Faculty & Research - Business & Environment

May 2020
Case

WH Group and Smithfield Foods: Global Leadership During a Difficult Environment of Trade, Disease, and Sustainability

By: Ray Goldberg

May 2020
Teaching Material

SK Group: Social Progress Credits

By: George Serafeim, Ethan Rouen and David Freiberg

Teaching Plan for HBS Case 120-071.

May 2020
AEA Papers and Proceedings

Tackling Climate Change Requires Organizational Purpose

By: Rebecca Henderson and George Serafeim

Unchecked climate change presents a profound threat to economic growth and political stability but despite widespread public concern about the issue, global emissions of greenhouse gases (GHGs) have not declined. Indeed current “business as usual” predictions imply...

2020
Financial Analysts Journal

Public Sentiment and the Price of Corporate Sustainability

By: George Serafeim

Combining corporate sustainability performance scores based on environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data with big data measuring public sentiment about a company’s sustainability performance, I find that the valuation premium paid for companies with strong...

2020
Book Chapter

Luxury and Environmental Responsibility

By: Anat Keinan, Sandrine Crener and Dafna Goor

Luxury and sustainability are often perceived as incompatible and contradictory. However, as the concept of luxury and our understanding of conspicuous consumption are evolving and need to be revisited—from conspicuous to conscious consumption—the book chapter explores...

April 2020
Teaching Material

U.S. Food Retail During the Pandemic: March 2020

By: José B. Alvarez and Natalie Kindred

This note, written in late March 2020 and mainly U.S. focused, looks at the unfolding impact of the coronavirus pandemic on food retailers and their suppliers. It allows student to consider the challenges facing food retail executives as they navigate urgent supply...

April 2020
Teaching Material

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct...

March 2020 (Revised May 2020)
Case

Generation Investment Management

By: Vikram S. Gandhi and Sarah Mehta

By January 2020, sustainable investment firm Generation Investment Management (Generation), founded in London in 2004, had grown from a shared vision among seven founders to a 90-person firm managing $27 billion in public and private equity. Throughout its history,...

March 2020
Teaching Material

C16 Biosciences: Lab-Grown Palm Oil

By: Jeffrey J. Bussgang, Olivia Hull and Mel Martin

Teaching Plan for HBS No. 820-008.

2020
Working Paper

Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information

By: George Serafeim, DG Park, David Freiberg and T. Robert Zochowski

As an organization’s environmental impact has become a more important societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive...

March 2020
Accounting Horizons

Voluntary, Self-Regulatory, and Mandatory Disclosure of Oil and Gas Company Payments to Foreign Governments

By: Paul M. Healy and George Serafeim

Concerns about high rates of government corruption in resource-rich countries have led transparency advocates to urge oil and gas firms to disclose payments to host governments for natural resources. Transparency, they argue, can increase government accountability and...

February 2020
Teaching Material

Indigo Agriculture: Harnessing Nature

By: Michael W. Toffel and James Barnett

Indigo Agriculture used a digital-enabled research and development (R&D) process to launch its initial product, microbial coatings for agricultural seeds, which increase crop yields while reducing the need for fertilizers. In doing so, the company developed direct...