Faculty & Research - Business & Environment

January 2022
Teaching Material

TXU (A) and (B): Powering the Largest Leveraged Buyout in History

Teaching Note for HBS Case Nos. 320-064 and 320-065.

January 2022
Case

Geely SEA: New Electric Vehicle Platforms

Kent Bovellan, the Chief Engineer and Head of the Vehicle Architecture Center for Geely Holding, the Hangzhou, China headquartered global automotive group, was debating the platform choice for an upcoming "D" segment midsized battery electric vehicle (BEV). He had led...

January 2022
Case

TotalEnergies’ Investment in Hyzon Motors

By: Vikram S Gandhi and David Lane

In November 2021, Girish Nadkarni, the head of TotalEnergies’ corporate venture capital arm (TEV) was considering whether, and on what terms, to exit an investment in Hyzon Motors, a start-up supplier of hydrogen-powered trucks. TEV had invested $4 million in Hyzon,...

January 2022
Teaching Material

Deglobalization and Alternative Futures

By: Geoffrey Jones and Valeria Giacomin

This note reviews the evidence that the world is undergoing an era of de-globalization. It shows that available metrics show some support for this theory. However there is also evidence that what is happening might be better described as regionalization. The nature of...

January 2022
Accounting Review

Why is Corporate Virtue in the Eye of The Beholder? The Case of ESG Ratings

By: Dane Christensen, George Serafeim and Anywhere Sikochi

Despite the rising use of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) ratings, there is substantial disagreement across rating agencies regarding what rating to give to individual firms. As what drives this disagreement is unclear, we examine whether a firm’s ESG...

2021
Book Chapter

Taking Leadership to a New Place: Outside-the-Building Thinking to Improve the World

By: Rosabeth M. Kanter

BOOK ABSTRACT: Twenty-nine leading scholars and executives provide a visionary look at the future of business, propelling past damaging industrial-age values to uncover the key ingredients of humanistic, ecologically sustainable, and intergenerational prosperity.

30 Nov 2021
In Practice

What's the Role of Business in Confronting Climate Change?

by Lynn Schenk and Dina Gerdeman

                                       COP26 shined a light on the complexities of addressing the climate crisis. We asked Harvard Business School faculty members to discuss how business leaders can help spur change and what opportunities might emerge.

November 2021
Teaching Material

Husk Power: Scaling the Venture

By: Benjamin N. Roth and Natalia Rigol

Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 819-069.

November 2021
Case

QuantumScape's Mission to Revolutionize Energy Storage for a Sustainable Future

By: William A. Sahlman, Allison M. Ciechanover and Jeff Huizinga

QuantumScape CEO Jagdeep Singh juggles the many activities required to lead the next-generation battery pioneer. Founded in 2010, QuantumScape’s mission was to develop new “solid-state” car batteries that would improve upon traditional lithium-ion batteries in key...

Working Paper

ESG: Hyperboles and Reality

By: George Serafeim

ESG has rapidly become a household name leading to both confusion about what it means and creating unrealistic expectations about its effects. In this paper, I draw on more than a decade of research to dispel several myths about ESG and provide answers to important...

November 15, 2021
Harvard Business Review (website)

Putting Your Corporate Purpose to Work

By: Hubert Joly

Making a company purpose come to life is an arduous journey that requires a multi-pronged and sustained approach. Yet as hard as it is, the journey is well worth it and will yield positive transformation not only for the company, but also for the people who work there....

Harvard Business Review

Accounting for Climate Change

By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

Corporations are facing growing pressure—from investors, advocacy groups, politicians, and even business leaders themselves—to reduce greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from their operations and their supply and distribution chains. About 90% of the companies in the S&P...