Joe Cascio Esq.

Cascio is Deputy Director of the Environmental and Energy Management Institute (EEMI) at George Washington University. He was the Federal Environmental Executive, 2008-2009, in the Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Office of the President. He has over 30 years of experience in environmental management and public policy development and was chairman of the U.S. Technical Advisory Group on the ISO-14000 series of standards from 1991 to 2003. In this role, he served as the lead U.S. negotiator on the International Technical Committee (TC207) of ISO that developed those standards. From 2003 to 2013, he was chairman of the international ISO Subcommittee that develops environmental performance evaluation standards. He has been co-chair of the U.S. Liaison Group for Management System Standards since 1995.    

Cascio played key roles in various industry coalitions in the late 80s, soon after the publication of Our Common Future by the World Commission on Environment and Development, commonly known as the Brundtland Commission. He was prominent in efforts within those coalitions to develop and publicize industry’s response to the Brundtland Report.

In 1996, Cascio co-authored The ISO 14000 Guide, published by McGraw-Hill, and edited The ISO 14000 Handbook, published by the American Society for Quality (ASQ). He is recognized in the U.S. and throughout the world as an expert on environmental management and as the key architect and strategist in formulating the U.S. posture on the ISO-14000 series of standards in the early 90s. He is the recipient of the ASQ 2016 Freund-Marquardt Medal for leadership and dedication to the development of environmental management standards: https://www.gwu.edu/~eemnews/previousissues/winter2015_2016.html.  

As a consultant, Cascio worked on all facets of EH&S management systems for clients in both the private and public sectors. His work included implementation of such systems, creating worldwide standards of EH&S practice, leading the formation of EH&S strategic plans, training of teams for implementation and auditing, and leading the audits of management systems. He led efforts to develop and implement environmental management systems at various agencies of the US Federal Government and at over two-dozen private sector enterprises including: The Department of Homeland Security, Federal Aviation Administration, U.S. Air Force, Food and Drug Administration, Federal Bureau of Investigations, General Services Administration, Battelle Memorial Institute, U.S. Postal Service, Sharp Electronics, U.S. Department of Energy (laboratories: BNL, INEEL, PNNL, LLNL, LANL), U.S. Army, U.S. Military Academy – West Point, Lockheed Martin Corp., Skanska-USA Corp., U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and Federal Energy Technology Center.

He has conducted training on EMS implementation and internal auditing within and outside of the U.S., in Mexico and Argentina and also in Egypt, Russia and India for the U.S. Agency for International Development. He has provided guidance to the Electronics Industry in developing voluntary initiatives to enhance the environmental profile of electronic products and for the management of electronic waste.

Current Research

Cascio’s principal focus at GW is the EEMI, envisioned to promote excellence for multidisciplinary research, education and the dissemination of knowledge relevant to the resolution of pressing national and international environmental, energy and sustainability challenges. The approaches to be advanced include the rapidly evolving array of non-regulatory environmental and energy management standards, such as those developed by the International Organization for Standardization, the 600+ Standards Development Organizations (SDOs) and a variety of other private and public organizations such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The vigorous uptake of voluntary standards by entities in both industry and government is motivated by the desire to avoid risks, to obtain consistency, reliability and control, and to achieve sustainability goals that improve public image, cost savings and the protection of people and the environment. Regulatory performance in those sectors indicates that even rigorously compliant enterprises still experience episodic violations and environmental incidents, as well as failures to avoid inefficient energy consumption or to adopt renewable alternatives. While regulatory requirements mandate actions to achieve specified levels of performance, they do not compel changes in the culture or operations of the organization that would ensure the consistency and reliability of desired performance. EEMI aims to increase knowledge and awareness of the existence and value of these complementary non-regulatory tools and approaches.

Education

• Juris Doctor, Fordham University Law School
• MS in Engineering Management, University of Southern California 
• BS in Systems Engineering, Polytechnic Institute of New York University

Distinctions

He is the recipient of the ASQ 2016 Freund-Marquardt Medal for leadership and dedication to the development of environmental management standards.  

Relevant Positions Held:

• 2013 – Present: Visiting Scholar, George Washington University. Washington, DC.
• 2009 – 2014: Senior Advisor, Booz Allen Hamilton. McLean, VA.
• 2008 – 2009: Federal Environmental Executive, Council on Environmental Quality, Executive Office of the President. Washington, DC.
• 2002 – 2008:  Senior Associate, Booz Allen Hamilton. McLean, VA. 
• 1999 – 2002: VP, International Resources Group. Washington, DC. 
• 1996 – 1999: VP, Global Environment and Technology Foundation. Virginia. 
• 1991 – 1996: Program Director, IBM Corp. Somers, NY. 
• 1986 – 1991: Environmental Manager, IBM Corp. Stamford, CT. 
• 1981 – 1986: Issue Manager, IBM Corp., France and U.S. 

Classes Taught

EMSE 6992-11, Beyond Compliance: Next Generation Environmental Self-Governance. A course in line with the EEMI mission and one of six that is required for the Environmental and Energy Systems Management Graduate Certificate program. Students acquire system implementation knowledge that is immediately applicable upon employment in a public or private sector organization. 

EMSE 6992-80, Global Connections: Standards in Technology, Business and Public Policy. A course in line with the EEMI mission and one of six that is required for the Environmental and Energy Systems Management Graduate Certificate program. Students acquire an understanding of voluntary, consensus standards, how they are created, the national and international organizations that support and enable their development, and their roles in technology advancement, national and international economic development, public policy, and international trade.      

EMSE 6200, Policy Factors in Environmental & Energy Management. This course introduces students to the issues, solutions, approaches, and responses that affect the regulated environmental and energy community in the U.S. The course approaches the relevant factors from the users’ perspective rather than from the policy maker or enforcer’s side. Topics of interest to users include how environmental and energy laws are made, EPA’s compliance enforcement role, the goals of applicable laws and regulations, how the policy system works and how it might be improved, private governance and private-sector consensus management standards, and trends on the horizon for next generation environmental self-governance.