Two experts open Sustainable Environmental Policy Speaker Series
Professor Paul R. Portney (department of economics, University of Arizona) and Bill Frerking (vice president and chief sustainability officer, Georgia-Pacific, LLC) will speak on “Environmental Policy: The Surprising Role of Business Profitability” to open Mizzou’s Sustainable Environmental Policy Speakers Series,
Portney and Frerking will speak at Monsanto Auditorium in the Bond Life Sciences Center at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Oct. 27.
The Sustainable Environmental Policy Speaker Series is a program coordinated by MU’s School of Natural Resources in cooperation with the Law School, College of Agriculture, Food and Natural Resources, the School of Journalism, and the College of Arts and Science.
The speaker series aims to bring to campus leading authorities from the academic, public and private sectors to discuss the latest developments and challenges to environmental policy at the local, national and international level. The speaker series is funded by Mizzou Advantage.
Portney joined the department of economics at the University of Arizona full-time in January of 2011. He was dean of the university’s Eller College of Management from July 2005-December of 2010. From 1972 through June of 2005, Portney was with Resources for the Future (RFF), an independent and non-partisan think-tank in Washington, D.C., that specializes in energy and the environment.
Portney serves as RFF’s CEO from 1995 until 2005. From 1979-1980, Portney served as Chief Economist for the White House Council on Environmental Quality. He has held visiting teaching positions at both the University of California at Berkeley (1977-1979) and Princeton University (1992-1994).
Portney received his B.A. in economics in 1967 from Alma College in Michigan and his Ph.D., in economics from Northwestern University. He is the author or co-author of 10 books, including Public Policies for Environmental Protection, and was named in 2005 as one of the 100 most-cited researchers in economics and business.
Bill Frerking is vice president and chief sustainability officer of Georgia-Pacific, a leading manufacturer and marketer of tissue, packaging, pulp, paper, building products and related chemicals. Frerking became the company’s first CSO in November 2007, responsible for overall sustainability efforts, including working with all businesses and staff groups to implement sustainability strategies, goals, measurement and reporting.
Frerking joined Georgia-Pacific in 2006. Prior to that, he was an attorney with Koch Industries for 10 years in the areas of environmental compliance, general counsel, compliance and ethics, and government and public affairs, and in private practice in Kansas City, Missouri, for 10 years.
A Missouri native, Frerking graduated from UMKC and received his law degree from MU.
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