Julie Frieder is a social research analyst with the Calvert Group, a Bethesda, Maryland-based mutual fund company that specializes in socially responsible investing and sharedholder advocacy. Prior to her position with Calvert, she served in the Policy Office of the United States Environmental Protection Agency where she worked on a variety of projects aiming to improve the effectiveness of the national environmental regulatory framework while reducing the cost and burden to the regulated community and enhancing accountability. Frieder also worked for 18 months as the Eco-Efficiency Task Force Coordinator for the President's Council on Sustainable Development, the U.S. organization charged with developing a national action plan for sustainable development, in response to the Rio Earth Summit.
During her Ian Axford Fellowship, Frieder was based at the Ministry for the Environment in Wellington, and spent time among the Taranaki and Auckland regional councils and the Tasman District studying the theory and practice of New Zealand's Resource Management Act (RMA) and developing recommendations to improve RMA's implementation and effectiveness. She shared her findings throughout the country and had the wonderful opportunity to return one year later as a speaker at the Resource Management Association's conferenece. The title of Frieder's report is "Approaching Sustainability: Integrated Environmental Management and New Zealand's Resource Management Act."