UBC Professor Visits CBS Maritime

Listers research focuses on questions regarding the business case for sustainability and the implications of the rise of CSR ‘green shipping’ private standards to regulatory effectiveness.

Dr. Lister holds a PhD in resource management (UBC), an MBA in corporate strategy (Sauder School of Business), and an Honours BA in economics and environmental studies (University of Toronto). Her work concerns the political economy of global environmental governance with a particular interest in the politics of global supply chain sustainability management. She is the author of several peer-reviewed articles and 3 books including Eco-business: A Big-Brand Takeover of Sustainability (with Peter Dauvergne) released by The MIT Press in 2013. Jane has over 15 years of experience as a sustainability practitioner. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked with the Global Risk Management Practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers (1995-2001), and as an environmental policy analyst with the Ontario provincial government (1989-1993).

Jane is also the co-author of a recent UBC study funded by the Nippon Foundation on The Role of CSR in the International Shipping Sector. The study evaluates the current state of CSR activities in the shipping industry and provides insights into future trends and opportunities to advance the shipping industry’s engagement in CSR activities as a strategy for contributing to the future sustainability of the global marine environment. Specifically, the study documents the interaction of voluntary CSR standards with international shipping regulation; provides a framework for addressing CSR in shipping; and identifies the growing risk to the industry from inadequate regulatory coordination.

As an extension of this research, CBS Maritime together with the Sustainability Platform co-hosted a joint UBC-CBS workshop in November 2013 on the topic of CSR and global shipping. The workshop was planned to coincide with the previous day’s Northern European Conference on CSR in Shipping and was co-led by Associate professor Henrik Sornn-Friese and Professor Hans Krause Hansen in coordination with Dr. Lister. It was attended by 24 invited participants that included 4 from industry (Maersk, Norden, Torm, Danish Shipowner’s Association) and 20 from academia including Genova, Cardiff, Antwerp and KühneLogistics universities, as well as CBS, UBC and Wellesley College in the United States. Jane’s article “Green Shipping: Governing Sustainable Maritime Transport” presented and discussed at the workshop will be published in the coming issue of Global Policy.

Building on the success of the workshop, Jane will be working with CBS Maritime along with Hans Krause Hansen (ICM) and Stefano Ponte (DBP) to launch further cooperation between CBS and UBC on maritime CSR governance and sustainability research.