As an undergraduate economics major at Keio University in Japan, Moeko Saito wrote a thesis entitled “Free Trade and the Environment.” She has continued to maintain her interest in the relationship between business and environment, or sustainable enterprise, during two years at the Nicholas School and in her new position at the World Bank.

As an undergraduate economics major at Keio University in Japan, Moeko Saito wrote a thesis entitled “Free Trade and the Environment.” She has continued to maintain her interest in the relationship between business and environment, or sustainable enterprise, during two years at the Nicholas School and in her new position at the World Bank.

At the Nicholas School, Moeko's focus was on sustainable coffee, a concept that encompasses growing practices (organic, shade-grown) and fair trade. She spent the summer of 2002 in Huatusco, Mexico, where she studied the environmental, economic, and social aspects of sustainable coffee production. She says, “The experience made me realize that most local communities lack financial and technical capacity for development activities even though there exists a lot of goodwill and ideas for sustainable development.”

When she came back to Durham that fall, she turned her attention to the consumer aspects of sustainable coffee with the idea that “market expansion of sustainable coffee is critical in order to support the livelihood of the local coffee growers.” She did an internship at Counter Culture Coffee, a local specialty coffee company, in order to learn about their marketing practices, and she developed a consumer survey on specialty coffee, with the goal of designing a better promotional strategy for sustainable coffee. At the same time, she took courses on sustainable enterprise at the Kenan-Flagler School of Business at the University of North Carolina.

Then, with the knowledge she gained in Mexico, at Counter Culture, and through the consumer survey, she wrote a business plan for a Sustainable Coffee Initiative that would use social marketing to displace commodity-traded coffee with sustainable coffee. This business plan served as her Master’s Project and was submitted to the Duke Start-Up Challenge, an entrepreneurship competition organized by students at the Fuqua School of business.

Does Moeko enjoy coffee herself? She reports that she never drank much coffee until she focused on the subject for her Master’s Project, but now she consumes it frequently, and tries whenever possible to drink sustainable coffee. One of her projects for Counter Culture was organizing a coffee tasting, much like a wine tasting in that participants described the taste and aroma of the coffee.

Update 2003 -

At the World Bank, sustainable development is still very much part of Moeko's work, but unfortunately she is not dealing with coffee for the time being. She is involved in reviewing and evaluating all World Bank projects involving Forestry, Land Resource Management, and Natural Resource Management. Her job will allow her to continue her international travel; in the near future she will travel to Kenya to assist in evaluating the Kenyan Agricultural Productivity Project. In addition, she will be involved in a research project that investigates community-driven development along with natural resources management. Her job will also allow her to continue her international travel.

Update 2005 -

Still employed by the World Bank as a Junior Professional Associate, Moeko continues to work for the forest team, the land resources management team, and the natural resources management thematic group. She juggles a variety of projects, including one that uses case studies to demonstrate the positive impacts of forest initiatives on the livelihoods of the poor. The outcome of this work will be presented at a conference and used to develop a resource kit for use by forest agency staff and decision makers in key countries. In the forestry arena, she is also part of the World Bank’s Forest Law Enforcement and Governance initiative, intended to reduce illegal logging and curb the associated degradation of forests.

In addition, Moeko is studying whether Community Driven Development projects are appropriate tools to encourage sustainable natural resource management, and she has conducted a portfolio review of World Bank projects with natural resource management components. The resulting document has been widely circulated among World Bank staff members working on natural resource management.

Hindsight -

Moeko reports that what she most appreciates about the Nicholas School is the integration of science with policy. Working on natural resource management issues at the World Bank, she has found it essential to have at least a basic knowledge of both. In addition, her field experience during her internship in Mexico enabled her to understand critical issues at a local, or micro, level.

Spring 2005 --

In late spring 2005, Moeko traveled to the state of Andhra Pradesh, India, to evaluate two World Bank–funded projects that had introduced Community Driven Development (CDD) approach in their project design. CDD has a key objective to ensure participation and ownership of community in facilitating and managing resources, and has been implemented in part in response to criticism of the World Bank’s historical approach of top-down development initiatives. But some question whether CDD can deal with the social and political complexities inherent in large scale projects. Moeko’s trip to India was part of a research project she designed to analyze recent World Bank CDD projects. On her mission to India, she was accompanied by her supervisor Peter Jipp, another Nicholas School graduate.

View a Slide show of Moeko's photos from India >

To view the video, choose from the formats listed after each caption:

1. Moeko discusses how a wide range of course options can make for better environmental problem-solving.
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2. She talks about her emerging interest in sustainable business development.
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3. She talks about her firsthand experience studying fair trade in Mexico during her internship.
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4. Moeko talks about challenges she faced as an international student and the support she received in overcoming them.
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5. Moeko says that by allowing students to take classes at other institutions, the Nicholas School gives students the freedom to focus on a well-defined area of interest.
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