33rd NATIONAL SPRING CONFERENCE
ON THE ENVIRONMENT
Financial Institutions, Corporate Stewardship,
and Sustainable Development:
Drivers for the Evolution of
U.S. Environmental Laws and Practice
June 10, 2005
Baltimore, Maryland
Sponsored by
ABA Standing Committee on Environmental Law
In Association with
ABA Section of Administrative Law & Regulatory Practice
ABA Section of Business Law
ABA Section of Environment, Energy, and Resources
ABA Section of International Law
ABA Section of Public Utility, Communications and Transportation Law
Environmental Law Institute
CERES (Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economies)
 SAM Indexes GmbH, the operating company for the
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes (DJSI)
United States Business Council for Sustainable Development
University of Maryland School of Law, Conference Host
With Financial Support from
Baker Botts LLP
Beveridge & Diamond, P.C.
Brown McCarroll, L.L.P.
Marsh Environmental Practice
Stikeman Elliott LLP
NEW: Follow-up White Papers
for Public Discussion
(click on link below) |
Click Here for Related Conference Materials.
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Is the U.S. statutory and regulatory framework outmoded?
The objective of the 2005 Spring Conference is to stimulate thoughtful and broad-based discussion about the evolution of the U.S. environmental statutory and regulatory framework and practice by engaging the broad range of stakeholders affected by the current environmental regulatory framework, and raising important questions about the viability of that framework to achieve urgent economic development, environmental protection, and social objectives in a context of market-based change.
This conference will focus on "drivers for change," including those that fall outside the traditional environmental regulatory compliance arena.
- What are the implications of changing security expectations, new toxicity information, product de-selection, toxic tort liability issues on a global scale, and corporate efforts to lessen their liability footprint when viewed in terms of how our current environmental laws and regulations mesh with these changing aspects faced by the business sector?
- As financial institutions, customers, and investor shareholder groups increase their expectations for bottom-line profitability through superior corporate social responsibility, and their corresponding requirements for enhanced environmental and social performance and reporting, how must U.S. federalstatutes and regulations are not evolve to support these changes?
- As community-based organizations, environmental groups, and other NGOs expand effortsto engagecorporateand governmental attention to the development of sustainable solutions to community environmental, economic, and quality of life challenges, and to participate in corporate and governmental problem-solving with respect particularly to projects that impact infrastructure and the environment, has the current legal and regulatory system adequately encouraged early engagement of a sufficiently broad range of stakeholders to achieve, replicate, and continue over time to improve capacity for time-and-cost-effective development of sustainable solutions?
- As companies work to gain market share through more robust corporate stewardship programs, how might U.S. environmental laws fail adapt to more effectively support and provide the flexibility needed to implement programs which often would designed to achieve competitive bottom-line results through result in superior environmental performance?
- Is the U.S. statutory and regulatory framework outmoded? As the doctrine principles of sustainable development, including the concept of partnering across sectors to achieve sustainable development objectives, becomes accepted by an increasing number of governmental, business, and civil society organizations, institutions, corporations governmental and business organizations and their stakeholders are finding that the development of innovative solutions adoption of many of its environmentally-related processes is hindered by conflicts with U.S. applicable laws or regulations.
Through a keynote presentation and two panels, the on-site morning session will identify and examine drivers for change – focusing primarily on the new and emerging global and domestic financial and competitive market pressures that will advance without regard to U.S. legislative initiatives, but also addressing the more widely understood management, structure and flexibility complaints that have long been leveled at the federal environmental regime. This session will examine the requirement by an increasing number of international financial institutions that projects must minimize their environmental footprint in exchange for funding; it will analyze the more aggressive investment stances being taken by the large pension-investment groups that will invest in those companies that pass through an environmental screening process; and it will look at how environmental actions taken by the European Union and the United Nations will affect American business regardless of political decisions made in Washington, DC.
Through a keynote presentation and case studies, the afternoon session will take these drivers and look at how our environmental legal system must evolve to keep pace with the legal and practical challenges that these drivers present. How are the demands being made by these sectors faring as companies try to respond favorably while complying with required permitting and reporting obligations under Federal environmental laws? Through specific case studies, this session will examine possible problems presented by our environmental laws and will begin an examination of how regulated entities could respond to these drivers if some of the restrictions currently imposed by laws were altered or removed.
A final analysis session will discuss the interactions among the issues raised in earlier sessions. It will seek to identify where the evolution of our environmental legal system has occurred and begin to examine what future level of change may be required by those drivers for change to better accommodate market influences. This session also will begin to outline a process that can be followed by the ABA/Standing Committee that can lead to further informed discussions of the topic and the development of a strategy that recognizes the changed and evolving atmosphere in which businesses are now operating. It is not expected that answers to this complex set of issues will result from the conference, but rather, that informed and ongoing discussion by stakeholders will begin and that a framework for taking substantive action can be developed. |
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| 8:00 a.m. |
Registration and Coffee |
| 8:30 a.m. |
Welcome and Introduction to Conference
Goals/Announcements/Introduction of Keynote Speaker: Elliott P. Laws, Counsel,
Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP,
Washington, DC and Professor Robert V. Percival, Director Environmental Law Program
University of Maryland School of Law Baltimore, MD
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| 8:45 - 9:30 a.m. |
Opening Keynote Address
“Financial Markets and Sustainability:
The Intersection of Law, Business & Investor Demand”
Alexander Barkawi, Managing Director
Dow Jones Sustainability Indexes,
Zurich, Switzerland
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| 9:30 - 11:00 a.m. |
“Financial Sector Drivers for Change” Financial institutions, customers, and shareholders in pursuit of profit are demanding greater transparency—including ecological and social impact reporting—for better analysis of corporate performance-driving global efforts for consensus-based change in reporting standards. Pension fund focus on an expanded range of fiduciary issues—in a context of detectable climate change, marine ecosystem decline, and increasing human life span—is beginning to impact investment strategies by some of the nation's largest funds. How must our environmental law framework adjust to support achievement of equally urgent environmental protection, economic development, and social objectives?
Moderator: Ann L. MacNaughton
Financial Advisor, Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc., Houston, TX
Speakers:
Kenneth P. Cohen, Vice President
Public Affairs, ExxonMobil, Irving, TX
Gary S. Guzy, National Environmental
Business Development Leader, Senior
Vice President - Environmental Practice
Marsh USA Inc., Washington, DC
Hewson Baltzell, President
Innovest Strategic Value Advisors
New York, NY
Mindy S. Lubber, President
CERES, Inc., Boston, MA |
| 11:00 - 11:15 a.m. |
Break |
11:15 a.m. -
12:45 p.m. |
“Corporate Stewardship: Bottom-Line Business Drivers for Change”
As companies work to gain market share through more robust corporate stewardship programs, how might U.S. environmental laws evolve to more effectively support and provide the flexibility needed to implement programs designed to achieve competitive bottom-line results through superior environmental performance? As law, business, and investor demand drive ongoing evolution of corporate management strategies, how must U.S. environmental protection statutes and regulations adjust? How are these and other market-based mechanisms fueling pressure for change?
Moderator: Andrew Mangan, Executive Director United States Business Council for Sustainable Development, Austin, TX
Speakers:
Alan D. Hecht, Ph.D., Director for Sustainable
Development, Office of Research & Development, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, DC
Susan M. Ponce, Vice President and Chief Counsel, ESG International, Halliburton Law Department, Houston, TX
Brad Raffle, Baker Botts LLP, Houston, TX
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| 12:45 - 2:00 p.m. |
LUNCH AND LUNCHEON KEYNOTE ADDRESS: "Forest and Climate Protection: New Pathways to Sustainability"
Speaker: Michael F. Northrop, Program Officer The Rockefeller Brothers Fund, New York, NY
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| 2:00 - 3:30 p.m. |
“Case Studies: Does Modernizing U.S. Environmental Law Require Fundamental Reform?”
An examination of cases highlighting the legal and practical obstacles presented by our environmental legal system to market-driven projects or plans. In view of demands for early and effective engagement of a sufficiently broad range of stakeholders, transparent triple-bottom-line reporting, sustainable development, and changing global security requirements, what obstacles are presented by new toxicity information, product de-selection, and toxic tort liability issues as companies try to respond favorably while complying with required permitting and reporting obligations under federal environmental laws?
Moderator: Marianne Lamont Horinko
Executive Director, Global Environment and Technology Foundation, Arlington, VA
Speakers:
Matt Hale, Director, Office of Solid Waste
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
Washington, DC
Amy Schaffer, Federal Regulatory Affairs
Manager, Weyerhaeuser Company
Washington, DC
Rena I. Steinzor, Professor, University of Maryland School of Law, Baltimore, MD
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| 3:30 - 3:45 p.m. |
Break |
| 3:45 - 5:00 p.m. |
“Final Analysis: Changing U.S. Statutes
and Regulations to Achieve Stewardship
and Sustainability”
An evaluation and synthesis of the issues raised
in the earlier sessions. The panelists will assess
how our environmental statutory and regulatory
scheme advances or impedes the goals of
sustainable development through such tools as
corporate stewardship, financial statement and
consumer disclosures, and market incentives.
They will also make recommendations for
legislative and agency actions to facilitate positive
movement by the corporate and financial sectors.
Moderator: Michael B. Gerrard, Partner
Arnold & Porter, LLP, New York, NY
Speakers:
John C. Dernbach, Director, Policy Office
Department of Environmental Protection
Harrisburg, PA
Dennis D. Hirsch, Professor
Capital University Law School
Columbus, OH |
5:00 p.m.
5:30 p.m. |
Closing Remarks
CONFERENCE RECEPTION |
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