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Alumni and Friends: La Follette Notes Fall 2004
Professor, international conference to study environmental regulation, application in Wisconsin
To set the stage for a study of public-private agreements regarding environmental regulation, Graham Wilson, a professor with the La Follette School of Public Affairs, traveled in Bavaria, Germany, in October as part of a delegation of representatives from Wisconsin industry, government and environmental organizations.
Conference to focus on best environmental practices
An international conference that will bring together environmentalists, policy-makers and business representatives in a rare three-way exchange to explore best environmental policy practices in a conference on Monday, Jan. 31, 2005, at the Monona Terrace convention center in Madison, Wisconsin.
The conference, Environmental Policy: International Possibilities and Opportunities in Law, will kick off La Follette School professor Graham Wilson’s three-year study of environmental regulatory innovations in Wisconsin, and examine how experiments in one region can be transferred to other parts of the world.
Registration is being handled online through University of Wisconsin-Extension.
Wilson and the others examined collaborations by businesses and regulators to further economic and environmental objectives. The goal is to find ideas to implement in Wisconsin under its Green Tier law that Gov. Jim Doyle signed into law on April 16, 2004.
Green Tier seeks to achieve environmental and economic gain by allowing responsible companies to improve their environmental performance while boosting productivity and cutting costs. Wilson is beginning a three-year study of innovative and entrepreneurial forms of environmental governance that engage all parts of civil society in protecting the environment, not just government regulators and targeted businesses.
Wisconsin’s Green Tier law is based on policy established in the German Free State of Bavaria, a world leader in identifying and implementing innovative public-private agreements.
Wilson says the trip to Bavaria was a valuable opportunity to see how public-private partnerships achieve the best results. “In Bavaria we saw examples of how a governance system can work,” Wilson says.
“They are achieving real environmental results through the cooperation of government, business and environmental groups — a practice I hope we can import,” Wilson adds.