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- All HBS Web
(435)
- News (70)
- Research (272)
- Multimedia (4)
- Faculty Publications (169)
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- October 2007
- Article
Grist: A Strategic Approach to Climate
By: Michael E. Porter and Forest Reinhardt
Climate change will affect everything businesses do, as government efforts to mitigate carbon emissions cause their prices to rise steeply. This special edition of Forethought takes a hard-nosed look at the risks and opportunities of climate change. Michael E. Porter... View Details
Keywords: Customer Value and Value Chain; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Leadership; Logistics; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Improvement; Climate Change; Competitive Advantage; Corporate Strategy
Porter, Michael E., and Forest Reinhardt. "Grist: A Strategic Approach to Climate." Forethought. Harvard Business Review 85, no. 10 (October 2007): 22–26.
- 18 Jun 2024
- Research & Ideas
Industrial Decarbonization: Confronting the Hard Challenges of Cement
Cities like Cairo; Chongqing, China; Delhi; and Kinshasa, Congo are experiencing population explosions accompanied by unprecedented demand for homes, offices, factories, and infrastructure. In the United States, the Biden Administration’s policy-driven infrastructure... View Details
- 28 Aug 2012
- First Look
First Look: August 28
unregulated regions and increase global emissions in the process. Carbon tariffs have emerged as a possible mechanism to address these concerns by imposing carbon costs on... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- March 2025 (Revised June 2025)
- Background Note
Getting to Net Zero: The Role of the Financial Sector
By: Shawn Cole, Jonah Zahnd, Karina Chung and Jack Cenovic
In early 2025, momentum towards the goal of reaching net zero carbon emissions by 2050 continued in many parts of the world, even as it appeared to face a set-back following the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States. Financial institutions... View Details
Keywords: Transition; Climate Change; Environmental Regulation; Environmental Law; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Risk and Uncertainty; Competitive Advantage; Financial Services Industry
Cole, Shawn, Jonah Zahnd, Karina Chung, and Jack Cenovic. "Getting to Net Zero: The Role of the Financial Sector." Harvard Business School Background Note 225-066, March 2025. (Revised June 2025.)
- 18 Apr 2023
- Research & Ideas
What Happens When Banks Ditch Coal: The Impact Is 'More Than Anyone Thought'
Consumers who are eager to mitigate climate change can take many actions, such as reducing the number of airline flights they take or installing solar panels on their homes. But the planet is in a race against time, and individual action alone won’t help most countries... 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
Keywords: Behavioral Science; Transportation Demand Management; Commuting; Single-occupancy Vehicle Commutes; Transportation; Behavior; Change; Environmental Sustainability
Whillans, Ashley, Joseph Sherlock, Jessica Roberts, Shibeal O'Flaherty, Lyndsay Gavin, Holly Dykstra, and Michael Daly. "Nudging the Commute: Using Behaviorally-Informed Interventions to Promote Sustainable Transportation." Behavioral Science & Policy 7, no. 2 (2021): 27–49.
- 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
Keywords: Investment; Corporate Disclosure; Operations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Structure; Natural Environment; Environmental Sustainability; Pollutants
Toffel, Michael W., and Katharine Lee. "Sustainability at Millipore." Harvard Business School Case 610-012, July 2009. (Revised January 2014.) (defining sustainability in a corporate context, managing greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions including inventories, targets, disclosure, reduction strategies.)
- 19 Dec 2014
- Research & Ideas
China’s Complicated Relationship With Mother Nature
Despite its name, the Great Wall of China began as a series of smaller, isolated defensive fortifications. Those structures grew and were later unified into the imposing structure that exists today. The Great Wall is a great metaphor for the Chinese economy. By... View Details
- 2012
- Chapter
Citizens' Perceptions and the Disconnect Between Economics and Regulatory Policy
By: Jonathan Baron, William T. McEnroe and Christopher Poliquin
Economic theory is clear about the advantages and disadvantages of various ways of regulating negative externalities, such as command and control, cap and trade, taxation, subsidies, and tort law. Yet public policy rarely follows the recommendations that follow from... View Details
Baron, Jonathan, William T. McEnroe, and Christopher Poliquin. "Citizens' Perceptions and the Disconnect Between Economics and Regulatory Policy." In Regulatory Breakdown: The Crisis of Confidence in U.S. Regulation, edited by Cary Coglianese. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2012.
- 24 Sep 2014
- Op-Ed
We Need a Miracle. New Nuclear Might Provide it.
On September 4, the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) published its 2014 International Energy Outlook. Earlier this year, the International Energy Agency (IEA) released its latest World Energy Investment Outlook. Both watchdogs tell us the same story. Energy... 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
Freiberg, David, DG Park, George Serafeim, and T. Robert Zochowski. "Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information." Harvard Business School Working Paper, No. 20-098, March 2020. (Revised February 2021.)
- 09 Dec 2014
- First Look
First Look: December 9
Download working paper: http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/15-016_c6e7c9cc-70a3-4119-bd7b-8e4b25a26312.pdf Technology Choice and Capacity Portfolios Under Emissions Regulation By: Drake, David, Paul R. Kleindorfer, and Luk N.... View Details
Keywords: Sean Silverthorne
- February 2024 (Revised April 2024)
- Case
CPP Investments—The Road to Zero
By: Vikram Gandhi and Radhika Kak
In February 2022, Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) Investments, the investment management organization that managed funds for the CPP, one of the biggest pension plans in the world, announced a net-zero commitment for its portfolio by 2050. Under its CEO, John Graham, it... View Details
Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Asset Management; Investment Portfolio; Leading Change; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Financial Services Industry; Canada; California
Gandhi, Vikram, and Radhika Kak. "CPP Investments—The Road to Zero." Harvard Business School Case 324-054, February 2024. (Revised April 2024.)
- 11 Jun 2012
- Research & Ideas
When Business Competition Harms Society
UCLA Anderson School, and Michael W. Toffel of Harvard Business School. In the quest to discover whether competition breeds unethical behavior, the researchers examined the vehicle emissions testing program in New York State, one of... 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
Amano, Tomomichi, Robert J. Dolan, and Carol Zhang. "Patch Technology: Making It Easy to Do the Right Thing." Harvard Business School Case 522-037, August 2021. (Revised September 2022.)
- 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
Eccles, Robert G., George Serafeim, and Kyle Armbrester. "Tough Decisions at Marks and Spencer." Harvard Business School Case 112-062, January 2012. (Revised September 2015.)
- 15 Nov 2011
- Working Paper Summaries
Engaging Supply Chains in Climate Change
- Research Summary
Corporate transparency and information disclosure strategies
This research focuses on transparency and information disclosure strategies, a topic of growing importance in environmental sustainability, corporate strategy, stakeholder relations, and public policy. My prior research in this area explored why... View Details
- Research Summary
Managing sustainability in supply chains
I am examining codes of conduct, management process standards, and government voluntary programs that address environmental and labor issues, seeking to understand what enables some of these programs to actually deliver on their promise of distinguishing organizations... View Details
- 2025
- Working Paper
Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping The Way We Do Electricity
By: Christian Kaps and Serguei Netessine
In this paper, we aim to understand when private households invest in behind-the-meter battery storage next to rooftop solar and how those batteries impact households, the electricity market, and emissions. We answer three main research questions: 1) When do customers... View Details
Keywords: Solar Power; Energy Storage; Technology And Innovation Management; Energy; Energy Policy; Renewable Energy; Technological Innovation; Innovation and Management; Energy Industry
Kaps, Christian, and Serguei Netessine. "Residential Battery Storage - Reshaping the Way We Do Electricity." Working Paper, February 2025.