Publications

December 2007
Case

The Amsterdam World Trade Center

By: A. Eugene Kohn, Hans van Tartwijk, Nhat Minh Nguyen, Brent Kazan and David Lane

Late in September 2001, Hans van Tartwijk, president of Trimp & van Tartwijk Property Development (TvT) of Amsterdam, Holland, was deeply worried about the status of his largest ongoing project; the Amsterdam World Trade Center (WTC). As the discretionary developer,... View Details

Keywords: Risk Management; Property; Performance Improvement; Projects; Environmental Sustainability; Real Estate Industry; Netherlands

08 Aug 2023
Research & Ideas

Black Employees Not Only Earn Less, But Deal with Bad Bosses and Poor Conditions

rankings for these environmental factors with the racial makeup of various firms. When he did, Zhang found that Asian employees scored highest on work environment, followed by White and Hispanic employees, who ranked about the same,... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

July–August 2023
Article

Accounting for Carbon Offsets

By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston

Markets for carbon trading function poorly, and many traded offsets do not actually perform as promised. Without robust protocols for monitoring offsets and in the absence of proper accounting mechanisms, market-based approaches to reducing atmospheric GHG will be... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Regulation

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March 2020
Case

A Tower for the People: 425 Park Avenue

By: John Macomber, Joseph G. Allen and Emily Jones

Healthy buildings and superior air quality are increasingly important since people now spend so much time indoors. Indoor spaces drive performance and productivity. Commercial real estate landlords and investors are responding to the demands of sophisticated tenants... View Details

Keywords: Health And Wellness; Real Estate; Sustainability; Health; Pollution; Buildings and Facilities; Performance Productivity; Finance; Real Estate Industry; New York (city, NY)

May 2011 (Revised March 2012)
Case

InterfaceRAISE: Sustainability Consulting

By: Michael W. Toffel, Robert G. Eccles and Casey Taylor

InterfaceRAISE is a sustainability management consulting firm created to leverage the capabilities of its parent company Interface Inc., a carpet manufacturer recognized as a global leader in corporate environmental sustainability. This case illustrates the challenges... View Details

Keywords: Problems and Challenges; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Entrepreneurship; Performance; Environmental Accounting; Profit; Marketing Strategy; Human Resources; Business Model; Leveraged Buyouts; Salesforce Management; Consulting Industry; Manufacturing Industry

14 Aug 2007
First Look

First Look: August 14, 2007

that were not litigated offer empirical evidence supporting the hypotheses. Purchase this case: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=407001 Cradle-to-Cradle Design at Herman Miller: Moving Toward Environmental... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

2008
Article

Ambidexterity as a Dynamic Capability: Resolving the Innovator's Dilemma

By: Charles O'Reilly and Michael Tushman

How do organizations survive in the face of change? Underlying this question is a rich debate about whether organizations can adapt—and if so, how. One perspective, organizational ecology, presents evidence suggesting that most organizations are largely inert and... View Details

Keywords: Change Management; Competency and Skills; Innovation and Management; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Performance Efficiency; Competitive Advantage

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2020
Working Paper

Updating the Balanced Scorecard for Triple Bottom Line Strategies

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan

Many companies are now attempting to achieve triple bottom line performance on financial, environmental, and societal metrics. Successful strategies for such performance, however, generally require new relationships among multiple players in multiple sectors across a... View Details

Keywords: Balanced Scorecard; Adaptation; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Performance; Strategy

SSRN

Research Summary

Sustainability and Integrated Reporting

A sustainable strategy for a company is one that enables it to create value for shareholders over the long term while contributing to a sustainable society. In doing so, it must balance the needs of different types of providers of financial capital (e.g.,... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Reporting

August 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Driving Sustainability at Bloomberg L.P.

By: Christopher Marquis, Daniel Beunza, Fabrizio Ferraro and Bobbi Thomason

Describes the addition of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance indicators to the Bloomberg terminal. The initiative grew out of Bloomberg's broader sustainability initiatives and is an example of how committed employees can create positive social... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Knowledge Dissemination; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Culture; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Publishing Industry; New York (city, NY)

February 2009
Article

GHG Trading Framework for the U.S. Biofuels Sector

By: Subbu Kumarappan and Satish V. Joshi

Substitution of petroleum fuels with biofuels such as ethanol and biodiesel has been shown to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. These GHG reductions can be traded in the emerging carbon markets, and methodologies for quantifying and trading are still being... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; United States

21 Feb 2017
First Look

First Look at New Research: February 21

characterized by underdeveloped institutions and frequent environmental shifts. Yet they also contain many firms that have survived over generations. How are firms in weak institutional environments able to persist over time? Motivated by... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

28 Sep 2009
Research & Ideas

Improving Accountability at the World Bank

supporters note a number of reforms over the past two decades, including a current review of the Bank's information disclosure policy, and a series of "safeguards" on sensitive issues such as environmental impacts and effects on... View Details

Keywords: by Alnoor Ebrahim

22 May 2018
First Look

New Research and Ideas, May 22, 2018

content, mobile is less important than advertised, one day of the week isn’t better than others, and case studies are most preferred. Publisher's link: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=54512 forthcoming Organization Science Corporate Purpose and... View Details

Keywords: Dina Gerdeman

2018
Working Paper

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Many production processes are subject to inspection to ensure they meet quality, safety, and environmental standards imposed by companies and regulators. Inspection accuracy is critical to inspections being a useful input to assessing risks, allocating quality... View Details

Keywords: Assessment; Bias; Inspection; Scheduling; Econometric Analysis; Empirical Research; Regulation; Health; Food; Safety; Quality; Performance Consistency; Performance Evaluation; Food and Beverage Industry; Service Industry

SSRN

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

The 26th annual United Nations Climate Change Conference of the Parties, also known as COP26, ended with a hard-fought pact that called on businesses and governments to meet their climate change goals faster. The event followed an August report by the Intergovernmental... View Details

Keywords: by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

Spring 2012
Article

The Need for Sector-Specific Materiality and Sustainability Reporting Standards

By: Robert G. Eccles, Michael P. Krzus, Jean Rogers and George Serafeim

Even though the supply of sustainability information has increased considerably in the last decade, companies are still failing to disclose material information in a comparable format. We believe this has two downsides. On the one hand, companies are not adequately... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Reporting; Standard Setting; Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Accounting; Standards; Integrated Corporate Reporting; Corporate Disclosure; Competitive Advantage; Capital Markets; Accounting Industry; United States

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