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Michael Conroy

Michael E. Conroy is a principal of Colibrí Consulting – Certification for Sustainable Development. He is an economist who taught Economics and Latin American Studies at the University of Texas, from 1971 to 1996, and who then spent 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 is chairman of the board of directors of TransFairUSA (the US Labeling Initiative of Fairtrade Labelling Organizations International - FLO). He serves 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, 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), and as a member of the board of the Center on Ecotourism and Sustainable Development.

Dr. Conroy's latest publication is Branded! How the 'Certification Revolution' is Transforming Global Corporations (New Society Publishers, 2007).

Focus: Business, Cities, Economy, Environment, Ethics, Globalization, Governance, Trade, Mexico, United States, Americas, Global

Related Resources:

• Branded! How the Certification Revolution is Transforming Global Corporations (Audio)

Download: Branded: How the Certification Revolution Facilitates New Ethics in International Affairs (PPT, 5.47 M)

Last Updated: Apr 04, 2008