Publications

February 2024
Teaching Note

Divesting Harvard's Endowment

By: Daniel Green and Luis M. Viceira

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 221-009. View Details

27 Feb 2024
Cold Call Podcast

How Could Harvard Decarbonize Its Supply Chain?

Keywords: Re: Robert S. Kaplan & Shirley Lu; Green Technology

August 2023 (Revised October 2024)
Supplement

Plug Power (B)

By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli and James Barnett

The case is set in spring 2021, immediately after Plug Power made financial restatements dating back to 2018. The case describes the restatements, which revealed that Plug was reclassifying expense items to boost gross profits. View Details

Keywords: Environmental Accounting; Financial Reporting; Ethics; Profit; Management; Social Enterprise; Energy Industry; Energy Industry; United States; Europe

19 Mar 2018
Sharpening Your Skills

8 Ways To Be An Environmentally Conscious Manager

iPhoto In an interview about his recent book Profits and Sustainability, which portrays the iconoclastic entrepreneurs who built green startups in the 19th century, Harvard Business School historian Geoffrey Jones notes that being a... View Details

Keywords: by Sean Silverthorne; Energy

February 2024 (Revised March 2024)
Teaching Note

X: The Foghorn Decision

By: Kyle Myers and Walter Frick

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 618-060. View Details

December 2024
Supplement

Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change (B)

By: George Serafeim, Debora L. Spar, Peter Tufano, Hugo Etchegoyhen and Emilie Billaud

The (B) case explores Northvolt’s Chapter 11 bankruptcy filing on November 21, 2024, highlighting the company’s struggles to scale operations amid a global EV market slowdown and internal production challenges. While the (A) case detailed Northvolt’s ambitious... View Details

Keywords: Batteries; Electric Vehicles; Climate Change; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Energy; Green Technology; Insolvency and Bankruptcy; Investment; Technological Innovation; Risk Management; Failure; Business and Government Relations; Business and Shareholder Relations; Transportation; Green Technology Industry; Europe; Sweden

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

September 2010 (Revised November 2010)
Case

Ze-gen: Commercializing Clean Tech

By: Lynda M. Applegate, Kaitlyn Lyons and Scott Prozeller

The Ze-gen case covers the first five years in the life of a clean-tech start-up. Ze-gen had developed an innovative technology that converted solid waste into synthesis gas (called syngas). This technology was in testing at the company's pilot plant, built next to the... View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Entrepreneurship; Financing and Loans; Environmental Sustainability; Commercialization; Green Technology Industry; New Bedford

19 Jun 2018
Research Event

Has Environmental Sustainability Lost its Relevance?

iPhoto For businesses and other organizations seeking to overcome roadblocks to sustainability over the last few decades, much can be learned from the debates I heard at the recent Harvard Business School conference, Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to... View Details

Keywords: by Geoffrey G. Jones; Energy

2007
Case

Sun Power: Focused on the Future of the Solar Power Industry

By: Rebecca Henderson, J. Conkling and R. Nanda

Keywords: Projects; Strategic Planning; Green Technology Industry

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

Keywords: Re: William C. Kirby; Manufacturing

February 2011
Supplement

The Fox Islands Wind Project (B)

By: Joseph B. Lassiter III and Evan Richardson

Fox Island Wind Cooperative faces criticism from local residents. View Details

Keywords: Business Startups; Renewable Energy; Social Entrepreneurship; Cooperative Ownership; Business and Community Relations; Conflict and Resolution; Environmental Sustainability; Green Technology Industry; Maine

May 2007
Teaching Note

Toyota Motor Corporation: Launching Prius (TN)

By: Forest L. Reinhardt and Dennis A. Yao

Keywords: Production; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry

November 2022 (Revised March 2024)
Case

Northvolt: Building Batteries to Fight Climate Change

By: George Serafeim, Debora L. Spar, P. Tufano and Julia M. Comeau

In 2016, Swedish entrepreneurs Carl-Erik Lagercrantz and Peter Carlsson founded an electric battery company called Northvolt with the dual goals of creating a company to address climate change and bringing battery manufacture to Europe. Northvolt, which succeeded in... View Details

Keywords: Batteries; Climate Change; Factories, Labs, and Plants; Green Technology; Mission and Purpose; Goals and Objectives; Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Sweden; Europe

09 Sep 2013
Lessons from the Classroom

Teaching Climate Change to Skeptics

are often shaped more by the political climate than by the actual climate. "The issue has become totally intertwined with political ideology," says Richard H.K. Vietor, the Paul Whiton Chertington Professor of Business Administration at HBS, who has been studying... View Details

Keywords: by Carmen Nobel

February 2017
Case

GE Digital

By: Rajiv Lal and Scott Johnson

Known for manufacturing industrial equipment, GE has decided to invest in software and analytics capabilities to become a digital industrial company. They have also created a software platform that they hope will power the Industrial Internet. GE executives forecasted... View Details

Keywords: GE; General Electric; Manufacturing; Industrial Internet; Wind Power; Digital Manufacturing; Renewable Energy; Energy; Innovation and Management; Innovation Strategy; Organizational Change and Adaptation; Organizational Culture; Applications and Software; Growth and Development Strategy; Transformation; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; Green Technology Industry; North America

20 Aug 2013
First Look

First Look: August 20

Buildings By: Herron, J., Amy C. Edmondson, and Robert G. Eccles, Jr. Abstract—Buildings are the nation's greatest energy consumers. Forty percent of all our energy is used for heating, cooling, lighting,... View Details

Keywords: Anna Secino

March 2024
Case

Transforming a Region: Gothenburg’s path from Shipyards to E-Mobility

By: Christian H.M. Ketels and Orjan Solvell

The case profiles the economic development of the Gothenburg region in Western Sweden, and the efforts of the regional economic development agency. During this period the region’s traditionally strong automotive cluster started to transform towards e-mobility... View Details

Keywords: Regional Economic Activity; Cluster; Economic Development; Economic Growth; Government and Politics; Transformation; Green Technology; Auto Industry; Sweden