Curriculum

In the first year of study, MBA students take a required curriculum of broad courses, within which a number of environment-related case studies are embedded. In their second year, students choose among elective courses, many of which either focus on or support the understanding of environmental issues as they related to business.

Required Curriculum (1st Year) Cases
Elective Curriculum (2nd Year) Courses

1366 Technologies Course The Entrepreneurial Manager: Just months after declaring their intent to become a solar cell equipment supplier, van Mierlo and Sachs were again revisiting the issue of what the company should be.

BP’s Macondo: Spill and Response Course Business, Government, and the International Economy: This case starts by reporting various factors that may have contributed to the massive Macondo oil spill, then discusses the response to this spill by BP and the government.

China “Unbalanced” Course Business, Government, and the International Economy: Focuses on China's new development strategy - shifting away from export-led growth to ease domestic and international pressures.

Cree, Inc.: Which Bright Future? Course Strategy: This case explores whether Cree should pursue the LED monitor and television backlighting markets, or abandon them to focus on the potential "greenfield" market in general lighting.

Generation Investment Management Course Leadership and Corporate Accountability: Examines the investment process of Generation Investment Management, a "sustainable" investing firm established in 2004 by David Blood and U.S. Vice President AI Gore.

Political Economy of Carbon Trading Course Business, Government, and the International Economy: The case summarizes the science and economics of climate change and encourages readers to contemplate the strategic and risk management problems that it presents to government officials and to business leaders in developed countries and in the developing world.

Royal Dutch/Shell in Nigeria Course Leadership and Corporate Accountability: Provides background on Shell, on its business in Nigeria, and on environmental and human rights issues in the Niger Delta. The company must respond to a critical announcement.

2006 Hurricane Risk Course Finance I: A resident of Key West, FL decides whether to renew his policy to insure against hurricane damage, while a wealthy California resident contemplates buying a "cat note" that offers a high yield but risks losing the full investment if severe hurricanes strike the US coastline.

BYD Company, Ltd. Course Technology and Operations Management: Considers whether BYD Co., Ltd., the largest Chinese maker of rechargeable batteries, should enter the Chinese automobile industry by acquiring Qinchuan Auto, a state-owned car manufacturer.

GoodGuide Course Financial Reporting and Control: This venture capital funded company has yet to find the business model to monetize a very promising product that provides consumers and manufacturers with information about the sustainability of a product.

International Carbon Finance and EcoSecurities Course Finance I: EcoSecurities has to decide whether to undertake a new Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) project in China. The Ventilation Air Methane Project is an opportunity to break into a new sector with large potential, and the economics and risks of the project need to be assessed.

Plugging In the Consumer: The Adoption of Electrically Powered Vehicles in the U.S. Course Marketing: How will U.S. consumers respond to the proliferation of alternative-fuel vehicles, such as cars powered partially or completely by electricity, in the coming decade?

Polyface: The Farm of Many Faces Course Technology and Operations Management: This case explores a method of value creation through exploiting synergies that exist in an environment where there is diversity. The context of the case is a farm where biodiversity is leverage to create value.

The Carbon Market Course Finance I: The carbon market has emerged in response to concerns about global climate change. This note characterizes the market in 2008, describing each segment and how it operates.

The Clorox Company: Leveraging Green for Growth Course Marketing: The Clorox Company needs to decide on the marketing strategy going forward for its three sustainable brands, Brita, Burt's Bees and Green Works.

Urban Water Partners (A) Course Financial Reporting and Control: The case explores a new business venture to bring clean water to residents of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, who otherwise cannot afford it.

Creating Shared Value: Entrepreneurial and Corporate Models for a Changing Economy, (Fall 2012) Associate Professor Christopher Marquis: This course is for future business leaders — both entrepreneurs and executives — as they navigate a business environment that increasingly emphasizes the simultaneous creation of business and social value. The course will help students develop a more strategic understanding of topics such as social entrepreneurship and corporate social responsibility and in both their design and implementation stages. Such shared value business strategies include engaging customers through cause marketing, motivating employees through socially-aware company cultures, advantageously modifying a company’s competitive landscape, and re-engineering internal systems to turn responsible corporate policy into action. The main goal of the course is to analyze and understand the wide range of opportunities — both social and financial — for entrepreneurs and corporations in leveraging these changing conditions.

The Energy Business and Geopolitics (Fall 2012) Associate Professor Noel Maurer: Without the heat, light, and mobility provided by suppliers of energy, firms, governments, and individuals could not function. Energy prices are often highly volatile, and energy firms are subject to pervasive government intervention, especially when the energy value chain crosses international borders. In the course, we try to understand the (interrelated) reasons for price volatility and government intervention, and the strategic implications of each. Two technical aspects of the energy business — the high sunk costs of hydrocarbon and nuclear, and the fact that electricity cannot (yet) be economically stored on a large scale — create unique contracting problems for energy businesses. Public and private players have in turn created institutions to solve the unique problems created by the fundamental economics of the industry, but those institutions shape the strategies available to later entrants.

Entrepreneurial Finance (Fall 2012) Professor William A. Sahlman, Professor of Mgt Practice Joseph Lassiter and Assistant Professor Ramana Nanda: Entrepreneurial Finance is designed to help managers make better investment and financing decisions in entrepreneurial settings. The course covers all stages of the process, from startup to harvest. There is a module on emerging trends in entrepreneurial finance, covering the financing of clean tech startups well as the rising importance of Angel investors. The course is aimed primarily at people who may be involved in an entrepreneurial venture at some point in their careers whether in a large organization, a turnaround, a management buyout or a startup. The course will also be useful for future private equity decision maker.

Entrepreneurial Solutions to Market Failure (Fall 2012) Professor Joseph L. Bower: This course aims to help students identify opportunities for entrepreneurship in fields where the market is not providing solutions that seem needed. There is need that is not yet demanded, or demand but no supply. If entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity without reference to existing resources, then these needs ought to provide opportunity for entrepreneurs. There is a field course in Quarter 2 that provides an opportunity to apply these ideas in the development of a business plan, or test them in the context of a field report.

Environmentally Sustainable Strategy and Operations (Fall 2012) Associate Professor Michael Toffel: Senior managers across all industries are facing environmental challenges that will become even more pressing in the coming decade. This course helps students understand and navigate strategic and operational challenges posed by environmental problems like climate change and water shortages as well as growing regulatory threats and activist pressures. In particular, students learn to identify when and how these challenges provide opportunities for competitive advantage by deploying strategies to increase revenues, reduce costs, mitigate risks, and raise rivals' costs. The course also addresses how managers can effectively respond to growing demands from buyers, investors, and activists for greater transparency and accountability for the environmental impacts of their companies' operations and supply chains. This course explores these issues by examining how leading companies around the world are rising to these challenges — and by exposing the mistakes some have made.

IXP Course: South Africa; Innovating for Sustainability in an Emerging Market (January 2013) Professor of Management Practice Robert G. Eccles and Assistant Professor Georgios Serafeim: This IXP is designed to help students better understand the challenges and opportunities for companies developing sustainable strategies in an emerging market. Sustainable strategies require simultaneously improving both financial and ESG performance. Since trade-offs between financial and ESG performance, and even within the various dimensions of ESG performance, are inevitable, this requires major and minor innovations in processes, products, and business models. These innovations must be successfully implemented within the organization and their performance implications properly explained to the investment community. Inevitably, this requires sophisticated stakeholder engagement processes, a broad range of performance metrics, and greater transparency in the company's external reporting. All of these issues will be explored in depth during the IXP. Students will also explore the implications at the country level for widespread adoption of sustainable strategies by the South African business community.

Field Course: Impact Investing and Social Commercial Models (Winter 2013) Senior Lecturer Michael Chu, Associate Professor Shawn A. Cole: This field course is designed for students interested in enhancing performance within organizations dedicated to addressing some of the great societal challenges of our time – whether for-profit, non-profit or hybrid institutions, the focus will be on organizations that utilize investment capital to deliver high social impact interventions, with the expectation of at least nominal return of capital. Student teams will work directly with either an impact investing organization or with a social enterprise in the investment portfolio of such an organization. The teams will work on the analysis and solution of problems identified as important by the organization.

Field Course: Innovation in Business, Energy, and Environment (Winter 2013) Professor Rebecca Henderson, Professor of Mgt Practice Joseph Lassiter, Senior Lecturer John D. Macomber, Professor Forest Reinhardt and Visiting Professor Woodward Yang: This course is designed for students who want to explore opportunities for business innovation in the specific areas of energy and the environment. The very large scale of problems, the physical nature of the components (for example oil, water, soil, or plastic), the impact of government and regulation, the changing circumstances of fossil fuel prices and climate, and the need for large amounts of capital over a long development cycles all make innovation in energy and environment particularly challenging - and particularly important. The teaching team includes HBS academic leaders in many aspects of energy, business, and the environment.

Innovating for Sustainability (Winter 2013) Professor of Management Practice Robert G. Eccles and Assistant Professor Georgios Serafeim: Achieving sustainability-for corporations, investors, analysts, information intermediaries, and other forms of organizations-often requires innovations, both major and minor, in processes, products, and business models in order to optimize both financial and nonfinancial (e.g., environmental, social, and governance [ESG]) outcomes. Throughout the course, students will be challenged to understand the relationship between financial and nonfinancial performance, and what types of innovations can improve both. Students will also study in depth circumstances where as managers they would need to make trade-offs between financial and ESG goals.

Reimagining Capitalism (Winter 2013) Professor Rebecca Henderson: Free market capitalism is one of the great achievements of mankind, bringing prosperity and economic freedom to billions of people and contributing to a flowering of individual freedom and possibility that would have been unimaginable to our ancestors. Today, however, it faces critical challenges on a wide variety of fronts. Rates of environmental degradation are increasing, sea levels are rising and the climate is becoming increasingly unstable. We are in the midst of a mass extinction of bird, plant and animal life that will deprive our children of both esthetic and commercial possibilities they may wish they had had. Robust political responses based in strong social support are crucial to meeting these challenges, but action by the private sector will also be critically important. This course is designed for students who want to explore how we might build an economic system and a set of firms that actively contribute to the construction of a more just and sustainable world and — most importantly — who want to play a key role in this transformation.

Strategies Beyond the Market (Winter 2013) Professor Dennis Yao: Many successful companies live in an ambiguous relationship with society. On the one hand, they are an important source of local pride and national identity. But at the same time, the most successful organizations are also often the target of less-than-friendly lawmakers, regulators, NGO's, and a sometimes hostile public. We will analyze the sources of political, legal and social tensions surrounding successful firms, consider how these forces affect the sustainability of a firm's strategy, and explore avenues to turn these tensions into elements of competitive advantage. We will also examine how the pursuit of competitive advantage raises issues about a firm's role in society.

Sustainable Cities: Urbanization, Infrastructure, and Finance (Winter 2013) Senior Lecturer John D. Macomber: This course is about creating value in sustainable cities. Around the globe, the migration of hundreds of millions of people from countryside to cities will be a major force shaping societies and businesses for decades to come. At the same time, important resources like energy, clean water, clean air, and land are becoming increasingly scarce and costly. Governments have decreasing capability to directly fund infrastructure and urban development. The confluence of these three trends means extensive opportunity for private sector investment. This course develops skills for addressing these trends and explores strategies for making a difference at the city and regional scale. Both US and non-US situations are studied.

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