Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(420)
- Faculty Publications (68)
- Article
Decarbonization Factors
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington and Hui (Stacie) Wang
In the face of accelerating climate change, investors are making capital allocations seeking to decarbonize portfolios by reducing the carbon emissions of their holdings. To understand the performance of portfolio decarbonization strategies and investor behavior... View Details
- August 2021 (Revised September 2022)
- Case
Patch Technology: Making It Easy to Do the Right Thing
By: Tomomichi Amano, Robert J. Dolan and Carol Zhang
In 2021, the growing threat of climate change pushed companies around the world to understand that significant behavioral change was necessary. While many recognized that decreasing emissions was critical, more sophisticated players such as Microsoft began to recognize... View Details
- July 2021
- Teaching Note
Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos
By: Tsedal Neeley
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 421-024. Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of multinational IT giant Atos to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global... View Details
- 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
- 2021
- Working Paper
Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets
By: David Freiberg, Jody Grewal and George Serafeim
We examine the effect of voluntarily adopting a standard for setting science-based carbon emissions targets on target difficulty and investments to achieve those targets. We find that firms with a track record of setting and achieving ambitious carbon targets are more... View Details
Keywords: Target; Targeting; Target-setting; Target Efficiency; Management Control Systems; Management Accounting; Environment; Environmental And Social Sustainability; Climate Change; Environmental Management; Environmental Accounting; Environmental Sustainability; Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques
- January 2021
- Case
Digital Transformation 2.0: CEO Elie Girard at Atos
By: Tsedal Neeley and James Barnett
Elie Girard has taken the helm as CEO of Atos—multinational IT giant—to lead the company into the next era of digital transformation. Noticing that customers’ digital needs were evolving to become even more specialized and global in scope, he made a bold first step as... View Details
- 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
- February 2020 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Sustainable Product Management at Solvay
By: George Serafeim, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej
In November 2019, Ilham Kadri, CEO of Solvay, a Belgian specialty chemicals and advanced materials group, with annual revenues of more than €10 billion in 2018, announced the group’s mid-term strategy, eight months after she took the helm as Solvay’s 11th CEO. The case... View Details
Keywords: Sustainability; Sustainable Business And Innovation; Sustainability Management; Sustainable Development; Management Accounting; Innovation; Carbon Emissions; Sustainability Reporting; Sustainability Targets; Target-setting; Product; Management; Transformation; Growth and Development Strategy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Chemical Industry; Europe; Belgium
- 2019
- Working Paper
Decarbonization Factors
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington and Hui (Stacie) Wang
In the face of accelerating climate change, investors are making capital allocations seeking to decarbonize portfolios by reducing the carbon emissions of their holdings. To understand the performance of portfolio decarbonization strategies and investor behavior... View Details
- 2018
- Report
The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World: An Interdisciplinary MIT Study
The Future of Nuclear Energy in a Carbon-Constrained World study is the eighth in the MIT Energy Initiative’s "Future of" series, which aims to shed light on a range of complex and important issues involving energy and the environment. A central theme is... View Details
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised October 2017)
- Case
Nuclear Energy: An Answer to Climate Change?
By: Michael W. Toffel, Glen W. S. Dowell and James Weber
Environmental activist groups have traditionally opposed nuclear energy. However, the growing environmental problems associated with global climate change require major changes to reduce the carbon intensity of electricity generation. Should environmental groups... View Details
- February 2016 (Revised March 2019)
- Case
Suncor and the Future of Oil Sands
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
- February 2015 (Revised June 2016)
- Case
Solar Geoengineering
By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Stephanie Puzio
On December 8th 2013, as Dr. David Keith was leaving the set of the Colbert Show, he couldn't help but replay the interview over and over in his mind. Did he actually get his point of view on solar geoengineering across or had he just added to the stereotype that he... View Details
- September 2012
- Background Note
Carbon Credits
By: Forest Reinhardt, Jost Hamschmidt and Mikell Hyman
- 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
- June 2011 (Revised December 2013)
- Case
FIJI Water: Carbon Negative?
By: Francesca Gino, Michael W. Toffel and Stephanie van Sice
Seeking to go beyond global best practices in reducing environmental impacts, FIJI Water, a premium artesian bottled water company in the United States, launched a Carbon Negative campaign that would offset more greenhouse gas emissions than were released by the... View Details
- June 2011 (Revised February 2024)
- Background Note
Carbon Footprints: Methods and Calculations
By: Michael W. Toffel, Stephanie van Sice and Kelsey Carter
Describes methods to calculate the carbon footprint (greenhouse gas emissions) of an organization's operations and supply chain, and a product or service. Illustrates concepts with examples of calculating the carbon footprint of organizations and products. Provides... View Details
- 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
- July 2009 (Revised January 2014)
- Case
Sustainability at Millipore
By: Michael W. Toffel and Katharine Lee
This case describes Millipore Corporation's approach to becoming a more environmentally sustainable company. As he prepared for his quarterly meeting with the CEO, the Director of Sustainability needed to develop positions on several issues. Tactically, he needed to... View Details