Penn/Wharton
faculty, in consultation with business, NGO, and government
representatives, have established a new global initiative
on business and the environment. IGEL brings together business
leaders with professors at Wharton and other Schools at
Penn (Arts and Sciences, Design, Engineering, Law, Medicine,
and Veterinary Medicine) with a network of leading experts
in relevant fields from around the world to discuss and
research selected topics concerning business and the natural
environment. Seed funding for the development of this initiative
was provided by a Global Initiatives Fund grant in 2006-07
from Penn’s Provost and President. Ongoing activities
are being funded through the support of a corporate advisory
board. IGEL is administered by the Legal Studies & Business
Ethics Department at Wharton.
http://www.wharton.upenn.edu/faculty/acad_depts/lgstdept.cfm
Eric Orts
is the Guardsmark Professor at the Wharton School of the
University of Pennsylvania. He is a professor in the Legal
Studies and Business Ethics Department with a joint
appointment in the Management Department. He directs the
Initiative for Global Environmental Leadership (IGEL) at
Penn/Wharton. He serves also as an academic co-director of
the FINRA at Wharton certificate program for securities
compliance and regulatory professionals. His primary
research and teaching interests are in environmental law and
policy, corporate governance, and professional ethics. His
scholarly work is widely published in academic journals
(mostly law reviews) and books.
Prior to
joining Wharton's faculty in 1991, Orts practiced law at
Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York City
and was a Chemical Bank fellow in corporate social
responsibility at Columbia Law School. He has taught at the
University of Pennsylvania Law School and visited at the
UCLA School of Law, University of Michigan Law School,
Tsinghua University, Sydney Law School, and NYU School of
Law. He has also been visiting Fulbright professor in the
law department of the University of Leuven, the Eugene P.
Beard Faculty Fellow at Harvard University’s Center for
Ethics and the Professions, and a faculty fellow in the
Center for Business and Government at the Kennedy School at
Harvard.
Orts is a
graduate of Oberlin College (BA), the New School for Social
Research (MA), the University of Michigan (JD), and Columbia
University (JSD). He is a member of the bar of New York and
the District of Columbia, an elected member of the American
Law Institute, and belongs to a number of other professional
and academic associations.
At
Wharton, he teaches undergraduate and MBA courses in
environmental management and policy, corporate law and
governance, introduction to law, and professional ethics.
In addition to the FINRA at Wharton program, he has taught
in a number of executive education programs, including, the
Directors’ Institute (in Philadelphia, London, and San
Diego), the International Forum (in Philadelphia, Bruges,
and Kyoto), the Investment Management Consultants’
Association, and custom programs for companies such as
Merrill Lynch, Morgan Stanley, Philips, and Shell.
