Publications

August 1974 (Revised November 1974)
Case

Reynolds Construction Company

By: Paul W. Marshall

Deals with the use of critical path method for the construction of remote control building, which is part of a water purification system. Discusses the necessity of determining the shortest possible time in which a job could be done without spending more money. Case... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Construction; Cost Management; Time Management; Wastes and Waste Processing; System; Construction Industry

06 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Renewable Energy: Winds at Our Back?

When American energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon envisioned the first offshore wind farm lining the horizon a few miles off the coast of the eastern United States, he perhaps did not factor in blowback from almost every angle. Gordon's nearly 10-year battle to gain... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

12 Oct 1999
Research & Ideas

Porter’s Perspective: Competing in the Global Economy

Productivity is also consistent with a clean environment. Environmental pollution normally is a sign of inefficient and unproductive use of resources and is almost always a reflection of inadequate technology. Countries with toughening... View Details

Keywords: Re: Michael E. Porter

20 Mar 2000
Research & Ideas

No Place Like Home: America’s Housing Crisis and Its Impact on Business

exacerbating urban sprawl, clogged highways, and polluted air. Says Bart Harvey, "The Chamber of Commerce of Orange County, California, one of the wealthier areas in the United States, has approached the Enterprise Foundation for... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Construction; Real Estate

11 Jun 2007
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching the Next Generation of Energy Executives

You may think that being an energy executive—especially a manager in a leading oil company—might be the easiest job around. Just flip the production switch, and watch gas prices head toward $4 a gallon. But students enrolled in Harvard Business School professor Forest... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

May 2009 (Revised October 2009)
Case

Verne Global: Building a Green Data Center in Iceland

Verne Global, a pioneering startup created to build the first large-scale data center in Iceland, faces critical challenges regarding its green strategy. Verne Co-Founder Isaac Kato is tasked with evaluating how the company can most successfully market and sell the... View Details

Keywords: Buildings and Facilities; Business Startups; Marketing Strategy; Product Marketing; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants; Green Technology Industry; Service Industry; Iceland

04 Apr 2024
Blog Post

Climate Stories: Water Series - Episode #16: Tim Murdoch, HBS MBA 1990 – Learning about Climate Change and Water

its coastal flooding yet the discussion didn’t delve into surface or groundwater issues. Hurricanes and flooding generate polluted or brackish water which impacts both agriculture and the overall water supply. I became more mobilized to... View Details

March 2010 (Revised June 2010)
Case

The Greening of DUMBO

By: Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson and Abhijit Prabhu

The Brooklyn, New York, neighborhood Down Under Manhattan Bridge Overpass (DUMBO) has seen a revitalization since the late 1970s. The neighborhood's business improvement district (BID) is charged with supplementing New York City's efforts in several areas, including... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Local Range; Business and Community Relations; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Wastes and Waste Processing; Urban Development; Public Administration Industry; New York (city, NY)

April 2011 (Revised January 2019)
Case

Talismark

By: Richard S. Ruback and Royce Yudkoff

Talismark, which helped its customers manage their waste, was considering re-engineering its business fundamentals to dramatically increase profitability by changing its sales and information processes. Implementing the changes would be expensive and would interrupt... View Details

Keywords: Restructuring; Business Processes; Information Management; Sales; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Wastes and Waste Processing

01 Jan 2021
News

Avoiding a Plastic Pandemic: The Future of Sustainability in a Post COVID-19 World

Keywords: Plastics and Rubber Products Manufacturing; Manufacturing

10 Sep 2013
First Look

First Look: September 10

sustainability strategies of leading German and American firms until the 1970s. However during that decade the German firms diverged from their American counterparts in using public relations strategies not only to contain fallout from criticism of their View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

01 Dec 2003
News

Rural Renewal

She hired some local help to cultivate the land when she first moved in, but soon decided that she needed to do the job herself. The decision to be an organic farm — one that avoided herbicides, pesticides, and chemical fertilizers — initially came merely because she... View Details

Keywords: Susan Young; Crop Production; Agriculture

2011
Working Paper

Do Not Trash the Incentive! Monetary Incentives and Waste Sorting

By: Alessandro Bucciol, Natalia Montinari and Marco Piovesan

This paper examines whether monetary incentives are an effective tool for increasing domestic waste sorting. We exploit the exogenous variation in the pricing systems experienced during the 1999-2008 decade by the 95 municipalities in the district of Treviso (Italy).... View Details

Keywords: Household; Cost Management; Consumer Behavior; Wastes and Waste Processing; Motivation and Incentives; Public Administration Industry; Italy

Read Now

February 2010 (Revised April 2011)
Case

The Political Economy of Carbon Trading

By: Forest L. Reinhardt, J. Gunnar Trumbull, Mikell Hyman, Patia McGrath and Nazli Zeynep Uludere

Global climate change is an increasingly prominent political and business problem. Design of market-based systems to reduce carbon emissions has proven difficult. More broadly, national attempts to comply with the provisions of the Kyoto Protocol present both... View Details

Keywords: Policy; International Relations; Risk Management; Agreements and Arrangements; Business and Government Relations; Natural Environment; Pollutants; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Public Administration Industry

01 Mar 2007
News

Gore All Business at HBS

WARM WELCOME: On an unseasonably mild December day, after a reception with faculty, staff, and students, Al Gore and Dean Jay Light walk to Burden Hall. We are managing the planet as if it were a business in liquidation,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore declared to... View Details

Keywords: Management, Scientific, and Technical Consulting Services; Professional Services; Scientific Research and Development Services

February 2016 (Revised May 2016)
Case

Astroscale, Space Debris, and Earth's Orbital Commons

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Angela Acocella and Mayuka Yamazaki

An engineer and technology entrepreneur, Nobu Okada, had turned a mid-life crisis into a bold—some would say quixotic—quest to prevent a tragedy of the commons at the global scale. Namely, Okada believed the accumulation of debris in near-Earth orbital space posed a... View Details

Keywords: Market Entry and Exit; Global Range; Entrepreneurship; Crisis Management; Wastes and Waste Processing; Economics; Aerospace Industry

October 2013 (Revised January 2015)
Case

The Slingshot: Improving Water Access

By: John A. Quelch, Margaret L. Rodriguez and Carin-Isabel Knoop

In 2012, over 750 million people around the globe lacked access to safe drinking water. Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway, sought to bring fresh water to poor and rural areas with the Slingshot, a water purification device. Kamen's challenge was to identify ways to... View Details

February 1979 (Revised December 1983)
Case

Allied Chemical Corp. (A)

By: George C. Lodge and Joseph L. Badaracco Jr.

Describes Allied, the chemical industry, and the effects of the Kepone problem (a toxic pesticide dumped into the James River) as of 1976. The executive in the case must decide whether the company should support the passage of the Toxic Substances Control Act and an... View Details

Keywords: Pollutants; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Decision Making; Laws and Statutes; Welfare; Legal Liability; Business and Government Relations; Chemical Industry

Find at Harvard

2016
Working Paper

The Climate Custodians

By: Robert G. Eccles and Tim Youmans

Can custody banks become key players in climate change? Custody banks joining the battle against climate change will signal a significant shift in governance ideology for this highly regulated industry so critical to the global financial system. While global custody... View Details

Keywords: Pollutants; Climate Change; Capital Markets; Investment Banking; Institutional Investing; Policy