Faculty & Research - Business & Environment

March 2019
Case

The Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (Abridged)

By: Julie Battilana and Michael Norris

In 2014, as the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) has just brought former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg on as chairman of the board, Jean Rogers, founder and CEO, struggles with how best to ensure the nonprofit’s financial sustainability while...

March 2019
Teaching Material

Climate Change: Paris, and the Road Ahead

By: Vincent Pons

March 1, 2019
Barron's

ESG Returns Eventually Will Win Over Critics

By: George Serafeim

2019
Harvard Business Review (website)

Yes, Sustainability Can Be a Strategy

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

Forthcoming
Management Science

How Scheduling Can Bias Quality Assessment: Evidence from Food Safety Inspections

By: Maria Ibanez and Michael W. Toffel

Accuracy and consistency are critical for inspections to be an effective, fair, and useful tool for assessing risks, quality, and suppliers—and for making decisions based on those assessments. We examine how inspector schedules could introduce bias that erodes...

February 2019
Teaching Material

The Rise Fund: TPG Bets Big on Impact

By: Vikram S Gandhi

Teaching Note for HBS No. 318-041.

Organization & Environment

Assessing the Impact of CEO Activism

By: Aaron K Chatterji and Michael W. Toffel

CEO activism refers to corporate leaders speaking out on social and environmental policy issues not directly related to their company’s core business. Distinct from nonmarket strategy and traditional corporate social responsibility, the recent wave of CEO activism...

Research Summary

Building a Corporate Culture of Health

By: Robert S. Huckman

This stream of Professor Huckman's work involves developing and implementing a survey of U.S. corporations regarding their commitments to developing a “culture of health” aimed at improving well-being for employees, consumers, communities, and the environment. This...

January 2019 (Revised March 2019)
Case

Should a Pension Fund Try to Change the World? Inside GPIF's Embrace of ESG

By: Rebecca Henderson, George Serafeim, Josh Lerner and Naoko Jinjo

In the fall of 2018, Hiro Mizuno, the Chief Investment Officer (CIO) of GPIF, the Japanese Government Pension Fund, was reflecting on his efforts to integrate Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) issues into every aspect of GPIF’s portfolio. His efforts ranged...

2019
Working Paper

Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainability. Past Roads and Future Prospects

By: Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Shawn A. Cole, John Ehrenfeld, Andrew A. King and Auden Schendler

This working paper examines key barriers to business sustainability discussed at a multidisciplinary conference held at the Harvard Business School in 2018. Drawing on perspectives from both the historical and business literatures, speakers debated the historical...

2018
Working Paper

Corporate Sustainability: A Strategy?

By: Ioannis Ioannou and George Serafeim

We explore the extent of adopting sustainability practices over time and the implications for firm performance. We find that for almost all industries, sustainability practices converge within an industry over time, implying that they spread as common practices. We...

December 2018 (Revised March 2019)
Cases with Notes

Camber Creek & Measurabl Inc.

By: Marco Di Maggio and Lauren G. Pickle

In late 2017, Camber Creek, a real estate technology focused venture capital firm, had to evaluate a potential investment in Measurabl Inc. which provides real estate companies of all sized with a full SaaS solution for sustainability data.