NEW GW CENTER AIMS TO HELP GOVERNMENTS, BUSINESSES AND NON-PROFITS CONSIDER GREENER SOLUTIONS

To help address this issue, The George Washington University, with founding partners ICF Consulting and World Resources Institute (WRI), have launched the Center for Environmental Policy and Sustainability Management (CEPSM). The Center was established to develop, conduct and disseminate research in environmental policy and sustainability management. It provides information to decision-makers throughout the world on how to improve their respective policies, plans and programs.

"Governments, businesses and non-profit organizations are increasingly identifying and managing environmental issues, both for their own success and for the benefit of their numerous stakeholders, including the natural environment," said Mark Starik, the Center. s director and an associate professor of strategic management and public policy at GW. s School of Business and Public Management. "Although attention to human organization and natural environment issues has increased in the past three decades, the complexity of environmental policies also has risen significantly, requiring ever more sophisticated research and analyses."

The Center is concentrating on three primary areas. The first focus is multi-stakeholder environmental interactions, or the salient features of past, present and projected inter-organizational relationships regarding the natural environment. The second focus is environmental information phenomena, including environmental information systems and environmental audits, reports and indicators. Third, the Center researches global and local sustainable development that attempt to integrate environmental, social and economic quality-of-life factors.

More than two dozen GW faculty members and graduate students are affiliated with the Center. These are individuals with established research track records in environmental and energy technology forecasting; sustainable tourism infrastructure analysis; the "greening" of businesses and universities; local environmental emergency planning and a number of other environmental policy and sustainability management topics. The Center will also benefit from the work of consultants and advisors from ICF and WRI.

"We are pleased to join GW in launching this important institution," said Peter Linquiti, executive vice-president of ICF Consulting in Fairfax, Virginia. "There is an increasing need for long-run solutions that encompass the many dimensions of resource management challenges. Our partnership with the Center will help us further develop such solutions and allow us to better serve our clients." ICF Consulting helps its clients manage the world. s natural, physical, economic and community resources in a sustainable way by providing services and products to help optimize energy resources, meet environmental challenges, foster economic and community development, enhance transportation projects and policies and manage information technology resources.

"WRI is delighted to be a partner in the Center at GW, which already has one of the top management schools in the country for the study of sustainability issues in management. GW. s particular leadership in the study of stakeholder dynamics will strengthen WRI. s efforts to develop environmental policy that meets society. s needs while protecting the natural environment," said Rick Bunch, business education director at the World Resources Institute. WRI is an independent center for global environmental policy, including a focus on private sector and business education programs.

GW. s School of Business and Public Management is one of the nation's top rated schools in environmental policy and management research, administration and curriculum. The School currently offers an Environmental Policy and Management track in its Masters of Public Policy (MPP) degree program. This spring the School will also offer a Masters of Business Administration (MBA) field of concentration in Environmental Policy and Management. For more information, visit www.gwu.edu/~cepsm or call 202-994-5621.

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