I am currently Associate Professor of Sustainable Business at Rowan University. I am also Director of the Rowan Center for Responsible Leadership housed in the Rohrer College of Business. I am proud to have developed and help supervise (with colleagues in the College of Business and School of Earth & Environment) a joint degree program offering students the opportunity to complete a BA in Environmental & Sustainability Studies alongside a Masters’ in Business Administration, because businesses are perhaps the most powerful tools we have to bring about sustainability goals.
My research, teaching, and professional practice are all focused on sustainable business.
Current projects examine the roles for markets and financial instruments in enacting environmental and sustainability goals (Markets for the Environment). In particular, some colleagues and I are studying the potential for financial products called exchange-traded derivatives (e.g., futures contracts) to improve the performance of markets for recyclable materials in the US. This project, supported by the New Jersey Dept. of Environmental Protection and undertaken in collaboration with industry partners, explores a new avenue for creating a viable, transparent, and active market for buying and selling recyclables. I have also been studying New Jersey’s own (highly successful) transfer-of-development-rights marketplace, the Pinelands Development Credit program. The PDC program allows landowners to receive cash in exchange for entering their land into a conservation program.
I also research the linkages between sustainability and sports - golf in particular (Sustainable Golf). Golf gets a bad rap, and in some cases rightfully so. But as a sport whose playing surfaces cover a land territory about the size Peru, there is considerable positive that the sport and its keepers can contribute to sustainability. I do both scholarly and applied research (some with clubs) to help improve golf’s sustainability performance. Along these lines, I am also a member of the Sport Ecology Group.
With colleagues, I’ve also been active in examining — and developing applications for — artificial intelligence in the world of sustainability impact reporting.
Some of my other major projects to date have focused on the history and future of waste management in New Jersey (Garbage in the Garden State). This work has been supported by the National Science Foundation's Science, Technology & Society Program. I have also conducted research looking at other aspects of environmental policy and governance in the US and around the world (EPG). I was previously the co-director of the "Cultivating the Environmental Humanities" project (2017-2020), made possible through the support of the Humanities Connections program at the National Endowment for the Humanities.
From January 2018 to September 2021 I served as Commissioner on the New Jersey Pinelands Commission where I was also a founding member of the Land Use, Climate Impacts, and Sustainability sub-committee. In July 2019 I was named Chair’s Designee to Pinelands Development Credit Bank, an institution facilitating the market-based transfer of development rights in the Pinelands in order to permanently protect sensitive ecosystems and landscapes.
You can explore more information about previous projects, courses I teach, and an abbreviated curriculum vitae (CV) in the links below.
I also run several commercial ventures:
I am the co-founder of Double Albatross Design, a consulting firm which assists golf courses in improving their sustainability performance.
I am the co-founder of ESG Data Consulting, a firm which aids small and medium businesses in sustainability impact reporting and implementing sustainability strategy.
I am the developer of the Business School Case Study Coach, a custom GPT that helps students improve the quality of their case study assignments.
Connect with me on LinkedIn!
