Publications

SSRN

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11 Oct 2021
Blog Post

Crafting a Nontraditional Path to Venture Capital and Private Equity with Morgan Sheil (MBA 2021)

presented Sheil with an opportunity to reflect and then narrow her focus on what she wanted to be doing in the climate sustainability space. With her goals defined, it was time for HBS and a pivot into systems View Details

08 Feb 2017
News

In Trump’s America, the Price of Speech and Silence

10 Apr 2021
News

With Georgia Voting Law, the Business of Business Becomes Politics

2023
Other Unpublished Work

If 3 Was 9

By: Randolph B. Cohen

One determinant of where economies and markets are headed is how well we handle the climate crisis. Headlines on the climate tend to emphasize two points. First, average global temps are rising, with it being the hottest summer in 1,000 centuries per some estimates.... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Measurement and Metrics

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16 Jul 2021
Blog Post

Staying Under the 1.5°C Threshold: The Role of Government, Business, and Society

built environment, and industry, with a core focus on systems with the highest emissions. MacNaughton noted: “Most of us expect to think of 2020 as ‘the year of COVID.’ But history may instead see it as the year when awareness of the existential threat posed by View Details

13 May 2015
News

Small Wins Go a Long Way in Improving U.S. Rail Transportation

August 2021 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Patch Technology: Making It Easy to Do the Right Thing

By: Tomomichi Amano, Robert J. Dolan and Carol Zhang

In 2021, the growing threat of climate change pushed companies around the world to understand that significant behavioral change was necessary. While many recognized that decreasing emissions was critical, more sophisticated players such as Microsoft began to recognize... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Management; Marketing; Digital Platforms; Climate Change

28 Apr 2023
Cold Call Podcast

Sweden’s Northvolt Electric Battery Maker: A Startup with a Mission

Keywords: Re: George Serafeim; Battery; Auto; Electronics; Energy

September 2008 (Revised October 2009)
Background Note

The Carbon Market

By: Andre F. Perold, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mikell Hyman

The carbon market has emerged in response to concerns about global climate change. This note characterizes the market in 2008, describing each segment and how it operates. View Details

Keywords: Non-Renewable Energy; Market Transactions; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change

06 Apr 2020
News

Is China Ready for Leadership on the Global Stage?

Research Summary

Corporate transparency and information disclosure strategies

By: Michael W. Toffel

This research focuses on transparency and information disclosure strategies, a topic of growing importance in environmental sustainability, corporate strategy, stakeholder relations, and public policy. My prior research in this area explored why... View Details

Keywords: Transparency; Disclosure Strategy; Disclosure; Environment; Environmental Performance; Regulation; Supply Chain; Environmental Sustainability; United States

14 Jul 2022
News

Is It Time for Creditor Activism to Address ESG Risks?

March–April 2017
Article

Advancing Conservation by Understanding and Influencing Human Behavior

By: Sheila M. Reddy, Jensen Montambault, Yuta J. Masuda, Ayelet Gneezy, Elizabeth Keenan, William Butler, Jonathan R. Fisher and Stanley T. Asah

Behavioral sciences can advance conservation by systematically identifying behavioral barriers to conservation and how to best overcome them. Behavioral sciences have informed policy in many other realms (e.g., health, savings), but they are a largely untapped resource... View Details

Keywords: Adaptive Management; Awareness; Behavioral Economics; Behavioral Science; Conservation Intervention; Conservation Planning; Decision-making; Incentives; Nudge; Management; Motivation and Incentives; Behavior; Marketing; Decision Making; Environmental Sustainability; Economics

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Fall 2022
Article

Time to Put the Fossil-Fuel Industry into Hospice

By: Andrew J. Hoffman and Douglas M. Ely

If humanity is to survive the climate crisis, we must manage a just and orderly transition away from fossil fuels. The correct models for this resolution are triage, euthanasia, and hospice. View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Climate Change; Energy Industry

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October 2013 (Revised November 2016)
Case

Carbon Engineering

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Sid Misra

Dr. David Keith, President of Carbon Engineering, a company based in Calgary, Alberta, is commercializing a technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere. The company plans to market the captured CO2 to produce low carbon transportation fuels in... View Details

2017
Book

Managing Risk in Reinsurance: From City Fires to Global Warming

By: Niels Viggo Hauter and Geoffrey Jones

This is the first book to provide a comprehensive history of the reinsurance industry from the nineteenth century to the present day. Reinsurance developed at the fringe of financial services and, for most of its existence, was largely unnoticed outside the expert... View Details

Keywords: Insurance; Risk Management; Business History; Globalization; Risk and Uncertainty; Financial Services Industry; Insurance Industry; Africa; Europe; Latin America; North and Central America; Asia

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April 2021 (Revised July 2021)
Case

Public Equities Impact Investing at BlackRock

By: Shawn A. Cole, Vikram S. Gandhi, Michael Norris and John Masko

In early 2021, BlackRock—the world’s largest asset manager with $9 trillion in assets under management (AUM)—sought to become a leader in promoting environmental and social sustainability. Over the previous ten years, CEO Larry Fink had written an annual open letter to... View Details

Keywords: Impact Investing; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Equity; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Management; Investment Funds; Investment Return; Mission and Purpose; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Financial Services Industry; United States

12 Oct 2017
News

What Trump could learn from polar explorer Ernest Shackleton

Editorial

Elon Musk's Unusual Compensation Plan Isn't Really About Compensation at All

By: George Serafeim

Earlier this year, Tesla shareholders approved likely the largest compensation package ever awarded to a CEO—for a CEO who clearly doesn’t need the money. Elon Musk is already incredibly rich and also doesn’t seem particularly motivated by further wealth. So why do it?... View Details

Keywords: Tesla; Elon Musk; Innovation; Investor Communication; Investor Relations; Short-termism; Long-termism; Disruption; Executive Compensation; Business and Shareholder Relations; Communication Intention and Meaning; Mission and Purpose