Skip to Main Content
HBS Home
  • About
  • Academic Programs
  • Alumni
  • Faculty & Research
  • Baker Library
  • Giving
  • Harvard Business Review
  • Initiatives
  • News
  • Recruit
  • Map / Directions

Business & Environment

  • Blog
  • For Organizations
  • ExEd
  • Videos
  • Other Initiatives
    • Other Initiatives
      • Business History
      • Digital
      • Entrepreneurship
      • Gender
      • Health Care
      • Leadership
      • Social Enterprise
  • About
  • Faculty & Research
  • MBA Experience
  • Alumni
  • Climate Change
  • Podcast
  • …→
  • Harvard Business School→
  • Business & Environment→

Business & Environment InitiativeBusiness & Environment Initiative   

Inspiring innovation and action at the intersection of business and environment 

Impact Stories 

Shaping the Big Picture

Angela Amos, MBA 2014

Addressing Climate Change through Agriculture

Charley Cummings, MBA 2011

Sustainable Operations

Michael Toffel, Faculty Chair; Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management

Wal-Mart: For Better or Worse

Rebecca Henderson, MBA 1985 Professor, Harvard Business School

Drive Time

Stephanie Wu, MBA 2017

Modeling Change

Taylor Lane, MBA 2018

Opportunities in Resource Industries

Vikas Mouli, MBA 2016

MBA Experience 

As an MBA student at HBS, you will prepare yourself for leadership in a rapidly changing world in which natural resources are increasingly scarce and the threat of climate change ever more urgent.
→How organizations can connect with students

Faculty & Research 

Project Helios: Harvesting the Sun

By: Mark Egan and E. Scott Mayfield
  • FEBRUARY 2021 (REVISED FEBRUARY 2021)
  • | 
  • Teaching Material
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 219-009.

AptDeco: Circular Economy Furniture Marketplace

By: Ayelet Israeli and Jamie Merkrebs
  • FEBRUARY 2021
  • | 
  • Case
AptDeco, a used furniture marketplace was growing rapidly in the tri-state area. The Co-Founders were confident that the business model, financial position, and unit economics positioned AptDeco for scaling in the massive $120 billion furniture market, despite its complexity and high costs. The co-founders were looking at different options to scale: working to convert sellers into buyers and vice versa, finding superusers that would fuel the supply for their platform, expand to new markets, rebrand with a sustainability focus. What is the best way for them to scale?

Reimagining the Balanced Scorecard for the ESG Era

By: Robert S. Kaplan and David McMillan
  • FEBRUARY 03, 2021
  • | 
  • Harvard Business Review Digital Articles
Companies are increasingly aware that their customers and society in general expect businesses to adopt and work towards social and environmental objectives as well as the traditional financial ones. This involves not only re-evaluating firms’ models but re-imagining new, more inclusive ecosystems from a multi-stakeholder point of view. In this article, the authors propose an update to the Balanced Scorecard, one of the most successful management tools of all time, so that it can better help align stakeholders coming from very different places around each other’s goals as well as their own.

Bespoken Spirits: Disrupting Distilling

By: Benjamin C. Esty and Daniel Fisher
  • JANUARY 2021
  • | 
  • Teaching Material
On October 7, 2020, Bespoken Spirits publicly announced it had received $2.6 million of seed funding for its “sustainable maturation process,” a process that could produce award-winning whiskey’s in just days rather than years using a novel technology and data science. The technology dramatically reduced the time, cost, and environmental impact (it required less energy and less wood) of making whiskey. At the same time, the technology could also be used to enhance a whiskey’s taste profile which could allow producers to charge more for their products. To date, entrepreneurs Stu Aaron and Martin Janousek had proven they could produce whiskey at scale and with desired properties. Having validated the concept, they now had to decide whether to continue making whiskey themselves or use their technology to process it for others. In short, they had to decide whether to be a product-based, B2C company or a service-based, B2B company, or both? If they decided to be a service business, should they emphasis the Maturation-as-a-Service (MaaS, faster and lower cost production) or the Customization-as-a-Service (CaaS, creation of customized products with unique taste profiles) business in the short term?

Climate Rising Podcast 

Financial Regulation and Climate Risk Management

  • 07 JUL 2020
  • | 
  • Climate Rising
Explore different approaches to modeling and managing climate risk from the vantage points of industry leaders Robert Litterman, a seasoned risk management expert; Nushin Kormi, a specialist in sustainable finance; and Kevin Stiroh, a financial regulator. The discussion, moderated by Professor Ramana Nanda, focuses on the concept of transition risk—the potential consequences if climate regulations are imposed gradually or suddenly—and investment strategies to prepare for and mitigate this risk. This is one of 4 new episodes this summer based on live content from the Harvard Business School Climate Risk conference held earlier in 2020.
Explore different approaches to modeling and managing climate risk from the vantage points of industry leaders Robert Litterman, a seasoned risk management expert; Nushin Kormi, a specialist in sustainable finance; and Kevin Stiroh, a financial regulator. The discussion, moderated by Professor Ramana Nanda, focuses on the concept of transition risk—the potential consequences if climate regulations are imposed gradually or suddenly—and investment strategies to prepare for and mitigate this risk. This is one of 4 new episodes this summer based on live content from the Harvard Business School Climate Risk conference held earlier in 2020.

Videos 

  • 12 Sep 2019

Tackling Climate Change in the MBA Classroom

Tackling Climate Change in the MBA Classroom
  • 12 Sep 2019
  • 12 Sep 2019

Tackling Climate Change in the MBA Classroom

Tackling Climate Change in the MBA Classroom
  • 12 Sep 2019
  • 21 Oct 2020

Prof. Rebecca Henderson’s call to action on climate change

Prof. Rebecca Henderson’s call to action on climate change
  • 21 Oct 2020
  • 21 Oct 2020

Prof. Rebecca Henderson’s call to action on climate change

Prof. Rebecca Henderson’s call to action on climate change
  • 21 Oct 2020
  • 05 Feb 2021

2nd Annual HBS Food, Agriculture & Water Club 2020 Conference: Building a Resilient, Sustainable, and Nourishing Global Food System

2nd Annual HBS Food, Agriculture & Water Club 2020 Conference: Building a Resilient, Sustainable, and Nourishing Global Food System
  • 05 Feb 2021
  • 05 Feb 2021

2nd Annual HBS Food, Agriculture & Water Club 2020 Conference: Building a Resilient, Sustainable, and Nourishing Global Food System

2nd Annual HBS Food, Agriculture & Water Club 2020 Conference: Building a Resilient, Sustainable, and Nourishing Global Food System
  • 05 Feb 2021

From Business as Usual to Business as Vital

As we increasingly experience the effects of climate change – predicted by scientists over 50 years ago – business is vital.

Executive Education 

An advanced curriculum for corporate and nonprofit executives from all over the world to prepare them for new levels of leadership.
  • Agribusiness Seminar
  • Creating Shared Value: Competitive Advantage through Shared Impact

Alumni 

The Business & Environment Initiative connects alumni with students, faculty, and each other for learning, careers, and impact.

News 

The Future of ESG Is … Accounting?

By: George Serafeim
  • 03 Dec 2020
  • | 
  • Harvard Business Review

US election: What it means for climate change and ESG

Re: Vikram Gandhi
  • 18 Nov 2020
  • | 
  • Financial Times

Building a Just and Climate-Ready Economy in a Post-COVID World

  • 02 Oct 2020
  • | 
  • Harvard Business School
What was 2020 like for business & environment at HBS? Read highlights from our Annual Report: hbs.me/3jz5ksC
Feb 26 2021, 02:33 PM
HBS Environment
@HBSBEI
Follow

Follow Us

@HBSBEI
While 2020 was a year of challenges, we were still able to accomplish more than ever before through the combined ef… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Feb 26 2021, 01:43 AM
HBS Environment
@HBSBEI
Follow
What was 2020 like for business & environment at HBS? Read highlights from our Annual Report: hbs.me/3jz5ksC
Feb 26 2021, 02:33 PM
HBS Environment
@HBSBEI
Follow

Follow Us

@HBSBEI
What was 2020 like for business & environment at HBS? Read highlights from our Annual Report: hbs.me/3jz5ksC
Feb 26 2021, 02:33 PM
HBS Environment
@HBSBEI
Follow

Follow Us

@HBSBEI
While 2020 was a year of challenges, we were still able to accomplish more than ever before through the combined ef… twitter.com/i/web/status/1…
Feb 26 2021, 01:43 AM
HBS Environment
@HBSBEI
Follow

Campus Sustainability

Learn about our environmental stewardship, greenhouse gas reduction, and broad efforts to realize cost savings through efficiency and waste reduction.
ǁ
Campus Map
Business & Environment
Harvard Business School
Cotting House 211
Boston, MA 02163
Phone: 1.617.495.6886
Fax: 1.617.495.6791
Email: bei@hbs.edu
→Map & Directions
→More Contact Information
  • Make a Gift
  • Site Map
  • Jobs
  • Harvard University
  • Trademarks
  • Policies
  • Digital Accessibility
Copyright © President & Fellows of Harvard College