Environmental Protection - Publications - Faculty & Research

19 Sep 2016
Research & Ideas

Why Isn't Business Research More Relevant to Business Practitioners?

the Practical Relevance of Research, forthcoming in Production and Operations Management. “This is my soapbox message to academics: be more relevant,” says Toffel, the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management and faculty... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Education

05 Jun 2013
Op-Ed

Corporate Leaders Need to Step Up on Climate Change

Green initiatives are ubiquitous these days, implemented with zeal at companies like Dupont, IBM, Walmart, and Walt Disney. The programs being rolled out—lighting retrofits, zero-waste factories, and carpool incentives—save money and provide a green glow. Most large... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler

07 Aug 2015
Research & Ideas

Obama’s Clean Power Plan: Can Nuclear Power Beat the Global Threat of Coal?

This week, President Obama and the Environmental Protection Agency released the final version of the Clean Power Plan, a major set of rules and incentives aimed at reducing greenhouse gas emissions from America's power plants. The plan requires each state to meet a... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel; Energy; Utilities

15 Jul 2002
Research & Ideas

Going Green Makes Good Business Sense

living longer—but eventually dying of diseases that could plausibly have an environmental component. Just as there has been progress in scientifically detecting foreign contaminants in the air and water, the public clamors for View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

06 Jul 2010
Research & Ideas

Renewable Energy: Winds at Our Back?

When American energy entrepreneur Jim Gordon envisioned the first offshore wind farm lining the horizon a few miles off the coast of the eastern United States, he perhaps did not factor in blowback from almost every angle. Gordon's nearly 10-year battle to gain... View Details

Keywords: by Sarah Jane Gilbert; Energy; Utilities

07 Sep 2019
Op-Ed

Even for Non-Believers, These Are the Next Steps on Climate Change

taming global warming and other environmental threats. These intense juxtapositions must leave many wondering what we should be doing in the face of these perils. Just what are the next steps? I have an idea about that. My research... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber

24 Sep 2014
Op-Ed

The Climate Needs Aggressive CEO Leadership

that support addressing climate change—a message arguably more appealing to Americans than the opposition's message of predicted economic disaster. Instead, they offer a business case that also happens to protect children, the... View Details

Keywords: by Michael Toffel & Auden Schendler; Energy; Utilities

19 Oct 2011
Research & Ideas

Designing Cities for a Sustainable Future

On a June day in Manhattan with temperatures heading into the 90s, a straphanger named Mike is taking his customary subway ride to work. People are grumbling about the heat, but hey, it's summer, it's supposed to be hot, and besides, "Whaddya gonna do?" New Yorkers... View Details

Keywords: by Garry Emmons; Construction; Real Estate

18 Apr 2012
Research & Ideas

HBS Cases: Who Controls Water?

sort out a complex tangle of interdependent contributing factors. Environmental and legal issues muddy the water, for example. In the mid-2000s efforts to save a 3-inch fish called the delta smelt from extinction led to a ruling by a US... View Details

Keywords: by Maggie Starvish; Agriculture & Agribusiness

08 Oct 2014
Research & Ideas

Who Is the Chief Sustainability Officer?

Since the start of the 2000s, a high-level corporate position has evolved that is still something of a mystery. As companies have engaged in more efforts around sustainability, environmental and otherwise, the "chief sustainability... View Details

Keywords: by Dina Gerdeman; Manufacturing

08 Jun 2011
Lessons from the Classroom

Twenty-first Century Skill: Trading Carbon Credits

Cap and trade has become an increasingly popular mechanism used by governments to induce green behavior among corporate polluters, with news emerging almost daily. Just recently New Jersey Governor Chris Christie withdrew his state from the Regional Greenhouse Gas... View Details

Keywords: by Julia Hanna; Energy; Utilities

06 Nov 2012
Op-Ed

Stop Talking About the Weather and Do Something: Three Ways to Finance Sustainable Cities

The wrath of Hurricane Sandy has illuminated a fundamental question: How do we ensure that our cities are resilient in the face of inevitable future disasters? A destroyed city is not a sustainable city. I'm making the case that it's time to stop complaining about... View Details

Keywords: by John Macomber; Construction; Real Estate; Energy; Utilities

30 Jun 2020
Book

Capitalism Is More at Risk Than Ever

The book Capitalism at Risk first appeared in 2011. The problems it identified with social inequality, global trade strife, and environmental degradation have only accelerated by 2020. The new edition of Capitalism at Risk, subtitled How Business Can Lead, is expanded... View Details

Keywords: by Martha Lagace

09 Sep 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching Climate Change to Skeptics

realistic, while 20 percent believed it was a random fluctuation warranting no urgent action," says Lassiter, the Senator John Heinz Professor of Management Practice in Environmental Management at Harvard Business School. "In Houston, it... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

21 Feb 2007
Op-Ed

What a U.N. Partnership with Big Business Could Accomplish

access to local partners and opportunities in developing nations that could benefit their future activities. There is growing evidence that companies that have innovated to ensure effective environmental safeguards, greater... View Details

Keywords: by George C. Lodge & Craig Wilson

05 Sep 2007
First Look

First Look: September 5, 2007

that interactions of producers, users and institutions shape the development of collective frames around the meaning of new technologies. Download the paper: http://www.hbs.edu/research/pdf/04-039.pdf The Malleability of Environmentalism... View Details

Keywords: Martha Lagace

12 Aug 2008
First Look

First Look: August 12, 2008

involves a one-issue, zero-sum negotiation concerning the advance on royalties that the publisher will pay to the author. Purchase the case: http://hbsp.harvard.edu/b01/en/common/item_detail.jhtml?id=908050 China's Environmental Challenge... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

16 Sep 2008
First Look

First Look: September 16, 2008

relationship between regulators and regulated firms. We investigate these research questions in the context of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Audit Policy. View Details

08 Nov 2016
First Look

November 8, 2016

hectares of land in Chile and Argentina that he converted to protected areas and national parks. The Chouinard strategy represented best practice green entrepreneurship, which if widely adopted might markedly reduce the View Details