More from the Author

• Panel Discussion | Jun 2020

  COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps

  John D. Macomber, Mattias Fibiger, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Shikhar Ghosh, Anywhere Sikochi, Laura Alfaro, Euvin Naidoo and Suraj Srinivasan

  Citation:

  Macomber, John D., Mattias Fibiger, Hakeem Belo-Osagie, Shikhar Ghosh, Anywhere Sikochi, Laura Alfaro, Euvin Naidoo, and Suraj Srinivasan. "COVID-19: Reflections, Challenges and Next Steps." Harvard Business School Africa Research Center, June 2020.  View Details

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• Book | 2020

  Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity

  Joseph Allen and John D. Macomber

  By the time you reach 80, you will have spent 72 years of your life indoors. Like it or not, humans have become an indoor species. This means that the people who design, build, and maintain our buildings can have a major impact on our health.
  Ever feel tired during a meeting? That’s because most offices and conference rooms are not bringing in enough fresh air. When that door opens, it literally breathes life back into the room. But there is a lot more acting on your body that you can’t feel or see. From our offices and homes to our schools and hospitals, the indoor spaces where we work, learn, play, eat, and heal have an outsized influence on our performance and well-being. They affect our creativity, focus, and problem-solving ability and can make us sick—dragging down profits in the process.
  Charismatic pioneers of the healthy building movement who have paired up to combine the cutting-edge science of Harvard’s School of Public Health with the financial know-how of the Harvard Business School, Joseph Allen and John Macomber lay out the science of healthy buildings and make the business case for owners, developers, and CEOs. They reveal the 9 Foundations of a Healthy Building and show how tracking health performance indicators with smart technology can boost performance and create economic value. While the “green” building movement tackled energy, waste, and water, the new healthy building movement focuses on the most important (and expensive) asset of any business: its people.

  Keywords: architecture; real estate development; air pollution; air quality; public health; Productivity gains; Buildings and Facilities; Health; Pollutants; Performance Productivity; Construction Industry;

  Citation:

  Allen, Joseph, and John D. Macomber. Healthy Buildings: How Indoor Spaces Drive Performance and Productivity. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2020.  View Details

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• Case | HBS Case Collection | February 2020

  Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water

  John D. Macomber and Carla Larangeira

  Private companies were being turned to for potable water in the world’s megacities due to impacts of climate change including droughts and flooding. Mexico City had endured several water-related crises, with its population suffering from floods, droughts, water shutoffs and disease. Although some access to piped water services was practically universal for Mexico City residents, services were limited or discontinuous. An accommodation that most households had made was in purchasing and installing a water holding tank on the roof or in the ground, with Rotoplás, a Mexican based water product and services provider, enjoying more than 55% of tank market share in Mexico.
  
  Rotoplás had ventured into wastewater treatment and recycling in 2016 with the acquisition of Sytesa, a design, construction, financing, operation, and maintenance business for wastewater management for industry and businesses. Market segments included lighter corporate users like shopping malls and heavy users like food processors or mining companies, and maybe “water as a service” would also end up as the place to be to supplement and assist homeowner associations and even municipal governments. However, services revenue was today a tiny fraction of overall cash flow at Rotoplás. The presence of larger competitors like Suez and Veolia and as well as unfavorable pricing and regulations could potentially slow down future growth. Could Rotoplás services be part of the solution to the water crisis in the nation’s capital? Or was the situation too intractable for even this local champion company to tackle? What pricing and regulatory changes might lead to financial and technical solutions for Mexico City’s water crisis?

  Keywords: water supply; water management; Finance; Infrastructure; Urban Development; Business and Government Relations; Latin America; Mexico;

  Citation:

  Macomber, John D., and Carla Larangeira. "Rotoplas: Bringing More and Better Water." Harvard Business School Case 220-064, February 2020.  View Details

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