Publications

2010
Working Paper

Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future?

By: Annissa Alusi, Robert G. Eccles, Amy C. Edmondson and Tiona Zuzul

Two trends are likely to define the 21st century: threats to the sustainability of the natural environment and dramatic increases in urbanization. This paper reviews the goals, business models, and partnerships involved in eight early "ecocity" projects to begin to... View Details

Keywords: Communication Technology; Investment; City; Infrastructure; Business and Government Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Urban Development; Information Technology; Green Technology Industry; Real Estate Industry

January 2012 (Revised September 2015)
Case

Tough Decisions at Marks and Spencer

By: George Serafeim

In 2007, under the leadership of CEO Stuart Rose, the iconic British retailer Marks and Spencer, with great fanfare, announced its "Plan A" initiative. Based on the five essential pillars of climate change, waste, sustainable materials, fair partnership, and health,... View Details

Keywords: Decision Making; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Strategy; Retail Industry

February 2013 (Revised December 2015)
Case

Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency

By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira R. Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice

Groom Energy Solutions helps organizations reduce their energy use and costs through the implementation of energy efficiency measures, which create long-term financial and environmental benefits. With early success serving customers in the cold storage and industrial... View Details

Keywords: Groom Energy Solutions; Jon Guerster; Salem, MA; Energy Management; Energy Efficiency Paradox; Sustainability Management; Manufacturing; Cold Storage; Commercial Real Estate; Enterprise Smart Grid; Carbon Accounting; LED Lighting; Sustainability Research; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Entrepreneurship; Energy Entrepreneurship; Energy Services; Electricity; Startup; Expansion; Growth; Sustainability; Business Startups; Forecasting and Prediction; Energy Conservation; Revenue; Geographic Location; Human Resources; Management; Growth and Development Strategy; Market Entry and Exit; Operations; Service Delivery; Strategic Planning; Science; Environmental Sustainability; Climate Change; Society; Social Issues; Technology Adoption; Energy Industry; Green Technology Industry; Technology Industry; Utilities Industry; United States; Boston

Article

Transition to Clean Technology

By: Daron Acemoglu, Ufuk Akcigit, Douglas Hanley and William R. Kerr

We develop a microeconomic model of endogenous growth where clean and dirty technologies compete in production and innovation, in the sense that research can be directed to either clean or dirty technologies. If dirty technologies are more advanced to start with, the... View Details

Keywords: Technological Innovation; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry

Find at Harvard

2012
Chapter

Sustainable Cities: Oxymoron or the Shape of the Future?

By: Robert G. Eccles, Annissa Alusi, Amy C. Edmondson and Tiona Zuzul

Two trends are likely to define the 21st century: threats to the sustainability of the natural environment and dramatic increases in urbanization. This paper reviews the goals, business models, and partnerships involved in eight early "ecocity" projects to begin to... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; City; Urban Development; Infrastructure; Housing; Urban Scope; Business Ventures; Business Model; Green Technology Industry

October 2003
Case

Financing Biodiversity Conservation by the Global Conservation Fund

By: Mihir A. Desai and Julia Stevens

The Global Conservation Fund is an international nonprofit organization with a $100 million endowment and an exclusive focus on land preservation. The fund and its director must decide which projects to fund over the next year and what financing mechanism to use.... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Protection; Project Evaluation; Environmental Sustainability; Projects; Finance; Decision Making; Financial Instruments; Nonprofit Organizations

24 Mar 2015
News

Integrated Reporting: Corporate Disclosure for China’s “New Normal”

Jo Tango

Jo Tango is the MBA Class of 1962 Senior Lecturer of Business Administration. He helps teach "The Entrepreneurial Manager" (TEM), a required course for all 900 first-year students and of which he... View Details

Robert S. Kaplan

Robert S. Kaplan is Senior Fellow and Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development, Emeritus at the Harvard Business School. He joined the HBS faculty in 1984 after spending 16 years on the faculty of the business school at Carnegie-Mellon University, where he... View Details

Keywords: health care; nonprofit industry

2021
Working Paper

Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information

By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski

As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable... View Details

Keywords: Environment; Impact; Measurement; Environmental Ratings; Corporate Valuation; Financial Materiality; Sustainability; Environmental Impact; Environmental Strategy; Impact-Weighted Accounts; IWAI; Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Measurement and Metrics; Valuation

SSRN

11 Apr 2016
News

System Overload

2021
Article

Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation

By: Ashley Whillans, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra and Michael Daly

Dramatic reductions in carbon emissions must take place immediately. A human-centric method of reducing environmental impacts is to “nudge” employees away from single-occupancy vehicles (SOVs) toward more sustainable commuting options. While an abundance of research... View Details

Keywords: Behavioral Science; Transportation Demand Management; Commuting; Single-occupancy Vehicle Commutes; Transportation; Behavior; Change; Environmental Sustainability

June 2016
Teaching Note

N12 Technologies: Building an Organization and Building a Business

By: David A. Garvin

N12 Technologies was a startup founded in 2010 that employed nanotechnology to manufacture a patented material to improve the performance of carbon fiber composites, which were used in a wide variety of products, ranging from bicycles to automobiles to aircraft parts.... View Details

Keywords: Startup; Organizational Structure; Nanotechnology; Business Processes; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Design; Management Systems; Commercialization; Industrial Products Industry; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Bicycle Industry; Transportation Industry; United States

We contribute to the literature on firms' responses to institutional pressures and environmental information disclosure. We hypothesize that CEO characteristics such as education and tenure will influence firms' likelihood to voluntarily disclose environmental... View Details

October 2022
Case

Sustainable Finance at Itau BBA

By: George Serafeim, Maria Loumioti and Benjamin Maletta

As of August 2022, the Itau BBA had structured dozens of sustainability linked bonds, which made future interest payments a function of the borrower meeting a target for a sustainability metric, and had solidified its reputation as a pioneer of sustainable finance in... View Details

Keywords: Sustainable Finance; Corporate Social Responsibility; Environmental Sustainability; Growth Strategy; Debt Contracting; Performance Metrics; Risk Assessment; ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance; Financial Instruments; Risk Management; Debt Securities; Measurement and Metrics; Banking Industry; Pulp and Paper Industry; Latin America

June 2022 (Revised January 2023)
Case

South Africa – a 'Just Energy Transition'

By: Richard Vietor

South Africa, like most other countries, is in the process of reducing its carbon emissions to comply with COP26 and, hopefully, reach net zero emissions by 2050. However, because South Africa relies almost wholly on coal (93%) for electricity, and on coal for... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Economic Development; Climate Change; Coal Mining; Emission Reduction; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Sustainability; Environmental Law; Labor and Management Relations; Labor Unions; Natural Resources; Energy Policy; Energy Sources; South Africa

2022
Working Paper

The Issuance and Design of Sustainability-linked Loans

By: Maria Loumioti and George Serafeim

Sustainability-linked loans (i.e., syndicated loans for which pricing is linked to a sustainability performance indicator) have rapidly evolved into a significant private debt product. We find that sustainability-linked lending has been available mostly to borrowers... View Details

Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainability Management; Credit Products; Loan Contracts; Loans; Corporate Finance; Credit Risk; Environment; ESG; ESG Ratings; Climate Change; Finance; Borrowing and Debt; Risk and Uncertainty; Credit

SSRN

February 2016 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Suncor and the Future of Oil Sands

By: Richard H.K. Vietor

Suncor, Canada's largest producer of "oil sands," faces a host of issues involving prices, costs, and the environment. The Government of Canada recently put an explicit limit on carbon emissions from oil sands and a price on carbon. Suncor, which produces more than... View Details

Keywords: Oil Sands; Energy; Price; Operations; Cost; Energy Industry; Canada