Publications

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January 2014
Case

Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor: India's Road to Prosperity?

By: John Macomber and Vidhya Muthuram

The Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor (DMIC) was an ambitious $90 billion infrastructure project covering the 1483-km distance between Delhi and Mumbai. The project would create new industrial townships, high speed freight lines, six-lane expressways, airports, ports... View Details

February 2020
Case

Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water

By: John D. Macomber and Carla Larangeira

Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water... View Details

Keywords: Water Supply; Water Management; Finance; Infrastructure; Urban Development; Business and Government Relations; Latin America; Mexico

01 May 2007
First Look

First Look: May 1, 2007

Rogers and her team are faced with the task of creating an Olympic Legacy Reserve Fund that could enable the city to achieve its sustainability goals, but involves a significant tax increase for Vancouver's... View Details

Keywords: Sean Silverthorne

2015
Chapter

Government and the Minimalist Platform: Business at the Kumbh Mela

By: John D. Macomber and Tarun Khanna

India's Kumbh Mela, a religious festival occurring once every 12 years at the confluence of the Ganges and Yamuna rivers, attracts over 80 million pilgrims to a temporary "pop-up megacity" over the course of two months. A team of faculty and students from five Harvard... View Details

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08 May 2012
First Look

First Look: May 8

sustain competitive advantage: learning by doing, learning by exporting, learning from competitors, users, and alliance partners. In this paper we focus attention on another locus of learning that has received less attention from... View Details

Keywords: Carmen Nobel

Summer 2013
Response

How Caesars Entertainment Is Betting on Sustainability: Response

By: Michael W. Toffel

One of the largest gaming companies in the world expanded its sustainability efforts using a scorecard to guide and goad managers. This response assesses Caesars Entertainment's CodeGreen scorecard, advocates a more comprehensive environmental assessment to target... View Details

Keywords: Games, Gaming, and Gambling; Entertainment; Energy; Energy Conservation; Buildings and Facilities; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Performance Evaluation; Entertainment and Recreation Industry

March 2022 (Revised July 2022)
Case

Climate Action in Miami

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter

The Miami metropolitan area is a global epicenter of climate risk from heat and sea level rise, but leaders have only recently mobilized for action to respond to this systemic challenge. Resilient 305 began a collaboration across officials in the cities of Miami and... View Details

Keywords: Climate Change; Climate Impact; Change; Leadership; Cross-sector Collaboration; Coalition; Ecosystem; Greenhouse Gas Emissions; Green Business; Adaptation; Environmental Sustainability; Infrastructure; Green Technology; Environmental Management; Miami

August 2010 (Revised February 2011)
Case

Highland Capital Partners: Investing in Cleantech

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and David Kiron

One day during the summer of 2008, Paul Maeder, co-founder and general partner of Highland Capital Partners (HCP), was walking with his wife around Reykjavik, Iceland, marveling at how clean the city felt and at the widespread use of naturally occurring geothermal... View Details

Keywords: Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Investment; Global Strategy; Environmental Sustainability; Financial Services Industry; Green Technology Industry

October 2023 (Revised March 2024)
Case

KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing

By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora

The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000... View Details

Article

People Make It So Hard to Ditch Plastic Straws

By: Scott Duke Kominers

Rarely has a minor consumer product received more vilification than the plastic straw. As a symbol of human wastefulness and our careless disregard for the environment, straws are the near-perfect villain. You use a plastic straw once and toss it, but it stays with us... View Details

Keywords: Environmental Sustainability; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Consumer Behavior

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June 2011 (Revised October 2012)
Case

Patagonia Sur: For-Profit Land Conservation in Chile

By: Arthur I Segel, Nicolas Ibanez and Jay Verjee

Warren Adams founded Patagonia Sur in 2007 as one of the world's first for-profit land conservation businesses. His goal was to purchase over 100,000 acres of land in southern Chile and to run a variety of sustainable businesses to generate annual returns for... View Details

Keywords: Business Model; Environmental Sustainability; Profit; Investment; For-Profit Firms; Entrepreneurship; Investment Return; Revenue; Risk and Uncertainty; Capital; SWOT Analysis; Real Estate Industry; Chile

2008
Book

On Competition

By: M. E. Porter

Competition is one of society's most powerful forces for making things better in many ﬁelds of human endeavor. The study of competition and the creation of value, in their full richness, have preoccupied me for several decades. Competition is pervasive, whether it... View Details

Keywords: Leadership; Practice; Competitive Strategy; Theory; Value Creation

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