EUGENE–A University of Oregon business professor is one of 11 researchers–and the only one in the Pacific Northwest–who will receive a 1998 Industrial Ecology Research Fellowship from the National Science Foundation and the Lucent Technologies Foundation, formerly Bell Laboratories.

Michael Russo, an associate professor of management at the UO’s Charles H. Lundquist College of Business, will receive $100,000 to support a two-year study of "green" business practices. His study will focus will on what motivates American electronics companies to seek environmental management certification from the International Organization for Standards (ISO 14001). The study also will look at whether companies that received the certification subsequently improve their environmental performance.

The fellowships, which total $1.1 million, award up to $50,000 per year for two years to support research and teaching to help industry design processes that prevent pollution and create environmentally friendly products.

The ISO 14001 standards, which were finalized in 1996, are intended to support a voluntary program under which corporations and other organizations can adopt a set of process-oriented practices for environmental management.

"The time is right to subject this system to a careful, dispassionate analysis," Russo says.

"Many corporations, wary of the cost and energy that must be invested in ISO 14001 registration, would like to see the system’s benefits demonstrated. Regulators are equally watchful, since successful voluntary regulation can be more efficient and effective than regulation by public bodies."

Researchers at 10 other universities, including Carnegie-Mellon University, the University of California at Berkeley and the University of Illinois, also received awards to study industrial ecology, which addresses the technical challenges of corporate environmental management.

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