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Research Summary

Sustainable Inner-City Economic Development

By: Michael E. Porter

Michael E. Porter is using the framework he developed in The Competitive Advantage of Nations to examine the economic development problems in distressed inner-city areas. He seeks to understand the potential of inner-city businesses, government policies, and... View Details

2011
Working Paper

Sustainable Fleet Operations: The Collaborative Adoption of Electric Vehicles

By: Vanessa Chocteau, David F. Drake, Paul R. Kleindorfer, Renato J. Orsato and Alain Roset

Keywords: Fleet Management; Carbon Regulation; Sustainable Operations; Collaboration; Environmental Sustainability; Transportation; Cooperation; Energy Sources; Manufacturing Industry; Green Technology Industry; Service Industry; Auto Industry; France

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March 2003 (Revised July 2004)
Case

Sustainable Development at Shell (A)

Describes the complex and challenging process by which social and environmental concerns are integrated into the existing strategy of a large, multinational firm. Details the circumstances leading up to a large-scale effort to transform Shell's strategy to take into... View Details

Keywords: Multinational Firms and Management; Corporate Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Growth and Development Strategy; Energy Industry

Article

Sustainability in Financial Services Is Not About Being Green

By: Robert G. Eccles and George Serafeim

Keywords: Sustainability; Financial Services; Banks; Insurance Companies; Risk; Risk Management; Insurance; Accounting; Banks and Banking; Financial Services Industry

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20 Mar 2013
Research & Ideas

How CEOs Sustain Higher-Ambition Goals

Michael Beer and his coauthors at the Center for Higher Ambition Leadership, the executives underscored the importance of higher-ambition goals, including engaging with and developing employee and customer commitment, contributing to the community in which they... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman

10 Feb 2016
News

Investing in Sustainability

Nicholas Tiller (MBA 1998) grew up in a farming community, but it was his experience in hedge-fund management in the food and energy sectors that led him to establish Sustainable America, a nonprofit with the aim of reducing US oil... View Details

December 2004 (Revised May 2005)
Case

Nestle: Sustainable Agriculture Initiative

By: Forest L. Reinhardt

Swiss food giant Nestle attempts to improve the performance of its suppliers of agricultural commodities to raise quality, lower costs, and contribute to sustainable development. Its initiatives focus first on coffee, cocoa, and milk. Nestle managers assert that the... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Environmental Sustainability; Social Issues; Business and Community Relations; Corporate Strategy; Agribusiness; Supply Chain Management; Marketing Strategy; Value Creation; Food and Beverage Industry; Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry

23 May 2011
Research & Ideas

Corporate Sustainability Reporting: It’s Effective

Editor's note: Please see related story, Leading and Lagging Countries in Contributing to a Sustainable Society. Although companies are increasingly reporting on their corporate sustainability responsibility... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Blanding

Forthcoming
Article

Corporate Alignment with the EU Taxonomy for Sustainable Activities: First Evidence from Financial Accounting Data

By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Megan Czasonis, Piyush Kontu and George Serafeim

What is sustainable? This question is of paramount importance given the trillions of assets invested according to different sustainability criteria. While until now we have had no standard for answering this question, the European Union's (EU) Taxonomy for sustainable... View Details

Keywords: Financial Accounting; Capital Expenditures; Revenues; Sustainability; Regulation; Accounting; Finance; Climate Change; Europe; European Union

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August 2010 (Revised September 2011)
Case

Driving Sustainability at Bloomberg L.P.

By: Christopher Marquis, Daniel Beunza, Fabrizio Ferraro and Bobbi Thomason

Describes the addition of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance indicators to the Bloomberg terminal. The initiative grew out of Bloomberg's broader sustainability initiatives and is an example of how committed employees can create positive social... View Details

Keywords: Corporate Entrepreneurship; Knowledge Dissemination; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Organizational Culture; Business and Stakeholder Relations; Environmental Sustainability; Publishing Industry; New York (city, NY)

February 2017 (Revised February 2022)
Background Note

Creating and Sustaining Competitive Advantage

By: Eric Van den Steen

This note gives students a systematic and comprehensive framework for analyzing and developing competitive advantage. It pays explicit attention to both creating and sustaining advantage and considers both alignment and assets as sources of advantage. View Details

Keywords: Scope; Scale; Competitive Dynamics; Value Proposition; Bargaining Power; Competitive Advantage; Assets; Alignment; Business Strategy; Design

08 Jan 2016
News

Investing in Sustainability

production to feed the rapidly growing world population, expected to reach 9 billion in the next three decades. So in 2013, at the age of 41, Tiller retired from hedge-fund management to establish Sustainable America, an ambitious... View Details

Keywords: April White; Agriculture

March 2015
Case

Sustainable Palm Oil and Self-Regulation

By: Rebecca Henderson and Amram Migdal

This case is designed to be used with HBS Note: Industry Self-Regulation: Sustaining the Commons in the 21st Century, HBS No. 315-074. View Details

Keywords: Governance Compliance

November 2011 (Revised June 2015)
Case

COSCO: Implementing Sustainability

By: Christopher Marquis, Juelin Yin and Dongning Yang

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Shipping Industry

October 2023
Case

Driving Sustainability at AB InBev

By: Ethan Rouen and Antonio Manuel Oftelie

It was the height of the summer in 2022, and Michel Doukeris, the CEO of Anheuser-Busch InBev (AB InBev), and Peter Kraemer, the company’s Chief Supply Officer, gazed across the vast desert surrounding Zacatecas, Mexico. They were visiting their Grupo Modelo Brewery,... View Details

Keywords: Innovation; Transformation; Decisions; Environmental Sustainability; Leading Change; Growth Management; Business Model; Food and Beverage Industry; Mexico