Publications

October 2018
Case

Innovation at the Utility: Consolidated Edison's Experience

By: Martha Crawford, Andrew Serpa and Jon Wofsy

In 2014, regulators in New York State released a bold vision for the future of the electric utility industry to try and stay ahead of larger trends of rising customer expectations, stagnant load growth, and climate change. In response, Con Edison created a Utility of... View Details

Keywords: Blockchain; Utilities; Consolidated Edison; Regulated Monopolies; Electricity Distribution; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Design; Energy; Energy Generation; Utilities Industry; Energy Industry

Web

Browse All Articles, Research, & Case Studies - HBS Working Knowledge

What Business Leaders Should Know with Outrage & Optimism Co-hosts In this episode, host Mike Toffel sits down with Paul Dickinson and Tom Rivett-Carnac, co-hosts of the climate podcast Outrage & Optimism, to preview COP29, the upcoming... View Details

Joseph B. Lassiter

Joe is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Management Practice in Environmental Management, Retired. He focuses on one of the world’s most pressing problems: developing clean, secure and carbon-neutral supplies of reliable, low-cost energy all around the world. He... View Details

Keywords: green technology; high technology; internet; oil ＆ gas; private equity (LBO funds); utilities; software; energy

October 2012 (Revised February 2014)
Case

Keystone XL Pipeline

By: Richard H. K. Vietor

On January 18, 2012, President Obama rejected TransCanada's application for a "national interest" determination to approve construction of the Keystone XL Pipeline. Keystone XL was a 1,700 mile long, 36-inch diameter pipeline to transport 1.1 million barrels a day of... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Petroleum; Environmentalism; United States; Oil Prices; National Security; Environmental Sustainability; Energy Sources; Energy Industry; Canada; United States

Web

Business & Environment

a rapidly changing world in which natural resources are increasingly scarce and the threat of climate change ever more urgent. How organizations can connect with students... View Details

March 2013 (Revised March 2014)
Case

C12 Energy

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and James McQuade

C12 aimed to build not only a company, but an entire industry around carbon capture and sequestration (CCS). "You change the world by building a market, and you build a market by building a profitable company that other people copy," said Dawe, C12 Energy's CEO. "In... View Details

Keywords: Carbon Sequestration; Sustainability; Cleantech; Oil And Gas; Business Model; Energy; Entrepreneurship; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Energy Industry; North America

19 Jan 2022
In Practice

7 Trends to Watch in 2022

As 2022 gets underway we asked our faculty to highlight some trends worth watching in the coming year. Ariel Stern: A new future for digital health care While 2020 and 2021 were years of rapid innovation and deployment of new health care technologies and delivery... View Details

Keywords: by HBS News

09 Aug 2010
Research & Ideas

How to Speed Up Energy Innovation

Is there a special sauce for stimulating innovation in the energy sector, a concoction to spur cost-effective developments toward solving the climate change problem? HBS professor Rebecca Henderson doesn't... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

November 2012 (Revised April 2013)
Case

Colbún and the Future of Chile's Power

By: Forest Reinhardt and Shon R. Hiatt

This case is about Colbún, Chile's second largest electricity generator, which is facing significant uncertainty regarding the cost and availability of alternative energy sources. Problems with the contracted supply of natural gas and the volatility of oil prices,... View Details

Keywords: Energy; Chile; Environmental Protection; Energy Generation; Energy Industry; South America; Chile

Research Summary

Professor Hiatt’s research is aimed at discovering how institutional factors can affect sector growth and technology development and adoption by mediating and moderating uncertainty. His work encompasses two related research questions:

1) How can... View Details

January 2020 (Revised July 2020)
Case

BlackRock: Linking Purpose to Profit

By: Aiyesha Dey

The case revolves around the actions that Barbara Novick, co-founder and Vice-Chair of Blackrock, and Michelle Edkins, Global Head of Investment Stewardship, would need to take in response to the controversial CEO letters from Laurence (Larry) Fink, Chairman and CEO of... View Details

What Color Is Your Parachute? meets Out of Office in this inspiring, practical playbook to achieve sustainable work-life balance while optimizing your happiness, personal growth, and bank accounts.

Pouring yourself into a single... View Details

2024
Article

Financial Constraints and Short-term Planning are Linked to Flood Risk Adaptation Gaps in U.S. cities

By: Shirley Lu and Anya Nakhmurina

Adaptation is critical in reducing the inevitable impact of climate change. Here we study cities’ adaptation to elevated flood risk by introducing a linguistic measure of adaptation extracted from financial disclosures of 431 US cities over 2013–2020. While cities with... View Details

Keywords: City; Natural Disasters; Climate Change; Adaptation; Risk and Uncertainty; Strategic Planning

Read Now

10 Jan 2013
Working Paper Summaries

Pay for Environmental Performance: The Effect of Incentive Provision on Carbon Emissions

Keywords: by Robert G. Eccles, Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li & George Serafeim

January 2024
Technical Note

The ICARUS Principles: What It Takes to Tackle the World

By: Debora L. Spar and Julia M. Comeau

Over the course of the 20th century, most of the world’s major multinational corporations framed their mission around Milton Friedman’s famous mantra: that the sole purpose of the firm is to maximize its shareholders’ profits. Recently, however, growing numbers of... View Details

Keywords: Purpose; Mission; Social Business; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Mission and Purpose; Social Enterprise; For-Profit Firms

August 2018
Case

Christine Lagarde (C): Managing the IMF

By: Julie Battilana and Carin-Isabel Knoop

This case covers the career of Christine Lagarde from 2011 to 2018 as she takes the helm of a troubled multilateral organization during a time of deepening economic turmoil. As the first female leader of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and as a non-economist,... View Details

Keywords: Personal Development and Career; Power and Influence; Change Management; Global Range; Gender; Equality and Inequality; Climate Change

March 2024 (Revised July 2024)
Case

H2 Green Steel: A Clean-Tech Triple Play?

By: Debora L. Spar, Gunnar Trumbull, Henry Tao and Julia Comeau

At the end of 2023, the Swedish startup H2 Green Steel was mid-way through construction on an integrated steel plant in Northern Sweden that would use abundant local hydro power to create Europe’s first commercial-scale green steel. Their goal was to help European... View Details

Keywords: Steel; Green Business; Green Technology; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Business Startups; Climate Change; Technological Innovation; Growth and Development Strategy; Renewable Energy; Steel Industry; Sweden