Faculty & Research - Business & Environment

November–December 2022
Harvard Business Review

Your Company Needs a Space Strategy. Now.

By: Matthew Weinzierl, Prithwiraj (Raj) Choudhury, Tarun Khanna, Alan MacCormack and Brendan Rosseau

Space is becoming a potential source of value for businesses across a range of sectors, including agriculture, pharmaceuticals, consumer goods, and tourism. To understand what the opportunities are for your company, the authors advise you to consider the four ways in...

09 Nov 2022
In Practice

COP27: What Can Business Leaders Do to Fight Climate Change Now?

by Lynn Schenk and Danielle Kost

                                       The US government plans to spend $370 billion to cut greenhouse gases and expand renewable energy—its biggest investment yet. In the wake of COP27, we asked Harvard Business School faculty members how executives could seize this moment.

November 2022
Case

AES Corp: A Global Power Transformation

By: Tarun Khanna, Allison Ciechanover and Matt Higgins

2022
Financial Analysts Journal

Climate Change Vulnerability and Currency Returns

By: Alex Cheema-Fox, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang

Using measures of physical risk from climate change, we develop a methodology to allocate currency pairs according to a country’s vulnerability and construct portfolios with decreasing vulnerability to physical risk. We show that non-G10 currencies are more vulnerable...

2022
Working Paper

The Evolution of ESG Reports and the Role of Voluntary Standards

By: Ethan Rouen, Kunal Sachdeva and Aaron Yoon

We examine the evolution of ESG reports of S&P 500 firms from 2010 to 2021. The percentage of firms releasing these voluntary disclosures increased from 35% to 86% during this period, although the length of these documents experienced more modest growth. Using a...

October 2022
Teaching Material

Single Earth: Science White Paper Supplement

By: Rembrand Koning and Emer Moloney

Science White Paper prepared by Single.Earth to give an overview of the models and solutions it has developed.

October 2022
Case

Single.Earth

By: Rembrand Koning and Emer Moloney

Estonian greentech company Single.Earth is launching a nature-backed token that is linked to and funds the protection of a specific plot fo land. The first landowners had been onboarded to the company's Digital Twin, a virtual representation of the planet's natural...

21 Oct 2022
Research & Ideas

People Trust Business, But Expect CEOs to Drive Social Change

by Scott Van Voorhis

                                       Companies should do more to confront climate change, labor market shifts, and racism, according to a survey of 14,000 people in 14 countries by the Institute for the Study of Business in Global Society and the Edelman Trust Institute. Is it time for more business...

October 2022 (Revised October 2022)
Case

SMART: AI and Machine Learning for Wildlife Conservation

By: Brian Trelstad and Bonnie Yining Cao

Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART), a set of software and analytical tools designed for the purpose of wildlife conservation, had demonstrated significant improvements in patrol coverage, with some observed reductions in poaching and contributing to wildlife...

September 2022
Case

EnergyNow: Powering a New Market

By: Alexander MacKay and James Barnett

In August 2022, EnergyNow co-founder and CEO Stuart MacWilliam (MBA 2015) considers the company strategy for building solar panels to provide power in South Africa’s recently deregulated energy market.

September 2022
Case

ROI vs. ROI: The Grupo Baobá Family Office

By: Lauren Cohen, Hao Gao, Jiawei Ye and Grace Headinger

Fernando Scodro, a third-generation member of his family, mulled over the next step in integrating an ESG strategy into his family office’s investment portfolio. While his family office, Grupo Baobá, had made excellent progress in incorporating his family’s values into...

September 2022
Business and Politics

The Power and Limits of Expertise: Swiss–Swedish Linking of Vehicle Emission Standards in the 1970s and 1980s

By: Mattias Näsman and Sabine Pitteloud

                                       Recent decades have witnessed increased public concern about vehicle emissions and growing frustration with political inaction and business preferences for the status quo. This article provides historical perspective on such regulatory dynamics by analyzing the Swiss...