Griffith appoints with sustainable eye

Former United Nations advisor and international expert on sustainability, Professor Malcolm McIntosh, will head up the new Asia-Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise within the Griffith University Business School.

Professor McIntosh was a special advisor to the UN Secretary-General's Global Compact and worked for the UN’s Environment Program.

He has also worked for the International Labour Organisation, the UN’s Development Program and Shell, BP, Pfizer and a number of international non-government organisations.

Professor McIntosh has been leading a global research project using trans-disciplinary, multi-stakeholder roundtables on sustainable enterprise to investigate movement towards a low carbon sustainable enterprise economy for the 21st century.

"Griffith’s new Asia-Pacific Centre for Sustainable Enterprise will research sustainability in luxury goods, carbon trading, catastrophe bonds, faith-based (Islamic) investment, tourism and accounting, among other things,” he said.

Postgraduate and undergraduate courses on sustainability will also be on offer, he said.

Professor McIntosh pioneered the teaching of corporate responsibility and sustainability in universities in the UK, Japan, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. He has contributed to books in this area and also produced films on the topic for BBC TV.

He was founding editor of the Journal of Corporate Citizenship and joined Griffith from the University of Coventry in England, where he was a Professor of Human Security and Sustainable Enterprise and Director of the transdisciplinary Applied Research Centre in Human Security.

He was one of the founders of the UN Principles for Responsible Management Education of which Griffith was the first Australian signatory.

Meanwhile, adult education specialist Dr Graeme Coetzer has also joined Griffith University from Central Washington University in Seattle.

Dr Coetzer will take over the role of Director of Executive Development and Associate Professor in Griffith Business School.

With a PhD in organisational behaviour from Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, Dr Coetzer has also researched adult attention deficit disorder and its implications for the workplace and adult learning.

“We want to provide the latest knowledge and skills to support those facing the challenge of working within increasingly complex organizations, and deliver our services in a way that fits with their circumstances,” he said.
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17/07/2009