Environment Archives

Hague Conference Will Develop PrivateSector Input to Rio+20 Conference

Published on February 10, 2012

4249_image001In preparation for June’s Rio+20 conference, the government of The Netherlands, the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs and ICC’s Business Action for Sustainable Development
are organizing a meeting on “Realizing Green Growth: Business & Industry Consultation with Government and Civil Society for Rio+20,” April 11-12 in The Hague.

The conference will discuss perspectives on critical business issues for Rio+20 and business’s role in realizing green growth.  Organizers aim to increase awareness and potential action in international public-private collaboration on green growth topics, and develop constructive global private-sector input to the Rio+20 conference.

The meeting will address four key points:

  • transparency, accountability, and reporting
  • best practices in major industries and economic sectors
  • innovative financing models and public/private cooperation
  • supporting small and medium-sized enterprises, including through global supply chains.

While the agenda is still being finalized, the conference coordinators plan to feature a high-level CEO panel and several breakout sessions on key issues being discussed for Rio+20 such as: green economy, innovative financing, institutional frameworks, food, water, energy, transparency and reporting. .  Between 350 and 500 participants will be invited, with a balance between public and private participation, including several at the CEO level and head of state level. In addition, representatives from the eight UN Major Groups will be also invited to attend and participate.

In addition to the Hague conference, USCIB members are actively involved in the Green Economies Dialogue initiative, which was launched last year to provide a forum for discussion of green growth topics among multiple stakeholders.  Dialogue sessions have been held in Washington and Paris, and two additional sessions are planned for April in Tokyo and Brasilia.  USCIB members are invited to contact Kira Yevtukhova
(kyevtukhova@uscib.org) for additional information.

Staff contact: Norine Kennedy

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Business Looks Forward to Rio+20 Earth Summit

Published on January 23, 2012

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With less than six months to go, this June’s UN Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro is still a largely unknown quantity for the business community.  The June 20-22 event has been dubbed “Rio+20,” since it comes two decades years after the UN’s seminal 1992 Earth Summit in the same city.

As negotiated in numerous preparatory sessions, the agenda for Rio+20 is broad but vague, encompassing “the green economy,” “institutional frameworks” and “emerging issues.”  These remain largely empty outlines – although there are a wealth of proposals from governments and NGOs.

In anticipation of last-minute and intense preparation between now and the summit, USCIB intends to focus on the main business issues on the table, and is working to engage its members in shaping preparations for the event and influencing its expected outcomes, mainly through dialogue with the Obama administration, UN officials and other international policymakers.

Working through the United States Council Foundation, USCIB members and others in the policy community are developing business perspectives and academic input on green economy policy input via the Green Economies Dialogue project (www.green-dialogue.org).  We will be holding Dialogue meetings in Brasilia and Tokyo in the coming months, following successful meetings in Washington and Paris last fall.   USCIB is also interfacing directly with the U.S. State Department and the Obama administration on an array of issues expected to be front-and-center in Rio.

Other efforts to organize business input to the Rio+20 process include Business Action for Sustainable Development 2012 (BASD2012) – a joint effort between the International Chamber of Commerce, the World Business Council for Sustainable Development, the UN Global Compact and several other business organizations – as well as the UN Global Compact in its own right.

USCIB provided business input for the so-called “zero draft” being discussed at UN meetings in New York this week, both directly and in a joint submission with several other business groups to Robert Hormats, under-secretary of state for economic, energy, and agriculture affairs, which seeks to raise the business community’s official role in the summit.  Mr. Hormats will meet with USCIB’s Environment Committee on March 14 in Washington, D.C.

Registration for the Rio+20 summit is now open, and USCIB is working to secure accreditation for member executives wishing to attend.  Please contact Kira Yevtukhova (kyevtukhova@uscib.org) for details.

In addition, the government of the Netherlands and the UN Department of Economic and Social Affairs are collaborating with BASD2012 to convene a two-day event in preparation for Rio+20. The event, “Realizing Green Growth: Business & Industry Consultation with Government and Civil Society for Rio+20,” will be held in Amsterdam during the week of April 10 (specific dates to be confirmed). The meeting will provide a forum to discuss Rio+20 issues, including the role of business in green growth.  Please contact Ms. Yevtukhova for more information.

Staff contact: Norine Kennedy

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USCIB Welcomes Durban Agreement as a Turning Point in UN Framework Convention on Climate Change

Published on December 12, 2011
Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s environment minister and president of the COP17 negotiations, at a post-conference press briefing.
Maite Nkoana-Mashabane, South Africa’s environment minister and president of the COP17 negotiations, at a post-conference press briefing.

New York, N.Y., December 12, 2011 – Defying low expectations and difficult circumstances, the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change’s 17th Conference of the Parties, which concluded yesterday in Durban, South Africa, opens the door to a new international climate framework, with appropriate reductions and other actions from both developed and developing countries, according to the United States Council for International Business (USCIB).  The business group also said the Durban platform would set into operation new institutions for financing, adaptation and technology to address climate change.

“While it will be challenging for all major economies to construct a new international agreement, we look forward to working with governments to seek opportunities for U.S. companies to offer their insight and practical recommendations on implementation in ways that will grow economies, create jobs and advance sustainable development,” stated USCIB President and CEO Peter Robinson.

USCIB, which represents American business in global policy deliberations and works to expand trade and investment, applauded U.S. efforts at COP17 to promote enabling frameworks for technological innovation that protect intellectual property rights protection, and engage the private sector’s expertise and resources, as well as its commitment to advancing transparency and private-sector engagement in the new architecture.

USCIB was represented in Durban by Norine Kennedy, vice president for energy and environment, and executives from a number of member companies.  It highlighted the need for integrated solutions that promote energy access and security, while deploying technologies and market approaches to address climate risks, since U.S. businesses doing business in international markets need long-range predictability and stability to plan, invest and operate.

USCIB has encouraged countries to pursue more deliberative and effective ways to interact with business in the design and implementation of new UNFCCC institutions and measures since Cancun.  USCIB is the U.S. affiliate of the International Chamber of Commerce, which has long served  as the business focal point in the climate negotiations, and also participates in the Major Economies Business Forum (BizMEF), which prepared six position papers for Durban (available by clicking here).

Ms. Kennedy said of the Durban platform:“It seems that governments are coming to face the reality of a world that has changed in many ways since the Kyoto Protocol was signed in 1997.  The challenge now is to set the stage for a long-term agreement that involves all major emitters, engages the public and private sectors, and works with globalized markets, in harmony with trade and investment rules.”

About USCIB
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and prudent regulation.  Its members include top U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world.  With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment.  More at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
(212) 703-5043, jhuneke@uscib.org

More on USCIB’s Environment Committee

USCIB Green Economies Dialogue website

Business Looking to Move Forward at UN Climate Conference, Even as Governments Wrestle With Developing Country Obligations

Published on December 1, 2011

4205_image002USCIB and its partner business groups are actively pushing for progress at the UN climate conference now underway in Durban, South Africa.  But governments are hamstrung by precedent-setting decisions taken two decades ago.

A number of USCIB member company representatives, as well as Norine Kennedy, USCIB’s vice president of environment and energy, are attending the conference.  They are in Durban as part of the International Chamber of Commerce (ICC) delegation. ICC has long served  as the business focal point in the climate negotiations.

Other groups are in Durban as well, working to ensure business engagement in support of meaningful action to address climate change.  Increasingly prominent in this regard is the Major Economies Business Forum on Energy Security and Climate Change (BizMEF), which consists of major business groups from G20 countries.

BizMEF has just released a series of important papers, with general perspectives on the Durban negotiations, and examining business engagement, the role of technology, establishing a green climate fund, the use of carbon offsets, and competitiveness issues.

Yesterday, Ms. Kennedy published an insightful column on the website GreenBiz that notes the varying expectations of business and the governments represented in Durban, and describes the genesis and work of BizMEF.  She writes that even as business presses for meaningful progress on global measures to address climate change, government delegates are laboring under the burden of precedent-setting decisions, made some two decades ago, to bifurcate climate obligations between developed and developing countries.

“Some countries that were developing countries then, such as China and India, are now growing rapidly and are major economic forces in their own right,” writes Ms. Kennedy.  “If current trends continue in the fastest growing developing country economies, reductions made in developed countries will be cancelled out and overtaken by emissions in the BRICs in coming years.”

The United States and countries including Australia, Canada, Russia and Japan have strongly encouraged a new framework obliging all major economies, whether developed or developing, to take action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. But, Ms. Kennedy wrote, “as evidenced in the entrenched positions being expressed here, this is prevented by the precedents that do not allow updating to reflect today’s realities.”

Staff contact: Norine Kennedy

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USCIB Keeps Tabs on UN Discussions of Chemicals in Products

Published on November 30, 2011

4208_image002Helen Medina, USCIB’s director of life sciences and product policy, recently attended the Open-Ended Working Group (OEWG) meeting of the UN’s International Conference on Chemicals Management (ICCM) which was held November 15-18 in Belgrade.

In 2006, ICCM adopted the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals Management (SAICM) as a policy framework to foster the sound management of chemicals.  SAICM was developed by a multi-stakeholder and multi-sectoral preparatory committee, and supports the achievement of the goal – agreed at the 2002 Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development – of ensuring that, by the year 2020, chemicals are produced and used in ways that minimize significant adverse impacts on the environment and human health.

The functions of the OEWG are to consider the implementation, development and enhancement of the Strategic Approach to International Chemicals, and to make recommendations for ICCM3, which will be held in September 2012 in Nairobi.

The overarching issue that impacted the discussions at the OEWG surrounded the financing and technical resources for implementing SAICM goals. This included the financing of the Quick Start Program and of SAICM itself. As such, many delegates felt that unless financing and technical issues were resolved, there was little point in discussing other issues for possible inclusion on the provisional agenda of ICCM3.

To deal with the issue of long-term and short-term finance issues, the president of the meeting created a “Group of the Friends of the President” and a “Committee of the Whole (COW)” to prepare draft decisions or resolutions for possible adoption by ICCM3. Although there were several issues of interest that USCIB followed during the meeting, it was the Chemical in Products project which has generated the most interest among USCIB’s members.

SAICM is a voluntary policy framework, implemented in a multi-stakeholder process, and sets as one of its main objectives that information and knowledge about chemicals contained in products “is available, accessible, user friendly, adequate and appropriate to the needs of all stakeholders.” As a step towards fulfilling this objective, the second session of the governing body of SAICM, the International Conference  for Chemicals Management (ICCM2), in May 2009 recognized chemicals in products as an emerging policy issue, and adopted a resolution which invited UNEP to lead a Chemicals in Products (CiP) project.

Since ICCM2, the UN Environment Program, the lead agency for this topic, has been focusing its work on understanding the availability of information on CiP. There were in-depth studies in specific sectors on this topic and a workshop was held to make suggestions on how to move this project forward. The major recommendation from the workshop was to develop a voluntary framework to facilitate the flow of information on CiP.

For a more detailed report of the meeting please refer to the Draft Report of the Work of the Open-ended Working Group of the International Conference on Chemicals Management at its First meeting, the Addendum to the Draft Report of the OEWG, and the Draft Decisions Submitted by the Committee of the Whole.

Staff contact: Helen Medina

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Green Growth: Getting the Policies Right

Published on November 8, 2011

Green Economies Dialogue project to spur discussion and research on policies for environmentally friendly innovation, jobs and trade in global markets

Green Economies DialogueNew York, N.Y., November 8, 2011 – Ensuring greener paths for economic growth is a top challenge for national governments and global institutions in the years ahead. The Green Economies Dialogue, a new project officially launched today at http://www.green-dialogue.org/, will bring the policy and business communities together for intensive discussion of the best paths forward.

Funded by the United States Council Foundation, the educational and research arm of the United States Council for International Business (USCIB), the project will involve a set of global partners with the goal of providing a clear road forward on green growth, green jobs and a host of related issues.

“We expect the Dialogue will inform policy debate in the lead-up to the next year’s UN Rio+20 Summit and beyond,” said Peter M. Robinson, USCIB’s president and CEO.  “Industry, government and other actors must work together to make the transition to a global framework where the private sector and the marketplace have bottom-line motivations to drive improvements in technology and business practices.”

The Green Economies Dialogue initiative will provide a platform for discussion of key international policy questions, with the goal of ensuring that economic growth and the pursuit of environmental objectives go hand-in-hand.  These include:

• How can environmental innovations in such areas as energy use or agriculture best be shared around the world, providing opportunities to promote sustainability while maintaining competitiveness?

• What role should international institutions like the G20, the United Nations and the OECD have in coordinating policies among national governments?

• How can the logjam of trade and climate negotiations be broken, to foster integrated policies that incentivize innovation and mobilize financial resources?

• Are subsidies an effective way to encourage start-ups and investment in new technologies?

Over the next several months, the Green Economies Dialogue will convene regional workshops around the world.  The first of these took place in Washington, D.C. on October 12 in a day-long session bringing together more than 50 experts from business, government, academia and the NGO communities, hosted by the environmental research organization Resources for the Future.

“The Washington workshop was an important first step in exploring the policy options to foster green innovation and resource efficiency,” said Phil Sharp, president of Resources for the Future.

The next workshop will take place at the OECD in Paris on November 14, hosted by BIAC, the Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD.  Additional workshops are planned for Asia and Latin America during the first quarter of 2012.

As part of the Green Economies Dialogue, academic research is being commissioned for publication in the influential publication Energy Economics ahead of the Rio+20 Summit.  Research papers by highly regarded experts will explore a variety of aspects of green growth and green jobs.

The Green Economies Dialogue website will gather an assortment of informative materials from numerous points of view.  This will include summaries, statements and papers from the various workshops, as well as abstracts or summaries of the Energy Economics research products.

Support for the Green Economies Dialogue project is being provided by various private-sector sources through the United States Council Foundation.

About the United States Council Foundation
The United States Council Foundation, Inc. is a private 501(c)(3) organization affiliated with the United States Council for International Business.  It was organized to undertake educational activities to promote the benefits of a free market economy, to demonstrate and document the role of the corporate private sector in economic growth and social development, and to advance sustainability in environmental management. More at http://www.uscouncilfoundation.org/.

About USCIB
USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and prudent regulation.  Its members include top U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world.  With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment.  More at www.uscib.org.

Contact:
Jonathan Huneke, USCIB
(212) 703-5043, jhuneke@uscib.org

More on USCIB’s Environment Committee

Inaugural Green Economies Dialogue Held in Washington

Published on October 24, 2011
A cross-section of experts from business, government and the policy community met in Washington, DC at the inaugural Green Economies Dialogue, hosted by Resources for the Future.
A cross-section of experts from business, government and the policy community met in Washington, DC at the inaugural Green Economies Dialogue, hosted by Resources for the Future.

On October 12, Resources for the Future hosted the first meeting of the Green Economies Dialogue project, an initiative of the United States Council Foundation, USCIB and a host of partner organizations and companies.

The goal of this and other GED meetings is to foster  discussion of green economy topics among business, government, inter-governmental bodies and other stakeholders, with a focus on international cooperative measures and market-based solutions that could take green growth to the next level.

Future dialogue sessions are planned for Paris (November 14, hosted by the OECD), Tokyo and Sao Paolo.  Research on a variety of green economy topics is being commissioned, and will be published in the journal Energy Economics in the lead-up to the Rio+20 summit in June 2012.

The Business and Industry Advisory Committee to the OECD, part of USCIB’s global network, is playing an important role in organizing the dialogues.

At the Washington dialogue, government, business representatives and NGO representatives heard from economists and academics who are reviewing experiences, possibilities and unknowns embedded in the pursuit of a green economy.  Participants sought to better understand one another’s perspectives on how economic and environmental policy approaches can be practical in North America, and meaningfully pursued in international marketplaces and regulatory frameworks.

The synergy of economic and environmental policy has been a common theme of the work of our organizations, and we appreciated the diversity of views and ideas presented in the course of the meeting.   It became clear that every participant in the meeting brought a unique vision of green growth,  and all were seized both by the urgency of the challenges and the long-term nature of the tasks ahead.

Phil Sharp, President, Resources for the Future

Peter M. Robinson, President and CEO, United States Council for International Business

Participants shared U.S. experiences, and looked ahead to how resources could be deployed most effectively to speed the evolution to greener economic growth that is meaningful both in the U.S. and globally.

More information on the Washington and other dialogues, as well as a host of other pertinent resources, will be available shortly on a new Green Economies Dialogue website.

Staff contact: Norine Kennedy

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Business Groups Seek More Aggressive Promotion of CleanEnergy Exports

Published on July 27, 2011

Clean_EnergyNew York, N.Y., July 27, 2011 – The United States Council for International Business (USCIB), which represents America’s top global companies, has joined with an array of leading U.S. business groups in urging ramped-up efforts to promote U.S. clean energy exports. The groups unveiled their proposal at a briefing on Capitol Hill today.

“Meeting the global demand for American clean energy technology will be critical for job creation and American technological leadership in the years ahead,” said Rob Mulligan, senior vice president and head of USCIB’s Washington, D.C. office. “To do this, we need a more coordinated and aggressive approach by the U.S. government in promoting exports of U.S. environmental goods and services.”

The business groups put forward a six-point plan to help guide action by the U.S. government in promoting green technologies. They recommend the following principles:

1. Ensure technological neutrality in efforts to encourage clean technology exports

2. Activate U.S. commercial diplomacy, including the International Trade Administration, in support of clean tech exports

3. Require robust monitoring and reporting on clean technology export programs

4. Further develop flexible clean technology funding mechanisms

5. Protect U.S. intellectual property rights globally

6. Reduce barriers to international trade in environmental goods and services.

“Taken together, these efforts would help clear away significant barriers at the domestic and international levels to American clean energy exports, thereby supporting robust job creation and innovation in this critical sector,” said Mr. Mulligan.

In addition to USCIB, signatories to the principles were the Business Council for Sustainable Energy, Business Roundtable, Coalition of Services Industries, Emergency Committee for American Trade, Information Technology Industry Council, National Foreign Trade Council, National Association of Manufacturers, National Electrical Manufacturers Association and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

The proposal was released at a briefing featuring Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), chairman of the Senate Finance Subcommittee on International Trade, and Representative David Dreier (R-CA), chairman of the Committee on Rules in the House. Also at the briefing, a panel of senior representatives from the business and environmental communities and U.S. government discussed how promoting U.S. clean energy exports can help unlock foreign markets and grow businesses and jobs in the United States.

Panelists included: Jennifer Haverkamp, director of the international climate program at the Environmental Defense Fund; Mark Linscott, assistant U.S. trade representative for environment and natural resources; Ty Mitchell, vice president and general manager of LED lighting, Cree; Peter Perez, deputy assistant secretary of commerce for manufacturing; and Tim Richards, managing director for energy policy with GE Energy. The discussion was moderated by Bill Reinsch, president of the National Foreign Trade Council.

 

About USCIB

USCIB promotes open markets, competitiveness and innovation, sustainable development and corporate responsibility, supported by international engagement and prudent regulation. Its members include top U.S.-based global companies and professional services firms from every sector of our economy, with operations in every region of the world. With a unique global network encompassing leading international business organizations, USCIB provides business views to policy makers and regulatory authorities worldwide, and works to facilitate international trade and investment. More information is available at www.uscib.org.

 

Business statement: “Encouraging U.S. Clean Energy Exports: A Set of Private-Sector Principles”

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Countries Decline to Ramp Up Disclosure of Product Information

Published on July 8, 2011
USCIB’s Helen Medina at the conference in Chisinau, Moldova
USCIB’s Helen Medina at the conference in Chisinau, Moldova

Timely work by USCIB and other business groups around an intergovernmental conference paid off when parties to the Aarhus Convention rebuffed efforts to widen possible public environmental disclosure rules to include proprietary product information.

The scene was the fourth meeting of parties to the convention, which took place June 27 to July 1 in the Moldovan capital Chisinau. Attending on behalf of business and industry were Helen Medina, USCIB’s director of life sciences and product policy, attended the meeting in Moldova and was joined by Alessandra Salamini (Monsanto), Michelle Orfei (Croplife International) and Robbie Schreiber (European Crop Protection Association).

Formally known as the UN Economic Commission for Europe Convention on Access to Information, Public Participation in Decision-Making and Access to Justice in Environmental Matters, and named after the Danish city where it was signed in 1998, the Aarhus Convention links environmental protection and human rights, laying our procedures for public access to information, participation and redress in local, national and cross-border environmental matters. Some 40 European and other countries are party to the convention.

“The Aarhus Convention is not just an environmental agreement,” noted Ms. Medina. “It is also about government accountability, transparency and responsiveness. It grants the rights to the public, and it imposes obligations on countries and public authorities regarding access to information, public participation and access to justice.”

Industry representatives were interested in how the convention work program for 2012-2014 would be implemented, especially the work plan for a task force aimed at widening the range of information – including privately held product information – made available to the public. In the end, parties to the convention opted to delete the reference to product information.

“This was a win for us, brought about largely because, prior to the conference, industry did a lot of work on educating the European Union about the slippery slope of giving the public have direct access to product information from the private sector,” Ms. Medina said. “In the end, it was the EU that changed the language.”

USCIB and other industry groups will continue to monitor future discussions to see how this language in the work program translates into practice.

Business also sought to learn how Aarhus Convention principles are being promoted at the global level and in other international environmental discussions. Stakeholders at the Chisinau meeting issued a declaration, “Rio Plus Aarhus – 20 Years On,” which highlights the importance of promoting Aarhus principles of openness, transparency, wide participation and accountability in international environmental decision-making in preparation for the Rio+ 20 Conference in 2012. In this context, the business delegation delivered an intervention which highlighted the need of wide stakeholder engagement in matters relating to sustainable development.

On the last day of the meeting, USCIB’s Ms. Medina delivered a business statement highlighting the positive role companies can play in providing practical solutions to complex global environmental challenges. She stressed the need for improved governance and policymaking, as well as a multi-stakeholder approach, in tackling such environmental challenges as climate change, energy security, waste management, water scarcity and population growth.

 

More on USCIB’s Product Policy Working Group

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Green Economies in Globalized Markets

Published on May 1, 2011

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USCIB invites you to join your peers for an intensely focused, academically rigorous 3-day Executive Education program developed specifically for USCIB by Boston University School of Management on “Green Economies in a Globalized Market.”

4125_image005Viewed from the global perspective of multinational corporations, the curriculum is designed to keep you on the cutting edge of trends, activities and strategies required to cope with the challenges you face in moving towards a green economy on a global scale.  Leading members of the Boston University School of Management faculty will guide you through everything from business strategy and sustainability goals to the impact on innovation and competitiveness.

Assuring maximum benefit for your time, the curriculum has been developed in partnership with USCIB to elevate your skills as a business executive as you delve into leading-edge thinking on sustainability through course work designed to sharpen your abilities. You will:

  • Understand how to achieve competitive advantage, balanced with sustainability goals.
  • Gain insight into the current trends and activities in international negotiations related to climate change.
  • Understand the implications of greening accounting and assigning green values to aspects of business and ecosystem services, and learn how that translates to the bottom line.
  • Analyze best practices from leading global companies.
  • Develop the ability to recognize trends and discuss new business model frameworks in the face of regulatory and market place disruption.
  • Understand the development of financial incentives and contract structures to drive customer acceptance and adoption.
  • Explore major types of risk and the risks specific to the green economy.
  • Discuss corporate risk management structure including risk identification, measurement and reporting, and main risk drivers.
  • Address the financial cost of not managing risks.
  • Understand competition in green ecosystems using insights from related sectors.
  • Evaluate how best to position your organization in emerging energy ecosystems.

Classes are small and space is limited, so we urge you to register today to make this strategic investment in your future. Register by July 27, 2011 to receive the early registration rate of $2,100.  Details on the curriculumare available on the Boston University website.  Group discounts are available – please call for details.

If you have questions or need additional information please feel free to contact The BU Executive Programs department at 617-353-4248, e-mail elc@management.bu.edu.

If you would like to talk with USCIB about the program and the value it holds for your organization, please feel free to contact Abby Shapiro at ashapiro@uscib.org or Norine Kennedy at nkennedy@uscib.org.

Thank you. We look forward to your participation this September!