Rappaport, Ann

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Rappaport, Ann

PERSONAL:

Education: Wellesley College, B.A.; Massachusetts Institute of Technology, M.S.; Tufts University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Office—97 Talbot Ave., Tufts University, Medford, MA 02155. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineering, Division of Hazardous Waste, deputy director and acting assistant director, 1981-84; Tufts University Center for Environmental Management, Medford, MA, associate director for research, 1984-88, senior environmental research analyst, 1988-92; Tufts University Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Medford, MA, faculty member, 1992-97; Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy, Medford, MA, faculty member, 1995—.

WRITINGS:

(With Margaret Fresher Flaherty) Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges: Initiatives by Multinational Management, Quorum Books (New York, NY), 1992.

Development and Transfer of Pollution Prevention Technology, Quorum Books (Westport, CT), 1993.

(With Sarah Hammond Creighton) Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the University, MIT Press (Cambridge, MA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Ann Rappaport is a member of the faculty of the Tufts University Department of Urban and Environmental Policy, and former deputy director of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Quality Engineering, where she was vital to the development and implementation of the state's regulatory program for hazardous wastes. Her current academic work largely focuses on managerial and organizational solutions for addressing health and safety concerns at large corporate entities, and reducing the environmental impact of corporations and universities.

Rappaport's first book, Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges: Initiatives by Multinational Management, was written with Margaret Fresher Flaherty. It is based on their extensive research, including data surveys, interviews, meetings with trade associations and academics, and visiting facilities around the world. According to Gianna Julian-Arnold, reviewing the book for Risk: Issues in Health & Safety, Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges offers "insight into the practical challenges facing multinational corporations in implementing environment, health and safety programs." This book especially focuses on the constraints multinational companies experience based on both the local legal environments of their branches and central offices, as well as the development goals of their various host nations. Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges offers comparative case studies of five multinational corporations, examining three key issues: How the company addresses environmental, health, and safety concerns; how information about these concerns is communicated among branches and central offices; and how staff are organized to address these concerns. Julian-Arnold concluded that the book was "‘must’ reading for corporate employees involved with such programs as well as for outsiders concerned about the responsiveness of multinational firms to issues of ever-increasing global importance."

Rappaport followed Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges with Development and Transfer of Pollution Prevention Technology. In this book, Rappaport examines how corporations can develop more environmentally sound technologies, products, and business practices without sacrificing profits or product quality. The book hinges on three specific case studies and strongly advocates for corporations to shift to management structures that facilitate communication and innovation within the company. Kristina M. Jahns, of Risk: Health, Safety & Environment, felt the book was "well organized and clearly written," especially praising Rappaport's examples as both illustrative and easy to digest, even for readers "without extensive technical background."

Rappaport's next book, written with Sarah Hammond Creighton, was received enthusiastically by both reviewers, administrators, and activists. In Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the University, Rappaport and Creighton urge academic institutions to set the standard in modeling sustainable business practices for their local communities, other institutions, corporate entities, and their students. This book draws from lessons learned as part of the Tufts Climate Initiative (TCI), a broad initiative committed to reducing environmental impact and limiting greenhouse gas emissions across Tufts' several campuses. The university and TCI received an EPA Climate Protection Award in 2005. In a review written for Planningfor Higher Education, Ann McEntee called this book a "handbook for developing institutional sustainability policy that includes the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions" and that the authors "reaffirm the importance of establishing a climate action mindset with a series of workplace principles that may prove extremely helpful and antidotal in a university or college environment that is indifferent to, or even dismissive of, global warming." She concluded that "Rappaport and Creighton … write with authority, but their texts never assume a tone of condescension" while "express[ing] the infectious, generous spirit that characterizes the environmental sustainability movement; a sense of ‘ownership of material’ is noticeably (and refreshingly) absent."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Choice: Current Reviews for Academic Libraries, October 1, 2007, H. Doss, review of Degrees That Matter: Climate Change and the University, p. 321.

Nature, July 5, 2007, "A Greener Education," p. 28.

Planning for Higher Education, October-December, 2007, Ann McEntee, review of Degrees That Matter, pp. 65-68.

Risk: Health, Safety & Environment, fall, 1994, Kristina M. Jahns, review of Development and Transfer of Pollution Prevention Technology, p. 351.

Risk: Issues in Health & Safety, summer, 1993, Gianna Julian-Arnold, review of Corporate Responses to Environmental Challenges: Initiatives by Multinational Management, p. 277.

Times Higher Education Supplement, July 20, 2007, "A Green Bible for Campus," p. 21.