Trade and Sustainability:
From Local to Global
Welcome!
This website is a small contribution to making this world more fair and just by focusing on environmental, social, and economic equity.
I have used my travels in Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, England, and beyond explore grassroots tools of sustainable development. They include Fair Trade, Direct Trade, cooperatives, local production and purchasing, and microfinance. As a teacher, writer, and concerned citizen, I want to share discussion of these interests with others.
I began by studying trade agreements including the North American Fair Trade Agreement (NAFTA), The Dominican Republic - Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Meso-American Development Plan (originally called the Plan Puebla Panama). I realized that those agreements facilitate unsustainable development. Therefore, my focus over the past twenty years has been and continues to be on finding better ways to engage in trade while protecting the Earth and all of her people.
Thank you for taking time to learn and think about sustainability.
Paulette L. Stenzel,
Professor of Sustainability & International Business Law, Broad College of Business, Michigan State University
This website is a small contribution to making this world more fair and just by focusing on environmental, social, and economic equity.
I have used my travels in Mexico, Ecuador, Guatemala, Nicaragua, England, and beyond explore grassroots tools of sustainable development. They include Fair Trade, Direct Trade, cooperatives, local production and purchasing, and microfinance. As a teacher, writer, and concerned citizen, I want to share discussion of these interests with others.
I began by studying trade agreements including the North American Fair Trade Agreement (NAFTA), The Dominican Republic - Central American Free Trade Agreement (DR-CAFTA), the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), and the Meso-American Development Plan (originally called the Plan Puebla Panama). I realized that those agreements facilitate unsustainable development. Therefore, my focus over the past twenty years has been and continues to be on finding better ways to engage in trade while protecting the Earth and all of her people.
Thank you for taking time to learn and think about sustainability.
Paulette L. Stenzel,
Professor of Sustainability & International Business Law, Broad College of Business, Michigan State University
Celebrating achievements!
In late, undergraduate student members of the Broad College Sustainability Action Committee (SAC) installed two water filtration stations in the Broad College of Business at Michigan State Univesity. This enables students to save resources (water, fossil fuels for transportation) and they avoid use of fossil fuels to make plastic bottles and transport them. The stations were funded, in part, by a 2012 Lewis Quality of Excellence Award from the Broad College of Business awarded to the SAC for earlier projects. For details about the SAC, visit our webiste at http://msusustainability.weebly.com/on-campus.html
 |
"Joy in NIcaragua." This is Jessica YaJaira Blandón Díaz on the San Juan de Limay Riverin near Nicaragua's northern border. Jessica’s father is a carver of marmolina (soapstone -a stone related to marble) and a member of a cooperative in San Juan de Limay. Fair Trade gives Jessica's family income to pay for her books and uniforms, enabling her to continue her studies in the local public school. |
Research Trips Related to Sustainability2014: Quebec, Quebec, for an International forum on cooperatives.
2014: Minneapolis, Minnesota, to study cooperatives. 2013: Madison, Wisconsin, to study cooperatives. 2012: Guatemala to study Direct Trade, Fair Trade, and microfinance. 2010: Chiapas, Mexico to study Fair Trade, cooperatives, and organics. 2010: Traverse City, Michigan area to study organics, Fair Trade, microfinance, and local production. 2009: England to lead workshops at the International Youth for Fair Trade conference at Coventry University and to serve as a delegate to a Fair Trade conference at Oxford University. 2008: Ecuador to study perspectives of indigenous people on Fair Trade, industrialized agriculture, and sustainability. 2007: Nicaragua to study Fair Trade and the effects DR- CAFTA and the Plan Puebla Panama. 1997 to 2006: Multiple trips to Mexico for research on sustainable development and to lead study abroad groups to study business in Mexico., |
Advisor to Student Organizations at MSU:Spartan Global Development Fund (SGDF): SGDF raises funds for microloans for small entrepreneurs in the United States and around the world. I serve on the board of directors for its companion organization, the Spartan Global Development Fund 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation. Please visit www.spartanglobalfund.org.
Co-Chairperson of the MSU Broad College's Sustainability Action Committee. "The Sustainability Action Committee is a group of students at Michigan State University dedicated to making the Broad College of Business more sustainable in its practices." Please visit http://msusustainability.weebly.com/on-campus.html Broad Net Impact: Net Impact is an international nonprofit organization that works to make our world more sustainable. Broad Net Impact at Michigan State University is an independent chapter of Net Impact Central, based in California. Please visit http://mba.broad.msu.edu/organizations/netimpact/. Students Today, Leaders Forever: The MSU chapter of STLF works to engage students leadership through community service projects in the Lansing/East Lansing area and during spring break trips. We are among the most active chapters in the United States! Please www.stlf.net for information. |
|
|
