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September 2012 (Revised December 2013)
Case

Roxbury Technology Corporation

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Roxbury Technology is a Boston-based re-manufacturer of ink and toner cartridges. In early 2012 RTC was re-evaluating its approach to the company's two most important goals: reducing customer concentration and increasing profitability. RTC's largest customer accounted... View Details

Keywords: Social Enterprise; Social Entrepreneurship; Financial Management; Customers; Diversification; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Boston

30 Aug 2004
Research & Ideas

Real Estate: The Most Imperfect Asset

east of the Mississippi. Green construction and green operations are the wave of the future and the United Sates is far behind Europe in this regard. Finally, American real estate investors have... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Johnston; Construction; Real Estate

November 2019 (Revised June 2020)
Case

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Marco Iansiti, Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Sequestration; Operations; Supply Chain; Social Enterprise; Product Development; Distribution Channels; Business Strategy; Digital Platforms; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States; Massachusetts

04 Apr 2023
Book

Two Centuries of Business Leaders Who Took a Stand on Social Issues

While shareholders still reign supreme at many companies, a widespread shift toward more responsible business practices is driving more leaders to take a stand on social and environmental issues today, says Harvard Business School Professor Geoffrey Jones. Jones... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Consumer Products; Fashion; Retail; Green Technology

18 Jun 2024
Research & Ideas

Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement

Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details

Keywords: by by Janelle Conaway; Green Technology; Energy; Industrial Products; Manufacturing

18 Apr 2023
Research & Ideas

What Happens When Banks Ditch Coal: The Impact Is 'More Than Anyone Thought'

Consumers who are eager to mitigate climate change can take many actions, such as reducing the number of airline flights they take or installing solar panels on their homes. But the planet is in a race against time, and individual action alone won’t help most countries... View Details

Keywords: by Barbara DeLollis; Financial Services; Mining

16 Feb 2023
HBS Case

ESG Activists Met the Moment at ExxonMobil, But Did They Succeed?

The impact-investment hedge fund Engine No. 1 made a big splash in May 2021 when it managed to get three nominees elected to the ExxonMobil board of directors. It was an open effort to prod the oil giant toward renewable energy and test whether activist investing could... View Details

Keywords: by Lane Lambert; Financial Services

November 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Infarm: Betting the (Indoor) Farm on Food Security

By: Elie Ofek

In the summer of 2023, the co-founders of Infarm, a controlled environment agriculture (CEA) company, were contemplating a major pivot going forward. While Infarm had successfully shown it could grow over 75 products—mainly herbs, leafy greens and mushrooms—in modular... View Details

Keywords: Plant-Based Agribusiness; Business Model; Market Entry and Exit; Science-Based Business; Business Strategy; Transition; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Europe; North America; Toronto; Northeastern United States

27 May 2014
First Look

First Look: May 27

http://bit.ly/BuySocialzStrategyBook August 2013 Marketing Letters Structural Models of Complementary Choices By: Berry, Steven, Ahmed Khwaja, Vineet Kumar, Andres Musalem, Kenneth C. Wilbur, Greg Allenby, Bharat Anand, et al.... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

February 2022 (Revised September 2022)
Case

Lilium: Preparing for Takeoff

By: Navid Mojir, Vincent Dessain, Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej and Emer Moloney

Lilium is a German company focused on developing electric vertical takeoff and landing vehicles (eVTOLs) that can be used to offer air taxi services. The company went public in September 2021 through a special purpose acquisition company (SPAC) deal, raising more than... View Details

04 Nov 2009
What Do You Think?

What is the Role of Government Vis-à-Vis Capitalism?

asked, "If we take the invisible hand of capitalism away would we ever learn from our mistakes? The more government steps in the more accountability for actions decreases." Charles Green set forth an opposing view: "In the... View Details

Keywords: by Jim Heskett

12 Aug 2019
Research & Ideas

How Scale Changes a Manager's Responsibilities

Otherwise, it’s time to set your team free to make the right calls for their teams’ needs. At this stage—other than your direct hires—you should only be on-call as needed for key hires. For example, when VMware was nearing 800 employees, our founding CEO Diane View Details

Keywords: by Julia Austin

15 Mar 2017
Lessons from the Classroom

More Than 900 Examples of How Climate Change Affects Business

This word cloud is composed of blog posts by more than 900 students describing how individual organizations are likely to be affected by climate change. Image by Patrick Clapp Last fall, first-year MBA students at Harvard Business School received a new assignment in... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Green Technology

18 Feb 2009
First Look

First Look: February 18, 2009

efficiency benefits of market transactions Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/09-091.pdf Leveraging Waste: Implications for Competition and Welfare (revised) Author:Deishin Lee Abstract We study the competitive and... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

August 2021 (Revised February 2022)
Case

Northvolt: Making the World's Greenest Battery

By: Jurgen R. Weiss and Emilie Billaud

In 2021, the demand for lithium-ion batteries increased rapidly, particularly for electric vehicles. Anxious not to be reliant on Asian players, Europe was keen on developing its own home-grown capacity to control the value chain, maintain employment in Europe, and get... View Details

06 Aug 2019
Cold Call Podcast

Super Bowl Ads Sell Products, but Do They Sell Brands?

Kenny: : "This flat tire needs a man," says the narrator of the Goodyear Tire commercial that aired during the inaugural Super Bowl between the Green Bay Packers and the Kansas City Chiefs in 1967. The ad featured a damsel in... View Details

Keywords: Advertising; Sports; Entertainment & Recreation; Media & Broadcasting

21 Aug 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, August 21, 2018

markets, which have had biosimilar competition since 2006. Using our own survey, we analyze how market features and public policies predict biosimilar entry, price, and penetration, finding significant heterogeneity across countries and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2010
Working Paper

Venture Capital Investment in the Clean Energy Sector

By: Shikhar Ghosh and Ramana Nanda

We examine the extent to which venture capital is adequately positioned for the rapid commercialization of clean energy technologies in the United States. While there are several startups in clean energy that are well-suited to the traditional venture capital... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Energy Generation; Venture Capital; Investment; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Technological Innovation; Competition; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; United States