Publications

December 2008 (Revised January 2011)
Case

Arcadia Biosciences: Seeds of Change

By: Arthur A. Daemmrich, Forest L. Reinhardt and Mary Louise Shelman

Arcadia Biosciences is an entrepreneurial California agricultural biotech company seeking to earn carbon credits by modifying commodity crops for use in China and India. Eric Rey, Arcadia's CEO, faced a strategic inflection point in early September 2008. The company... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Entrepreneurship; Growth and Development Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Science-Based Business; Climate Change; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Biotechnology Industry; China; India; California

March 2004 (Revised April 2005)
Case

International Rivers Network and the Bujagali Dam Project (A)

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Aldo Sesia

In the summer of 2002, the International Rivers Network (IRN), an environmental NGO located in Berkeley, California, was engaged in what appeared to be the last hours of a three year campaign to stop a $582 million dam and hydropower project at Bujagali Falls in... View Details

Keywords: Ethics; Corporate Disclosure; Project Finance; Investment; Environmental Sustainability; Projects; Developing Countries and Economies; Energy Industry; Uganda

February 1997 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Walden Woods

By: William J. Poorvu and Arthur I Segel

In 1984, Mortimer Zuckerman and Ed Linde, through their firm, Boston Properties (BP), acquired land in Concord, MA to build a 147,000-square-foot, first-class suburban office building. BP proceeded to go through the permitting and approval process with the town and was... View Details

Keywords: Risk and Uncertainty; Decision Choices and Conditions; Entrepreneurship; Property; Environmental Sustainability; Conflict and Resolution; Real Estate Industry; Massachusetts

11 Jun 2014
Blog Post

Alumni: Where are they now? Featuring Joe…

ensure a more sustainable energy future. How has having an MBA impacted your career? Pursuing an MBA at Harvard has helped jumpstart my career in venture capital. Before HBS, I was an engineer at a large industrial technology company and... View Details

Keywords: Technology

Profile

Jake Johnston

bikes, and elk breeding. "Ultimately, I'd like to be an entrepreneur in a business that serves the greater good, like green construction or sustainable energy." "HBS has been eye-opening," says Jake. "I often come... View Details

Profile

Inessa Lurye

says. "We're in a $12 trillion business moving from paper to digital processes—many firms are merging or going out of business. The Building and Sustaining Successful Enterprises course, which was based on disruption theory, has... View Details

Profile

Brighton Mudzingwa

to be part of a sustainable economic system." But, Brighton says, "By the time I left the country in 2003, it was effectively unraveling. Agriculture was the backbone of our country. But a controversial land-distribution... View Details

Keywords: Financial Services

18 Feb 2016
Blog Post

Honing an Interest in Healthcare at HBS

healthcare. I knew that I was looking at working for a fast-paced healthcare startup after graduation in a strategic role, so I had to gain some experience quickly! My second term I opted to take a more "classic HBS" caseload-- Building and View Details

Web

Lucky Ones Coffee: Employing People with Disabilities | Information Technology

from the local community, and by early 2023 Holyfield and Matkins operated two coffee shops with 17 employees. The two entrepreneurs must now decide how to grow their business to create still more jobs, and how to structure the business to ensure that it remains a... View Details

26 Apr 2022
News

Leading on Climate Change

and countries on their sustainability efforts—and agreed that ESG transformation is underpinned by leadership transformation, which requires vision, trust, credibility, and transparency. View Details

Keywords: Margie Kelley

01 Sep 2018
News

What I Do: Clare Reichenbach (AMP 185, 2013)

chefs, and a full agenda of scholarship and mentoring programs, chef’s advocacy work, and sustainability initiatives. “The foundation is very multi-faceted and multi-disciplined, so my role is to ensure that all of those components are... View Details

Keywords: Julia Hanna; illustrations by Peter and Maria Hoey

Article

The Growing Strategic Importance of End-of-Life Product Management

By: Michael W. Toffel

Requiring manufacturers to manage the their products when they become waste is an innovative form of regulation, one that has been adopted by countries in Asia, Europe, and North America on a variety of products that range from vehicles to appliances to batteries.... View Details

Keywords: Product; Environmental Sustainability; Cost Management; Wastes and Waste Processing; Strategy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; Asia; Europe; North and Central America

Find at Harvard

Read Now

August 2011
Article

Coming Clean and Cleaning Up: Does Voluntary Self-Reporting Indicate Effective Self-Policing

By: Michael W. Toffel and Jodi L. Short

Regulatory agencies are increasingly establishing voluntary self-reporting programs both as an investigative tool and to encourage regulated firms to commit to policing themselves. We investigate whether voluntary self-reporting can reliably indicate effective... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Programs; Governance Compliance; Corporate Disclosure; Law Enforcement

Find at Harvard

Read Now

January 2015
Case

Chevron Under Fire

By: George Serafeim, Rebecca Henderson and Christine Snively

Oil giant, Chevron, faced numerous challenges on environmental, social and governance (ESG) grounds in the first decade of the 21st century, including some major lawsuits and actions by NGOs. The case describes those challenges and raises questions about what is the... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Tax; Oil And Gas; Environment; Drilling; Governance; Business or Company Management; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Corporate Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Sources; Mining Industry; Energy Industry

August 2011
Supplement

John Fahey, President and CEO of National Geographic Society, In-Class Comments, 2/11/11

By: David Garvin

In January 2010, John Fahey, president, CEO, and chairman of the board of trustees' executive committee of the Washington, D.C.-based National Geographic Society (NGS), must decide how best to organize the 121-year old mission-driven organization for a world of... View Details

Keywords: Transformation; Leadership Style; Business or Company Management; Brands and Branding; Sales; Environmental Sustainability; Business Strategy; Web Sites; Publishing Industry; Washington (state, US)

December 2007 (Revised February 2017)
Case

Vegpro Group: Growing in Harmony

By: David E. Bell, Brian Milder and Mary Shelman

Vegpro, a horticulture company, is Kenya's largest exporter of fresh vegetables and flowers to top supermarkets in the U.K. and Europe. In 2007, Vegpro's business is threatened by growing consumer concern about the environmental impact of food production and transport,... View Details

Keywords: Customer Satisfaction; Developing Countries and Economies; Ethics; Food; Growth and Development Strategy; Operations; Environmental Sustainability; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry; Kenya; Europe; United Kingdom