My current research analyzes systems for regulating the environmental and social impacts of industrial activities. Through a range of projects, I have been examining trends in industrial development, and state, firm, and community responses to adverse impacts of industrialization. I work with NGOs and community-based organizations in the US and Asia to analyze the impacts of manufacturing on communities and workers, and to advance more effective strategies for regulating environmental and health hazards. I am currently working on projects in the US, Vietnam, China, and Indonesia.

Specifically, my research focuses on:

Corporate Transparency and Consumer Empowerment: I am currently exploring the dynamics of providing information about the environmental, social, and health effects of products and companies to consumers in the marketplace. The new Consumer Information Laboratory has three primary goals: (1) to analyze and improve the quality of information that is available to consumers on the social, environmental, and health impacts of products and companies; (2) to research the impacts of this information on consumer behavior; and (3) to develop tools to deliver better information to consumers in the most credible and user-friendly way possible.

Environmental Justice and Community-Driven Regulation. I am currently working on several projects that analyze participatory strategies for environmental planning and regulation. I have on-going research in Vietnam on processes of "Community-Driven Regulation". I am also interested in new community initiatives around environmental justice concerns in the US. I have been working for several years now on community monitoring of environmental issues in the US such as "bucket brigades," community health surveys, sniffer logs, and good neighbor agreements which support environmental justice campaigns.

Sweatshops and Independent Monitoring. I have been working over the last several years to analyze the growth of "sweatshop" production in industrialized and developing countries, and the emerging movements to curb these conditions. I am currently conducting case studies on the footwear sector (focusing on Nike, Reebok, and adidas), and on the transnational advocacy campaigns to influence multinational production practices. One response to sweatshop concerns has been the development of codes of conduct and monitoring regimes. I have conducted a number of studies to analyze labor monitoring systems, including efforts to better understand the conditions under which university-branded apparel is manufactured, and to develop strategies to enforce and verify that subcontractors are complying with codes of conduct.

Regulation of Global Production Systems. My longer-term research focuses on the challenges of regulating global supply chains and of more effectively implementing environmental and labor standards around the world. I am particularly interested in the role of the state in the regulation of multinational firms and production chains, and in the potential for state-society synergy in environmental and labor regulation. I also currently analyzing firm strategies to integrate labor and environmental standards into global management systems.

Information-Based Regulatory Strategies. For the last several years I have been analyzing information-based strategies for environmental management and regulation such as the Toxics Release Inventory and Proposition 65 in the US, and the PROPER program in Indonesia. I am now interested in looking in more detail at advanced information tools for community analysis and participation in environmental management. Ultimately I hope to analyze both web-based information tools and low-tech strategies for supporting community (and consumer) participation in environmental and social development decisions, and information systems for evaluating the labor and environmental impacts of specific products and production processes.

Industrial Ecology. I also have a continuing interest in the area of industrial ecology. Based on past work in pollution prevention and cleaner production (including technical waste audits of specific factories), I am now looking more broadly at tools for improving the environmental performance of industry (such as design for environment, life cycle assessment, environmental management tools, etc.) and the barriers and incentives for the effective use of these tools. I am particularly interested in the development and implementation of information tools useful to the public.

All of this work involves collaborations with other academics, policy-makers, firms, and community groups in both the US and a number of developing countries. A major on-going collaboration involves the Project on Public Problem Solving - a joint research project with scholars at Columbia Law School and Harvard - to analyze new experiments in pragmatic, deliberative problem solving around social and environmental controversies.