Resources

Environmental Sustainability

Select Books and Chapters

Harvard Business Review on Business & the Environment (Paperback). Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.
Down to Earth: Applying Business Principles to Environmental Management (Hardcover). Forest L. Reinhardt. Boston: Harvard Business School Press, 1999.

Select Articles and Working Papers

Amory B. Lovins, L. Hunter Lovins, Paul Hawken, Jonathan Lash, Fred Wellington, Kimberly O’Neill Packard, and Forest L. Reinhardt. “Going Green, Profitably,” Harvard Business Review OnPoint Collection (July 2007).
Andrew King and Michael W. Toffel. “Self-Regulatory Institutions for Solving Environmental Problems: Perspectives and Contributions from the Management Literature,” HBS Working Knowledge (May 25, 2007)
Julian D. Marshall and Michael Toffel. "Framing the Elusive Concept of Sustainability: A Sustainability Hierarchy." Environmental Science and Technology39, no. 3 (2005): 673–682.
Michael E. Porter and Claas Van Der Linde. “Green and Competitive: Ending the Stalemate,” Harvard Business Review (September-October 1995).

Search HBS Working Knowledge for cutting-edge research by HBS faculty related to environmental sustainability.

Search Harvard Business School’s faculty publications and research interest databases on environmental sustainability.

Select Cases and Notes

“ Cradle–to–Cradle Design at Herman Miller: Moving Toward Environmental Sustainability” (9-607-003)
Deishin Lee and Lionel Bony
“Financing Biodiversity Conservation by the Global Conservation Fund” (9-204-019)
Mihir A. Desai and Julia D. Stevens
“McDonald's Corp.: Managing a Sustainable Supply Chain” (9-907-414)
Ray A. Goldberg and Jessica Droste Yagan
“UBS and Climate Change–Warming Up to Global Action?” (9-707-511)
Felix Oberholzer–Gee, Forest Reinhardt, and Elizabeth A. Raabe
“Bunge: Food, Fuel, and World Markets” (9–708–443)
Tarun Khanna, Santiago Mingo, and Jonathan West
“Global Climate Change and Emissions Trading” (9-707-015)
Patia McGrath, Nazli Uludere, Forest Reinhardt, and Gunnar Trumbull

Search Harvard Business School Publishing for articles and cases on environmental sustainability.

Related Events

“Perspectives from the Field: Environment”. A panel discussion moderated by HBS Professor Michael Toffel, as part of the HBS Industry Week Alumni Panels series (October 30, 2007).

“Business's Role in Saving the Environment: Thoughts from a Veteran of Both Worlds.” A conversation with Carter Roberts (MBA ’88), President and CEO of World Wildlife Fund–U.S. (November 15, 2006).

MBA Courses

Business and the Environment (Second Year, Fall Term)
Professor Forest Reinhardt or Assistant Professor Michael Toffel
Business strategies and operations are increasingly influenced by concerns about the natural environment expressed by customers, shareholders, employees, and regulators. In this course, we examine how managers identify opportunities and manage business risks at the interface of business and the environment. Among other topics, we study managerial approaches to differentiate products along environmental lines, reformulate operations and supply chains to reduce their environmental impact, create and participate in market mechanisms to reduce pollution, and measure their progress toward becoming environmentally sustainable. Several classes will focus on global climate change. The course builds on and integrates concepts from TOM, Finance, FRC, Strategy, BGIE, and LCA.

Field Study Seminar in Building Green Businesses (Second Year, Winter Term)
Professor Lee Fleming, Professor Rebecca Henderson, Professor Joseph Lassiter, Professor Forest Reinhardt
Building Green Businesses is a field study seminar in which students formulate business plans for enterprises that will serve customers' needs while protecting or enhancing the natural environment. Working with mentors from the cleantech, renewable energy, and related industries, along with a team of professors from Entrepreneurial Management, BGIE, Strategy, and TOM, teams of students will create credible, realistic plans around business ideas of their own selection.