Publications

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

H2 Green Steel: A Clean-Tech Triple Play?

By: Debora L. Spar, Gunnar Trumbull, Henry Tao and Julia Comeau

At the end of 2023, the Swedish startup H2 Green Steel was mid-way through construction on an integrated steel plant in Northern Sweden that would use abundant local hydro power to create Europe’s first commercial-scale green steel. Their goal was to help European... View Details

Keywords: Steel; Green Business; Green Technology; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Startups; Climate Change; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Renewable Energy; Steel Industry; Sweden

money in 1995, Yang and Filo launched the search engine, Yahoo! By including advertising on their site (one of the first to do so) and by structuring deals with Netscape Navigator and others, Yahoo has been... View Details

Keywords: Computers & Electronics

22 Aug 2013
Working Paper Summaries

From Green Users to Green Voters

Keywords: by Diego Comin & Johannes Rode; Energy; Utilities

2013
Working Paper

From Green Users to Green Voters

By: Diego Comin and Johannes Rode

We estimate the effect of the diffusion of photovoltaic (PV) systems on the fraction of votes obtained by the German Green Party. The logistic diffusion of PV systems offers a new identification strategy. We take first differences and instrument adoption rates (i.e.... View Details

Keywords: Voting; Political Elections; Technology Adoption; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Germany

December 2021
Case

Green Monday

By: José B. Alvarez, Billy Chan and Dawn H. Lau

This case describes the entrepreneurial journey of David Yeung, from campaigning for plant-based diets to building Green Monday, a purpose-driven business and an ecosystem based in Hong Kong comprising a retail platform, an alternative meat brand (“OmniPork”), a... View Details

Keywords: Agribusiness; Plant-Based Agribusiness; Social Enterprise; Entrepreneurship; Business Startups; Business Model; Mission and Purpose; Growth and Development Strategy; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Food and Beverage Industry; Retail Industry; Hong Kong; China; Asia

July 2009 (Revised December 2009)
Case

Echoing Green

By: Julie Battilana, Thomas J. DeLong and James Weber

This case presents the leadership challenges that Cheryl Dorsey, the president of Echoing Green, faces in early 2009. Echoing Green is a fellowship program that seeks to improve society by identifying and supporting social entrepreneurs who launch organizations to... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Financial Crisis; Social Entrepreneurship; Leadership Style; Organizational Structure; Personal Development and Career; Social Enterprise

2017
Book

Profits and Sustainability: A History of Green Entrepreneurship

By: Geoffrey Jones

This book explores whether profits and environmental sustainability are compatible through the lens of a global history of green entrepreneurship between the nineteenth century and today. It tells the story of the extraordinary and often eccentric men and women who... View Details

Find at Harvard

November 2014
Article

Government Green Procurement Spillovers: Evidence from Municipal Building Policies in California

By: Timothy Simcoe and Michael W. Toffel

We study how government green procurement policies influence private-sector demand for similar products. Specifically, we measure the impact of municipal policies requiring governments to construct green buildings on private-sector adoption of the U.S. Green Building... View Details

Keywords: Public Procurement; Green Building; Quality Certification; Environmental Policy; Buildings and Facilities; Environmental Sustainability; Policy; Government and Politics; Green Technology Industry; Public Administration Industry; California

June 2023 (Revised February 2024)
Case

Betting on Green Steel

By: George Serafeim and Sofoklis Melissovas

'Betting on Green Steel' traces the innovative journey embarked upon by a group of MBA students who have set out to conceive a novel steelmaker that pioneers the production of green steel. The ensemble is confronted with a series of critical choices that will shape the... View Details

Keywords: Decarbonization; Sustainability Management; Technology; Industrialization; Climate Risk; Energy; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Technology Adoption; Climate Change; Innovation and Invention; Business Strategy; Family Business; Steel Industry; Middle East; India

01 Feb 2000
News

Jerry Shafir: A Simmering Success Story

In this business, you're only as good as the person peeling the potatoes," calls out Jerry Shafir (MBA '84) through a rising cloud of steam, as a hundred pounds of freshly chopped vegetables slide into a Jeep-sized cauldron of chicken... View Details

Keywords: Deborah Blagg

05 Mar 2020
News

Green Light

filled with leafy greens and fed by precisely tuned LED lights. An intricate digital system measures the room’s temperature and the CO2 levels inside the units every 30 seconds, adjusting as necessary;... View Details

Keywords: Dan Morrell; photographed by Scott Nobles

06 Jan 2012
Op-Ed

Where Green Corporate Ratings Fail

News Corporation—a multinational media conglomerate that includes BSKYB, Dow Jones, Fox News, 20th Century Fox and Star, among other units—announced earlier this year that it has become climate neutral, meaning that its operations have no net impact on global climate... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler; Information; Publishing

16 May 2007
Working Paper Summaries

On The General Relativity of Fiscal Language

Keywords: by Jerry Green & Laurence J. Kotlikoff

01 Sep 2011
News

Green Day

their considerable philanthropic energies on land and wildlife conservation efforts around the world. It wasn’t until 2009, however, that the HBS Green Business Alumni Association was cofounded by Erika... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna;Sarah Auerbach; Agriculture; Manufacturing; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

15 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Going Green Makes Good Business Sense

emerging global problems with very long timelines and possibly irreversible effects," Reinhardt told the group. Strategies For a Green Business The debate on whether or how business should react has been "polarized and dominated... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 May 2022
News

Green House

spark a home-design revolution. A Passive House is designed to be ultra-energy efficient. Some, like Harper’s Victorian, achieve net-zero-energy demand by pairing low-energy use with solar panels for energy production. Harper’s home is... View Details

January 2023
Case

The Ford Motor Company Green Bond

By: Vikram S Gandhi and James Barnett

In November 2021, Ford Motor Company offered a $2.5 billion green bond to finance investments in electrification. Issuance of green bonds significantly increased into the 2020s, and to date, the Ford Motor Company green bond was the largest such bond offered by a... View Details

Keywords: Finance; Bonds; Green Technology; Financial Services Industry; Auto Industry; United States