Publications
Publications
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- All HBS Web
(807)
- Faculty Publications (123)
- 2022
- Chapter
Capitalism and the Environment
By: Geoffrey Jones
Capitalism drove the environmental decimation of the planet. The environment was seen as a free good, while the consequences of dirty industrial and agricultural processes were seen as external to the firm. Public policies largely allowed this to happen, as politicians... View Details
- January 2022 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Envision Group
By: Gunnar Trumbull, Bonnie Yining Cao and Dawn H. Lau
Based in China, Envision was one of the world’s leading Greentech companies. Chief Executive Officer Lei Zhang had set the goal of achieving carbon neutrality across the company’s global operations and supply chain by 2022 and 2028 respectively. As part of its... View Details
Keywords: Green Technology; Climate Change; Emerging Markets; Information Technology; Strategy; Management; Renewable Energy; Energy Policy; Environmental Sustainability; Manufacturing Industry; Auto Industry; Green Technology Industry; Battery Industry; China; United States; Japan; United Kingdom; France
- Article
B Corps: Can It Remake Capitalism in Japan?
By: Geoffrey Jones
This article examines the B Corporation movement that originated in the United States in 2006. The founders sought to create a new type of company whose governance structure mandated them to consider financial, social and environmental performance. A certification... View Details
- November 2021
- Article
Making Industrial Policy Work for Decarbonization
By: Jonas Meckling
Industrial policy has begun to move into the center of debates on climate policy. This represents a shift away from climate policy as we know it—as classic environmental policy. Industrial policy and environmental policy differ in their policy goals, policy... View Details
- October 2021 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Green Hydrogen in Chile
By: Tarun Khanna, Jenyfeer Martínez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
In 2020, the Chilean government wants to promote green hydrogen, a technology with high potential to help mitigate climate change. President Sebastián Piñera, aware of the country's advantages to produce green hydrogen competitively, asks Energy Minister Juan Carlos... View Details
Keywords: COVID-19 Pandemic; Decision Making; Alternative Energy; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology; Financial Instruments; Energy Policy; Government Administration; Strategy; Government and Politics; Social Issues; Energy Industry; Latin America; South America; Chile
- March 2022
- Article
Strategic State Capacity: How States Counter Opposition to Climate Policy
By: Jonas Meckling and Jonas Nahm
When can states implement policies against the opposition from powerful interest groups? Research on state capacity has examined bureaucratic sources of capacity, leaving unexplained why countries with similar levels of bureaucratic capacity vary in goal attainment. We... View Details
- March 2021 (Revised January 2023)
- Case
The Trouble with TCE
By: Vincent Pons, Rafael Di Tella and Galit Goldstein
Trichloroethylene, or TCE, was a chemical used by tens of thousands of businesses in the United States. It was an affordable tool for many. Yet, TCE had been associated with important health risks, including cancer and autoimmune disease. TCE potentially posed other... View Details
- 2021
- Chapter
Sostenibilidad y negocios verdes en América Latina
By: Geoffrey Jones
This chapter in the first-ever business history textbook on Latin America examines the impact of modern business enterprise on the natural environment of the region between the 19th century and the present day. It argues that although global capitalism created much... View Details
- October 2020 (Revised February 2024)
- Case
Divesting Harvard's Endowment
By: Daniel Green, Luis M. Viceira and Holly Fetter
By early 2020 Harvard University was facing growing pressure from students, faculty, and alumni to divest its $40 billion endowment of financial stakes in fossil fuel producers. Its previous policy of avoiding the issue was quickly becoming outdated—$21 trillion of... View Details
- 2020
- Working Paper
The ESG-Innovation Disconnect: Evidence from Green Patenting
By: Lauren Cohen, Umit G. Gurun and Quoc H. Nguyen
No firm or sector of the global economy is untouched by innovation. In equilibrium, innovators will flock to (and innovation will occur where) the returns to innovative capital are the highest. In this paper, we document a strong empirical pattern in green patent... View Details
- November 2019
- Article
When and Why Defaults Influence Decisions: A Meta-analysis of Default Effects
By: Jon M. Jachimowicz, Shannon Duncan, Elke U. Weber and Eric J. Johnson
When people make decisions with a pre-selected choice option—a “default”—they are more likely to select that option. Because defaults are easy to implement, they constitute one of the most widely employed tools in the choice architecture toolbox. However, to decide... View Details
- 2019
- Working Paper
Intelligent Design of Inclusive Growth Strategies
By: Robert S. Kaplan, George Serafeim and Eduardo Tugendhat
Improving corporate engagement with society, as advocated in the Business Roundtable’s 2019 statement, should not be viewed as a zero-sum proposition where attention to new stakeholders detracts from delivering shareholder value. Corporate programs for sustainable and... View Details
- Article
Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism
By: Aaron K Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel
CEO activism refers to corporate leaders speaking out on social and environmental policy issues not directly related to their company’s core business. Distinct from nonmarket strategy and traditional corporate social responsibility, the recent wave of CEO activism... View Details
- 2018
- Working Paper
Sustainability and Green Business in Latin America During Globalization Waves
By: Geoffrey Jones
This working paper examines the impact of modern business enterprise on the natural environment of Latin America during the globalization waves between the 19th century and the present day. It argues that although global capitalism created much wealth for the region,... View Details
- Summer 2018
- Article
CSR Needs CPR: Corporate Sustainability and Politics
By: Thomas Lyon, Magali A. Delmas, John W. Maxwell, Pratima Bansal, Mireille Chiroleu-Assouline, Patricia Crifo, Rodolphe Durand, Jean-Pascal Gond, Andrew King, Michael Lenox, Michael W. Toffel, David Vogel and Frank Wijen
Corporate sustainability has gone mainstream, and many companies have taken meaningful steps to improve their own environmental performance. But while corporate political actions such as lobbying can have a greater impact on environmental quality, they are ignored in... 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
- April 2017 (Revised August 2018)
- Case
The U.S. Shale Revolution: Global Rebalancing?
By: Laura Alfaro and Richard H.K. Vietor
The American shale revolution has upended oil and gas markets for nearly a decade. Prices have risen then plunged, production has surged and then waned, LNG has boomed, and technology and productivity have improved. The U.S. energy policy, under the Obama... View Details
- January 23, 2017
- Article
Trump Has a Great Opportunity to Save Our Environment
By: Vanessa Burbano, Magali Delmas, Marian Chertow, Glen W. S. Dowell, Rodolphe Durand, Andrew J. Hoffman, Guy Holburn, Andrew A. King, Michael Lenox, Lin Lerpold, Thomas Lyon, John W. Maxwell, Eric Orts, N. Craig Smith, John Sterman, Michael W. Toffel, L. Beril Toktay, David Vogel, Judith Walls, Frank Wijen, Jeff York and Maurizio Zollo
- 2016
- Chapter
Unpacking the Dynamics of Successful Change: Ten Insights from the Private Sector
Book Abstract: The aim of this book is to catalyze global interest in the pursuit of transformational changes in natural resource and environmental management. It is shown that transformational policy reforms involve fundamental shifts in strategy with far-reaching... View Details
- 2016
- Book
Strategy Beyond Markets
By: John de Figueiredo, Michael Lenox, Felix Oberholzer-Gee and Rick Vanden Bergh
Strategy beyond markets has been an active area of research inquiry since the early 1990s. Since its inception, the scholarship emanating from this research stream has grown substantially in quantity, quality, and breadth. Likewise, firms across the world have... View Details
Keywords: Strategy