Publications

2023
Working Paper

Cost-Efficient Decarbonization of Portland Cement Production

By: Gunther Glenk, Anton Kelnhofer, Rebecca Meier and Stefan Reichelstein

Accounting for nearly 8% of global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is considered difficult to decarbonize. While a sizeable number of abatement levers for Portland cement production is becoming technologically ready for deployment, many are... View Details

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01 Sep 2015
News

An Unconventional Suggestion

© Alexandra Hootnick/zumapress.com The United States needs to find a “rational middle” ground on the topic of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, says Professor Michael Porter. In a report released this summer, America’s Unconventional View Details

Keywords: April White; Natural Gas Distribution; Utilities

September 2024
Case

InfraCredit and the Project Inception Facility

By: John Macomber, Namrata Arora and Maagatha Kalavadakken

Around the world, large infrastructure projects are frequently stymied by the high cost and high uncertainty of the project inception phase: the research and engineering and planning prior to financial close and start of construction. Could there be a new kind of... View Details

September 2014 (Revised March 2015)
Case

Fast Ion Battery

By: Ramana Nanda, Robert F. White and Stephanie Puzio

John Davidson, a partner at Ware Street Capital (WSC) and a board member at Fast Ion Battery, had just received a phone call from Don Lerner at Bluelock Ventures telling him that Bluelock would not participate in the $5M bridge financing for Fast Ion Battery. Lerner's... View Details

Keywords: Entrepreneurial Finance; Real Options; Term Sheets; Clean Technology; Entrepreneurship; Venture Capital

Profile

Konstantin Chebotar

twenty-five percent of our GDP is from oil and gas." After obtaining his Bachelor’s degree from Moscow State University and Master’s degree from Imperial College London, Konstantin spent the next six years working in the oil and gas industry in London. Similarly,... View Details

Keywords: Manufacturing/Energy

February 2019 (Revised May 2021)
Case

Electric Car Wars, 2018

By: John R. Wells and Benjamin Weinstock

Electric cars had long been championed by environmentalists as a superior solution to the internal combustion engine (ICE), but, despite large government incentives and strong pioneering efforts by a few automakers over the years, electric and hybrid cars and light... View Details

May 2019
Case

Elon Musk's Big Bets Update, 2019

By: David B. Yoffie and Daniel Fisher

This short case provides an update to Elon Musk's strategy and tactical moves with Tesla, Solar City, and SpaceX from 2016-2019. View Details

06 Jun 2023
Blog Post

Van den Ende Rozen: Greenhouse Rose Production

In January 2023, Professors Willy Shih and Mike Toffel led more than 40 HBS MBA students on site visits to witness the energy transition and innovative sustainable production activities throughout Denmark and the Netherlands, in their new... View Details

15 Dec 2024
News

Forward Thinking

You can ask the internet anything, but getting an answer via generative artificial intelligence consumes about 10 times more electricity than a traditional Google search. Consequently, the data centers where AI tools are trained and run are guzzling more and more... View Details

Keywords: Janine White; Illustrations by Richard Borge; Electric Power Generation, Transmission, Distribution; Utilities

February 2024
Supplement

Can Cities Beat the Heat? (B11): Salt Lake City Climate Action Snapshot

By: Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Praveen Kumar and Jacob A. Small

Climate snapshots provide a summary of climate actions that occurred between 2018 and 2024, highlighting major green initiatives, innovations, carbon mitigation strategy, and action across multiple levels of government and the private sector. Snapshots also provide an... View Details

Keywords: Mitigation Policies; Carbon Footprint; Climate Finance; Mobility; Adaptation; Renewable Energy; Climate Change; Problems and Challenges; Sustainable Cities; City; Innovation Strategy; Investment; United States; Utah

07 Apr 2023
Blog Post

Career Advice: Pursuing a Dual Degree

Tell us a little about your background and what your interest in climate related issues are. Energy has always been at the forefront of my world, from growing up in southern West Virginia, where my dad worked for a coal company and my... View Details

19 Aug 2011
Working Paper Summaries

The Globalization of Corporate Environmental Disclosure: Accountability or Greenwashing?

Keywords: by Christopher Marquis & Michael W. Toffel

July 2003 (Revised August 2005)
Teaching Note

Future of Hybrid Electric Vehicles, The (TN)

By: John T. Gourville

Teaching Note for (9-502-025). View Details

Keywords: Natural Environment; Customers; Behavior; Energy; Auto Industry; United States

January 2025
Teaching Note

New Belgium Brewing and Climate Change

By: Michael W. Toffel, Kenneth P. Pucker and Michael Norris

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 624-069. View Details

18 Apr 2018
News

Into the Light

More than 1.2 billion people worldwide live without access to electricity. Another 2 billion have limited electricity, just a few hours of often unreliable power a day. “It’s really hard for most of us to imagine a life without electricity,” says Nicole Poindexter (MBA... View Details

Fast Answer

Market trends, opportunities in advanced technology fields

transportation technologies, biotechnology, chemicals, energy and resources, engineering, the environment, food and beverage, fuel cell and battery technologies, healthcare, information technology, instrumentation and sensors... View Details

2003
Article

Closing the Loop: Product Take-back Requirements and their Strategic Implications

By: Michael W. Toffel

In Asia, Europe, and North America, regulators are seeking to reduce waste disposal and develop recycling markets by requiring manufacturers to manage the end-of-life disposition of products they produce. Such policies attempt to "close the loop" for products ranging... View Details

Keywords: Wastes and Waste Processing; Energy Conservation; Product Development; Strategy; Policy; Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms; Manufacturing Industry; Asia; Europe; North and Central America