over 100 articles and 3 books, one of which is in its 5th edition. His principal research interests have been the theory of the firm, the economics of regulation, mechanism design and its applications, political economics, and nonmarket strategy. His current research focuses on political economics and strategy in the business environment. His research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Bureau of Health Services Research, Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Citicorp Behavioral Sciences Research Council. He is a Fellow of the Econometric Society and has served on the Board of Editors of the American Economic Review, the Quarterly Journal of Economics, the Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, Business and Politics, and Decision Sciences.

He has taught in the MBA, PhD, and Executive Education programs, receiving the MBA teaching award at Kellogg and the PhD teaching award at Stanford. He has been an innovator in the field of business and its social, political, and legal environment and is the author of the leading textbook in the field.




TIM BARTLEY
Fellow at the Princeton Center for Globalization and Governance and
Assistant Professor of Sociology
Indiana University-Bloomington



Tim Bartley is a fellow at the Princeton Center for Globalization and Governance and Assistant Professor of Sociology at Indiana University-Bloomington. He received his PhD in Sociology from the University of Arizona. His research examines the rise of transnational private regulation of labor and environmental conditions. Comparing across cases (labor standards and forest certification), this work seeks to explain the emergence of new regulatory fields and to untangle the complex and evolving relationships between public and private forms of governance. His publications include "Certifying Forests and Factories: States, Social Movements, and the Rise of Private Regulation in the Apparel and Forest Products Fields" (Politics & Society), "Corporate Accountability and the Privatization of Labor Standards: Struggles over Codes of Conduct in the Apparel Industry" (Research in Political Sociology), and "Regulating American Industries" (with Marc Schneiberg, American Journal of Sociology). In current and forthcoming work, he is theorizing the political dynamics behind the rise of private regulation, examining the role of foundations as “field-builders” for CSR, analyzing the factors that shape firms’ vulnerability to protest, and performing network analyses of the evolving relationships among actors in the arena of social and environmental certification.


STEVEN BERNSTEIN
Associate Professor, Department of Political Science
University of Toronto



Associate Professor, with research interests in global governance, global environmental politics, international political economy, globalization and internationalization of public policy and international institutions. Publications include, The Compromise of Liberal Environmentalism (Columbia University Press, 2001); Global Liberalism and Political Order: Toward a New Grand Compromise?, co-edited with Louis W. Pauly (SUNY Press, forthcoming) and refereed articles in European Journal of International Relations, Canadian Journal of Political Science, Global Environmental Politics, Policy Sciences, and Journal of International Law and International Relations, as well as a number of book chapters in edited volumes. His current research focuses on the problem of legitimacy in global governance. Steven Bernstein’s website is: www.chass.utoronto.ca/~sberstei.

JENNIFER BIRINGER
Senior Advisor
SustainAbility

Jennifer Biringer has been a Senior Advisor at SustainAbility since June 2006, where she advises clients including Apple Computers, Eli Lilly, Ford, Shell, Wachovia, and Wal-Mart on a variety of corporate responsibility issues including reporting strategy, stakeholder engagement, and policy development. She also heads SustainAbility’s US engagement with the food and beverage sector.

Prior to SustainAbility, Jennifer worked at the World Wildlife Fund from 2000 on forest conservation and climate change issues. As Manager of WWF’s North America Forest & Trade Network, she advised major US forest products purchasers and investors to develop policies and strategies to encourage responsible forest management. She worked with top companies to decipher their supply chains that influenced areas of high biodiversity importance, including Southeast Asia, Russia, the Amazon, and Central Africa, as well as emerging markets such as China. Within the climate arena, she contributed to the development of WWF’s portfolio on forest carbon sequestration and also climate change adaptation strategies.

Before WWF, Jennifer was Science & Policy Fellow at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston where she worked on a host of New England conservation topics including fisheries, agriculture, smart growth, and energy.

Jennifer has a Master of Arts in International Relations & Resource and Environmental Management from Boston University, a Bachelor of Science in Plant Biology (Ecology and Systematics) and a Bachelor of Arts in Anthropology from Arizona State University.




MILICA BOSKOVIC
Executive Director
Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance



Prior to joining the Yale School of Management as the Director of the Yale Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, Milica was the Assistant Director and Researcher/Writer for the New York State Commission on Public Authority Reform. The Commission, established by Governor Pataki to review New York’s public authorities and make recommendations on their governance and accountability, issued its final report in June 2006.
Ms. Boskovic has also held the positions of Director of the Division for International Business for the New York City Mayor's Office, Director of Marketing at the Weissman Center for International Business at Baruch College/CUNY, and Editor of two editions of the International Business in New York City Directory.
Milica has a Master‘s degree from Columbia University School of International and Public Affairs (SIPA) in International Media and Communications, focusing on Media and Transparency, a previous Master’s degree from the City University of New York in International Political Economy, and a Bachelor’s degree from New York University in Politics and History.



LAWRENCE BUSCH
University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and
Director of the Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards
Michigan State University



Dr. Lawrence Busch is University Distinguished Professor of Sociology and Director of the Institute for Food and Agricultural Standards at Michigan State University. He is coauthor or coeditor of eleven books including Plants, Power, and Profit: Social, Economic, and Ethical Consequences of the New Biotechnologies (Blackwell, 1991); From Columbus to Conagra: The Globalization of Agriculture (Kansas, 1994); and Making Nature, Shaping Culture: Plant Biodiversity in Global Context (Nebraska, 1995), The Eclipse of Morality: Science, State, and Market (Aldine deGruyter, 2000), Agricultural Standards: The Shape of the Global Food and Fiber System (Springer, 2006) and the forthcoming, Universities in the Age of Corporate Science: The UC Berkeley–Novartis Controversy (Temple 2006), as well as more than 150 other publications.

He is past president of the Rural Sociological Society, past president of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society and a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science. He recently was named Chevalier de l’Ordre du Mérite Agricole by the French government. Dr. Busch has worked in Brazil, China, France, Guinea, India, Kenya, Norway, Togo, and a number of other nations on issues related to food and agriculture. He has been a consultant to the International Service for National Agricultural Research and the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations. Dr. Busch’s work has focused on the organization of food supply and distribution chains from farm to fork. He has also written and spoken on a variety of social, political, and economic issues associated with food standards, both here and abroad. Dr. Busch's interests include food and agricultural standards, food safety policy, biotechnology policy, agricultural science and technology policy, higher education in agriculture, and public participation in the policy process.


TIM BUTHE
Assistant Professor of Political Science
and a Faculty Associate of the Center for European Studies
Duke University



Tim Buthe is Assistant Professor of Political Science and a Faculty Associate of the Center for European Studies at Duke University. His primary research interest is the politics of standards and regulations.

He is co-principal investigator of the International Standards Project, which focuses on the analysis of non-market mechanisms for setting technical standards, such as product and financial accounting standards, the international harmonization of standards, and its effects on domestic and global markets. He studied at Harvard University (B.A. in Government, 1995), the Johann-Wolfgang-Goethe-Universität (Frankfurt, Germany), and Columbia University (Ph.D. in Political Science, 2002). He joined the faculty at Duke in Fall 2004 after post-doctoral fellowships at Harvard and Stanford. His work has been published, inter alia, in the American Political Science Review, World Politics, and Governance.




JOANN CARMIN
Associate Professor, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology



JoAnn Carmin is an Associate Professor in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. She holds a PhD from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in Environmental Policy and Planning and an MS and BS from Cornell University in Management and Organizational Theory. Professor Carmin’s research focuses on the societal dimensions of environmental governance in both domestic and international contexts. She presently is working on two research projects. In the first, she is studying the how environmental organizations Central and Eastern Europe have responded to domestic change and transnational pressures since the fall of state-socialism. In the second, she is investigating the influence that NGOs and communities have on corporate decision-making and practices with respect to proposed gold mines. Professor Carmin has received research support from the National Science Foundation, the International Research and Exchanges Board, and the American Council of Learned Societies. In addition to authoring numerous scholarly journal articles and book chapters, she is co-author of Collaborative Environmental Management: What Roles for Government? (Resources for the Future) and co-editor of EU Enlargement and the Environment: Institutional Change and Environmental Policy in Central and Eastern Europe (Routledge).


BENJAMIN CASHORE
Associate Professor, Environmental Policy and Governance
Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies
Director of the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance



Benjamin Cashore is Associate Professor, Environmental Policy and Governance, specializing in Sustainable Forest Policy, at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He is Director of the Yale Program on Forest Policy and Governance and is courtesy joint appointed (Associate Professor) in Yale’s Department of Political Science. He holds a PhD in political science from the University of Toronto, BA and MA degrees in political science from Carleton University, and a certificate from Université d'Aix-Marseille III in French Studies. He was a Fulbright Scholar at Harvard University during the 1996-1997 academic year.

Cashore has held positions as Assistant Professor, School of Forestry and Wildlife Sciences, Auburn University (1998-2001); postdoctoral fellow, Forest Economics and Policy Analysis Research Unit, University of British Columbia (1997-1998), and as a policy advisor to the leader of the Canadian New Democratic Party (1990-1993).

Cashore's recent book, Governing Through Markets: Forest Certification and the Emergence of Non-state Authority (with Graeme Auld and Deanna Newsom) was awarded the International Studies Association’s 2005 Sprout prize for the best book on international environmental policy and politics. Published by Yale University Press in 2004, the book identifies the emergence of non-state market driven global environmental governance, and compares its support within European and North American forest sectors.

Cashore is also co-editor of Forest Policy for Private Forestry (with Teeter and Zhang), CAB International; and coauthor of In Search of Sustainability: The Politics of Forest Policy in British Columbia in the 1990s (with George Hoberg, Michael Howlett, Jeremy Raynor and Jeremy Wilson) from the University of British Columbia Press.

He is also author or co-author of several articles that have appeared in Governance, Policy Sciences, the Canadian Journal of Political Science, Business and Politics, Forest Policy and Economics, the Journal of Forestry, Canadian Public Administration, Canadian-American Public Policy, the Russian Journal of Sociology and Social Anthropology and the Forestry Chronicle, as well as chapters in several edited books published by Oxford University Press, Ashgate Press, Macmillan UK, Transaction Press, the University of British Columbia Press, the University of Toronto Press, CAB International, Forstbuch Press, and IUFRO.

In addition to the 2005 Sprout prize, Cashore was awarded (with Steven Bernstein) the 2001 John McMenemy prize for the best article to appear in the Canadian Journal of Political Science in the year 2000 for their article, "Globalization, Four Paths of Internationalization and Domestic Policy Change: The Case of Eco-forestry in British Columbia, Canada."



MARIAN CHERTOW
Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies



Marian Chertow has been Director of the Industrial Environmental Management Program at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies since 1991 and Assistant Professor since 2002. Within her broad interest area of environmental management and policy, her teaching and research focus on industrial ecology, business/environment issues, waste management, and environmental technology innovation. Current research interests are 1) The study of industrial symbiosis including geographically-based exchanges of wastes, materials, energy, and water within networks of businesses. The central focus of this work is a long-term study of business clusters in Puerto Rico. 2) The potential of industrial ecology to underpin ideas of the proposed Circular Economy law in China. Marian is also on the founding faculty of the Masters of Science in Environmental Management Program at the National University of Singapore where she teaches “Business and Environment.”

Marian is the editor of Thinking Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy with Daniel Esty (Yale University Press, 1997), now in its second printing, and also edited “Developing Industrial Ecosystems: Approaches, Cases and Tools,” with Michelle Portlock for the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Bulletin Series in 2002. Prior to Yale, Marian spent ten years in environmental business and state and local government including service as President of the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority charged with developing a billion dollar waste infrastructure system for the state. She is a frequent international lecturer and has testified on waste, recycling and other environmental issues before committees of the U.S. Senate and House of Representatives. She is on the Editorial Board of BioCycle Magazine and the Journal of Industrial Ecology, the Board of the Eco-Industrial Development Council, as well as on the Advisory Board of the Connecticut Clean Energy Fund, which is developing renewable energy projects to increase the availability of green energy.. She holds a BA from Barnard College, Columbia University, as well as an MPPM and a PhD in environmental studies from Yale University.



PETRA CHRISTMANN
Assistant Professor
Management & Global Business
Rutgers Business School, Rutgers University



Petra Christmann's research interests are in the areas of strategic management and international business with a focus on environmental management, firm self-regulation in the global economy, emergence of global standards and their effects on firm strategies, and international diffusion of management practices. Her award-winning articles have been published in several academic journals including the Academy of Management Journal, the Journal of International Business Studies, the Academy of Management Executive, and the Journal of International Management. Prior to joining Rutgers she taught at the Darden School at the University of Virginia, the University of Minnesota, and University of Southern California. She received her Ph.D. in strategy and international business from the Anderson Graduate School of Management at UCLA.



JENNIFER CLAPP
CIGI Chair in International Governance and
Associate Professor in the Environment and Resource Studies Department University of Waterloo



Jennifer Clapp is a CIGI Chair in International Governance and Associate Professor in the Environment and Resource Studies Department at the University of Waterloo. Her books include Paths to a Green World: The Political Economy of the Global Environment (co-authored with Peter Dauvergne, MIT Press, 2005); Toxic Exports: The Transfer of Hazardous Wastes from Rich to Poor Countries (Cornell, 2001); and Adjustment and Agriculture in Africa: Farmers, the State and the World Bank in Guinea (MacMillan, 1997). Dr. Clapp is also author of a number of research articles and book chapters on various themes linked to the global political economy and the environment, including the international trade in toxic waste, the role of transnational corporations in global environmental and food governance, developing countries in global trade negotiations.

Her current research projects focus on the global political economy of genetically modified food, the politics of food aid reform, transnational corporations and global food governance, and WTO agricultural trade negotiations. Dr. Clapp is co-editor of the journal Global Environmental Politics and she is a member of the editorial board of the journal Global Governance. She holds B.A. in Economics from the University of Michigan, and a M.Sc. and Ph.D. in International Relations from the London School of Economics.



MICHAEL E. CONROY
Former Program Director for Global Governance
Rockefeller Brothers Foundation



Michael E. Conroy is an economist who taught Economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Texas from 1971 to 1996, and who has spent the past 12 years working for two U.S. private foundations, the Ford Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. From 2003 to 2006 Dr. Conroy also had an appointment as a Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Scholar at Yale University’s School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.

At the University of Texas, Conroy taught and wrote about Latin American political economy, urban and regional economics, and the global economics of sustainable development. At the Ford Foundation, his work focused on the development of advocacy-led certification systems that encourage and reward higher social and environmental accountability on the part of corporations worldwide, with special emphasis on sustainable forestry, fair trade in agricultural commodities, sustainable tourism and ecotourism, responsible mining, and sustainable finance. At the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, his work focused on global governance, including support for new mechanisms of governance for the global commons and new global mechanisms for accountability on the part of multinational corporations. And at Yale he developed and taught, with Benjamin Cashore, a new seminar on markets, certification systems, and corporate accountability.

Conroy serves on the board of directors of TransFair USA (the Labelling Initiative for the U.S. affiliate of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International - FLO); as a member of the Supervisory Board of FLO-Cert (the monitoring and auditing branch of FLO); as an appointed technical advisory member of the board of directors of the Forest Stewardship Council; as chair of the board of the FSC Global Fund, and as a member of the board of directors of Earthworks (the Washington-based NGO that is leading the development of the Initiative for Responsible Mining Assurance).

Dr. Conroy’s latest publication, in press, is: Branded! How the ‘Certification Revolution’ Is Transforming Global Corporations, New Society Publishers (Spring 2007).



SASHA COURVILLE
Executive Director
ISEAL Alliance



Dr Courville is the Executive Director of the ISEAL Alliance, an open membership based association of leading social and environmental standards and certification systems. ISEAL members include the Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International (FLO), the International Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM), and the Forest Stewardship Council, among others. ISEAL works to strengthen the credibility and accessibility of voluntary standards and certification initiatives by identifying and supporting movements toward best practice as well as facilitating cooperation among initiatives to reduce overlaps and build synergies. ISEAL’s work extends across a wide range of issue areas from credibility in standard-setting and conformity assessment to measuring the impacts of certification and exploring mutually beneficial relationships between voluntary initiatives and governmental actors toward social and environmental objectives. More information on the ISEAL Alliance can be found at www.isealalliance.org.

Prior to this role, Sasha was a Research Fellow at the Regulatory Institutions Network at the Australian National University. She has been involved with a number of initiatives in the area of voluntary standards and certification systems from her founding role in the Fair Trade Association of Australia and New Zealand to the coordination of the Social Accountability in Sustainable Agriculture (SASA) project that brought together four international standards initiatives to explore how to improve social standard-setting and auditing across agricultural systems around the world, research on the global public-private regulatory dynamics in organic agriculture, her involvement in the verification working group to eliminate the worst forms of child labour and forced labour in the cocoa industry, and her work to strengthen the social justice component within organic agriculture, among others. Sasha holds an undergraduate degree in environmental studies from York University in Canada, a Masters in Development Studies from the London School of Economics and a PhD from the School of Resources, Environment and Society at the Australian National University.



KEN COUSINS
Faculty Research Assistant
Department of Government and Politics
University of Maryland



Ken Cousins is a Post-Doctorate Fellow in the Department of Government and Politics, currently researching how the US constitutional issue of "regulatory takings" has evolved over the past century throughout the federal court system. Broadly speaking, his research and teaching concern the politics and policy of natural resources and the environment, with a focus on the relationships between government and market actors at both local and global levels. Dr. Cousins earned a B.A. in Ecological Agriculture from The Evergreen State College, a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Washington, and his M.A. and Ph.D. (May 2006) in Political Science from the University of Maryland.

Before graduate studies, he served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Bolivia (1993-1995), teaching agriculture in a rural vocational-technical high school.



CLAIRE CUTLER
Professor of International Law and Relations
Political Science Department
University of Victoria



Dr. A. Claire Cutler is a Professor of International Law and Relations in the Political Science Department at the University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. She teaches international organization, international relations theory, and critical globalization studies and international law. Her publications include Private Power and Global Authority, Transnational Merchant Law in the Global Political Economy (Cambridge University Press) and Private Authority and International Affairs, State University of New York Press.



STEPHEN M. DAVIS
President, Davis Global Advisors
Fellow, Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance



Stephen M. Davis, Ph.D. is president of Davis Global Advisors, Inc. (www.davisglobal.com), the leading specialist in international corporate governance. DGA consults to institutional investors, professional business associations, stock exchanges, governmental bodies and international organizations such as the OECD, World Economic Forum, United Nations and World Bank Group. It publishes the weekly Global Proxy Watch newsletter. Dr. Davis is also a Fellow at Yale University School of Management’s Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance and board member at EOS, the shareowner engagement arm of Hermes Pensions Management. Before establishing DGA, in 1988, he pioneered the field of international corporate governance when he founded the global unit at the IRRC, in Washington, DC.

A thought leader, Dr. Davis’s book (with Jon Lukomnik and David Pitt-Watson) The New Capitalists: How Citizen Investors are Reshaping the Corporate Agenda (Harvard Business School Press, 2006) was lauded in the Wall Street Journal as one of the four “most influential books” on corporate governance, and by the Financial Times as one of the best business books of 2006. He has written regular opinion columns for the Financial Times and Compliance Week. His Shareholder Rights Abroad: A Handbook for the Global Investor (1989) was the first study comparing corporate governance practices in top markets. He has been a founding partner in GovernanceMetrics International and g3 [global governance group], a partnership working with the World Bank Group. He also co-chairs The Conference Board’s Working Group on Hedge Funds.

Between 2000 and 2003 Dr. Davis served as a Governor of the International Corporate Governance Network, which represents the interests of institutional shareowners with US$10 trillion in assets around the world. A co-founder of the ICGN, he has chaired its Share Voting Committee, Awards and Program Committees and served as ICGN representative to the OECD. Dr. Davis is a member of the UNEP steering group which produced global Principles for Responsible Investment, the International Investment Advisory Board of Euronext (the Paris/Amsterdam/Brussels/Lisbon exchanges), UK Prime Minister Tony Blair’s Policy Network working group on economic reform, the Expert Council of the Russian Institute of Directors, the Senate of the Academy of Corporate Governance (India), the editorial boards of the UK-based Governance newsletter and Eastern Europe’s Corporate Ownership and Control journal, the Independent Advisory Panel of Corporate Governance International (Australia), the Advisory Board of Sumitomo Trust & Banking’s Japan Investment Forum, and the advisory board of the European Commission’s governance project led by the Center for Economic Policy Research.

Dr. Davis earned his doctorate in international business and security studies at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University and completed undergraduate strudies at Tufts and the London School of Economics. Other books include Apartheid’s Rebels: Inside South Africa’s Hidden War (Yale University Press, 1987), which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize.


MAGALI DELMAS
Associate Professor
Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management
University of California Santa Barbara



Magali Delmas is an Associate Professor at the Donald Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at the University of California Santa Barbara. Her research examines the interaction between business strategy and public policy. More specifically she analyzes how various forms of regulation impact organizational change and how firms can influence regulation. Previous to embarking on an academic career she worked at the European Commission at the Directorate for Industry. She received her MA in political Science from the University of Paris Sorbonne, and her Ph.D. in Business Policy and Strategy from H.E.C. Graduate School of Management Paris.



TRAVIS ENGEN
Former President and CEO
Alcan

Travis Engen retired in March, 2006 after five years as President & CEO of Alcan. During his tenure, Alcan grew from $9 billion to $20 billion in revenues and created Novelis, an independent $8 billion revenue producer of rolled aluminium products. Mr. Engen served on the Board of Alcan as a Director from 1996 to 2006.

Previous to leading Alcan Mr. Engen was the Chairman & Chief Executive of ITT Industries. He joined ITT Corporation in 1985 as president and general manager, ITT Avionics. In 1987, he was selected as the president and CEO of ITT Defence. In 1991, he was elected as executive vice president of ITT Corporation, assuming responsibility for ITT’s manufacturing businesses. In subsequent years, his responsibilities grew to include ITT's forest products, insurance, communications and information services divisions when ITT Industries was formed. In 1995, he was selected as its first chief executive.

Mr. Engen serves on the Board of the Lyondell Chemical Company. He is Chairman of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, and Chairman of the Prince of Wales International Business Leaders Forum.

Mr. Engen is a graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) with a Bachelor of Science degree in aeronautics and astronautics. He was born in California, in 1944, and has been married since 1967. He has one daughter and enjoys vintage car racing.



RALPH ESPACH
Research Analyst
CNA Corporation


Ralph Espach recently received his Ph.D in Political Science at the University of California at Berkeley, and in May will begin employment as a Research Analyst specializing on Latin American affairs at the CNA Corporation in Alexandria, Virginia. Ralph’s research focuses on the politics of global environmental standards regimes and their impact on industries in developing states, particularly in the Southern Cone. He is the co-editor (with Vinod K. Aggarwal and Joseph S. Tulchin) of The Strategic Dynamics of Latin American Trade (2004), and (with Joseph S. Tulchin) of Latin America in the International System (2001)


DANIEL ESTY
Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy, jointly with Yale Law School
Director of the Center for Environmental Law and Policy
Director of the Yale World Fellows Program
Co-Director, Center for Business & Environment at Yale



Daniel C. Esty is the Hillhouse Professor of Environmental Law and Policy at Yale University. He holds faculty appointments in both Yale’s Environment and Law Schools. He is the Director of the Center for Business & Environment at Yale, the Yale Center for Environmental Law and Policy, as well as the Yale World Fellows Program.

Prof. Esty is the author or editor of eight books and numerous articles on environmental policy issues and the relationships between environment and corporate strategy, competitiveness, trade, security, performance measurement (data-driven decisionmaking), governance, and development. His most recent book, Green to Gold: How Smart Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, explains what every executive must know to manage and profit form the environmental challenges facing society and the business world.

Prior to taking up his current position at Yale, Prof. Esty was a Senior Fellow at the Institute for International Economics (1993-94), served in a variety of senior positions on the US Environmental Protection Agency (1989-93), and practiced law in Washington, DC (1986-89).

Prof. Esty spent the 2000-01 academic year as a visiting Professor at INSEAD, the European business school in Fontainebleau, France. In 2002, Prof. Esty received the American Bar Association Award for Distinguished Achievement in Environmental Law and Policy for “pioneering a data-driven approach to environmental decision making” and developing the global Environmental Sustainability Index. He served four years as an elected Planning and Zoning Commissioner in his hometown of Cheshire, Connecticut. He sits on the Board of Directors of several companies and environmental groups.



DAVE GALT
Legal Editor
Business and Legal Reports, Inc



Dave Galt is a Legal Editor at Business and Legal Reports, Inc. (BLR) in Old Saybrook, CT. He prepares federal and state regulatory summaries of environmental, safety and health related topics for Environmental Compliance [In Your State], What to Do About Personnel Problems, and Safety.BLR.com, and develops educational materials for workplace safety and environmental training programs. He also writes articles about business and the environment for state and regional pages in the Environmental Compliance newsletter, and manages the editorial production of the Environmental Training Library on CD-ROM. Dave also serves on the national Certified Environmental, Safety and Health Trainer (CET) Board of Certification.

Dave earned a master’s degree in environmental management from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies in 1997. While at Yale he focused on water resource policy, economics and law.


BRADFORD S GENTRY
Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar
Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies;
Co-Director of Yale’s Center for Business and the Environment



Bradford S. Gentry is a Senior Lecturer and Research Scholar at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, as well as Co-Director of Yale’s Center for Business and the Environment. Trained as a biologist and a lawyer, his work focuses on strengthening the links between private investment and improved environmental performance. He is also of counsel to the international law firm of Baker & McKenzie, an advisor to GE’s office of corporate environmental programs, and a member of the advisory boards of Climate Change Capital in London and the Trust for Public Land in Connecticut, as well as the governing board for the Institute for Ecosystem Studies in New York.


HARRIS GLECKMAN
Principal
Benchmark Environmental Consulting, Inc.



Dr. Harris Gleckman has lead research on transnational corporations, corporate sustainable development and environmental responsibility for some 30 years, principally as a staff member at the UN. With the UN Centre on Transnational Corporations, he undertook the first benchmark study of transnational environment management systems (1990) and authored for ECOSOC a set of criteria for sustainable development management (1992) .

He is presently leading a project funded by the UN University and Rockefeller Brothers Fund to explore establishing an international legal regime for the conduct of responsible business in zones of conflict.

He is a founder and Principal at Benchmark Environmental Consulting, Inc., an Associate Fellow at Chatham House, and a Visiting Assistant Professor at Manhattan College. Current areas of interest include:

(a) Evolution of corporate codes and guidelines: lessons learnt
(b) Trade & Investment Policy: the role of corporate social responsibility
(c) Technical barriers to Trade Agreement (WTO) and ISO standards,
particularly IS014001
(d) Corporate social responsibility in weak and failed states

Academic and Professional Experience

2003 – 2006; Head of the New York Office, UN Conference on Trade & Development
1998-2003; Programme Officer, Financing for Development, UN/DESA
1993 – 1998; Principal, Benchmark Environmental Consulting, Portland, Maine
1986-1993; Chief, Environment Unit, UN Centre on Transnational Corporations


GEOFFREY HEAL
Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at
Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business



Geoffrey Heal is Garrett Professor of Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. He is also Professor of International and Public Affairs in the School of International Affairs, Director of the Center for Globalization and Sustainable Development of Columbia’s Earth Institute, and Director of Graduate Studies for the Ph.D Program on Sustainable Development. He has served as Senior Vice De