Research

PROJECT GOALS

Our integrated global economy poses a problem of governance: as firms transcend national borders, their power extends beyond traditional regulatory mechanisms. Given growing environmental and social challenges, government and civil society (including business actors) are seeking new ways to control the behavior of firms. Social and environmental certification, in a variety of institutionalized forms, is increasingly emerging as a solution. However, scholars do not fully understand how certification institutions are created and replicated, or how they develop and compete with one another. To date, little is known about the effectiveness of these institutions. Acknowledging the importance of certification institutions as a new form of governance, faculty at Duke University launched the Project on Social and Environmental Certification with funding from the Ford Foundation in April of 2000. The project is devoted to the study of the emergence, evolution, diffusion, and effectiveness of social and environmental certification institutions.

The project's definition of certification institutions (formal rules, norms, standards and procedures voluntarily adopted by firms, and the organizations that draft, monitor, and enforce compliance with these standards) encompasses codes of conduct, verification systems, and labeling schemes in operation at the national and/or global levels. Based on a theoretical framework derived from seminal works in political science, sociology, and business organization, the project rigorously examines both industries in which certification institutions have emerged (including the chemical, coffee, forest products, and apparel industries) and industries in which they have yet to emerge (including the automobile and various service industries).

During its initial phase (2000 and 2001), the Project on Social and Environmental Certification has made a variety of contributions to the study of this important topic. Several articles are in production; the first of these, "The NGO-Industrial Complex," appeared in the July-August 2001 issue of Foreign Policy. Course modules, including those used in a course on Business and the Environment (developed by Garcia-Johnson and Sasser) and in Gereffi's Organizations & Global Competitiveness course, were successfully delivered in 2001.

The general study of certification institutions was further advanced through the Seventh Annual Colloquium on Environmental Law and Institutions, "Certification Institutions and Private Governance: New Dynamics in the Global Protection of the Environment and Workers' Rights." Held December 6-8 2001, the colloquium brought together academics and practitioners from non-governmental organizations, multinational corporations, and certification institutions. Click here for PowerPoint Presentations and Other Papers. The Project's work on the emergence, evolution, diffusion, and effectiveness of social and environmental certification institutions will be collected and published as a book by 2003.

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BIOGRAPHIES

RONIE GARCIA-JOHNSON is Assistant Professor of Environmental Policy at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. Dr. Garcia-Johnson received a BA in History and Literature from Harvard University and a PhD from the University of Michigan in Political Science. Her book, Exporting Environmentalism: U.S. Multinational Chemical Corporations in Brazil and Mexico, was published by the MIT Press (June 2000) in the Global Environmental Accord: Strategies for Sustainability and Institutional Innovation series. The book, which explains how and why multinational chemical corporations are raising environmental, health, and safety standards in host countries, and explores how exported environmentalism is affecting relationships with non-governmental organizations and government in Brazil and Mexico, won the 2001 International Studies Association Sprout Award. Dr. Garcia-Johnson's current research interests lie at the intersection of the studies of international relations, business, and the environment. In addition to her work on the Project on Social and Environmental Certification, she is conducting research to assess the effectiveness of an agreement involving U.S. and Brazilian transgovernmental actors, multinational corporations, and domestic companies. Dr. Garcia-Johnson teaches courses in global environmental politics and policy, resource and environmental policy, and transnational environmental actors. With Sasser, Garcia-Johnson teaches a course on business and the environment.

GARY GEREFFI is Professor of Sociology and Director of the Markets and Management Studies Program at Duke University. He received his BA in Sociology from the University of Notre Dame and his MA and PhD in Sociology from Yale University. Dr. Gereffi has published several books and numerous articles on business-government relations in various parts of the world. His books include: The Pharmaceutical Industry and Dependency in the Third World (Princeton University Press, 1983); Manufacturing Miracles: Paths of Industrialization in Latin America and East Asia (Princeton University Press, 1990), co-edited with Donald L. Wyman; and Commodity Chains and Global Capitalism (Praeger Publishers, 1994), co-edited with Miguel. Korzeniewicz. Dr. Gereffi's research interests deal with regional integration, the competitive strategies of global firms, and industrial upgrading in East Asia and Latin America. Currently, Dr. Gereffi is editing a book on the transformation of the North American apparel industry since the passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1994. He is also carrying out a comparative analysis of new patterns of regional and global integration in the apparel, automotive, and computer industries. Dr. Gereffi teaches courses in economic sociology, national development, and international competitiveness.

ERIKA N. SASSER is Visiting Assistant Professor at the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences at Duke University. Dr. Sasser received her AB from The Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and completed her PhD in the Nicholas School of the Environment at Duke in 1999. Dr. Sasser is currently working on a book entitled Cultures of Property: The Impact of Property Rights Traditions on Forest Management in North America. Based on her dissertation, the book investigates the impact of social beliefs about property rights on natural resource management and the use of forest resources in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. This book reflects Dr. Sasser's larger research interest in land-use and property-rights issues. Dr. Sasser's other research interests include the evolving regulatory process and its impacts on social actors, firms, and environmental policy outcomes. She is also concerned with the study of environmental and natural resource use in the developing world. Dr. Sasser teaches courses on environmental policy in North America. These courses include domestic U.S. policy as well as the comparative environmental policy of the United States, Canada, and Mexico. With Garcia-Johnson, Sasser teaches a course on business and the environment.

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SELECTED PAPERS

Ronie Garcia-Johnson, Gary Gereffi, Erika Sasser. October 2000."Certification Institution Emergence: Explaining Variation." [PDF:explaining_variation.pdf] [Word:explaining_variation.doc]

Ronie Garcia-Johnson. February 2001. Beyond Corporate Culture: Reputation, Rules, and the Function of Certification Institutions. Working Paper #1: Duke Project on Social and Environmental Certification. [PDF:beyondcorpcult.pdf] [Word:beyondcorpcult.doc]

Ronie Garcia-Johnson. February 2001. Multinational Corporations and Global Trade Associations: Moving First to Shape a Green Global Production Context. Paper presented at the International Studies Association Conference, Chicago, IL. [PDF:rgj_isa_mncs.pdf] [Word:rgj.isa.mncs.doc]

Erika N. Sasser. March 2001. "Gaining Leverage: NGO Influence on Certification Institutions in the Forest Products Sector." Paper presented at the Forest Policy Center's Global Initiatives and Public Policies: First International Conference on Private Forestry in the 21st Century, Atlanta, Georgia, March 26, 2001. [PDF:gaining_leverage.pdf] [Word:gaining_leverage.doc]

Gary Gereffi, Ronie Garcia-Johnson, and Erika Sasser. July/August 2001. The NGO-Industrial Complex. Foreign Policy. Available at http://www.foreignpolicy.com/issue_julyaug_2001/gereffi.html

Ronie Garcia-Johnson. November 2001. Certification Institutions in the Protection of the Environment: Exploring the Implications for Governance. Paper presented at the 23rd Annual Research Conference of the Association for Public Policy, Analysis & Management, November 1, 2001, Washington, DC.
[PDF:rgjappamnov.pdf] [Word:rgjappamnov.doc]

Ronie Garcia-Johnson, Gary Gereffi, Erika Sasser. "The Emergence of Social and Environmental Certification Institutions."

Ronie Garcia-Johnson. Transaction Costs, Discretion, and the Development of
Certification Institutions: The Case of the Chemical Industry's Responsible
Care®.

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PROCEEDINGS from the Seventh Annual Colloquium on Environmental Law and Institutions, "Certification Institutions and Private Governance: New Dynamics in the Global Protection of the Environment and Workers' Rights"

Speaker Presentations:
Participant talks
PowerPoint presentations

Rapporteur's Report

7th Colloquium Participant Papers

7th Colloquium Website