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- Faculty Publications (17)
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- July 2022
- Case
FIJI Water: Carbon Negative? (Abridged)
In the midst of increasing press scrutiny of the bottled water industry’s environmentally harmful practices, FIJI Water made a series of sustainability promises. The boldest of these was a pledge to go “carbon negative.” The company said that not only would they offset...
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Keywords:
Carbon Footprint;
Carbon Offsetting;
Environmental Accounting;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Pollution;
Cross-Cultural and Cross-Border Issues;
Misleading and Fraudulent Advertising;
Non-Governmental Organizations;
Brands and Branding;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Fiji;
United States
- 2022
- Working Paper
Machine Learning Models for Prediction of Scope 3 Carbon Emissions
By: George Serafeim and Gladys Vélez Caicedo
For most organizations, the vast amount of carbon emissions occur in their supply chain and in the post-sale processing, usage, and end of life treatment of a product, collectively labelled scope 3 emissions. In this paper, we train machine learning algorithms on 15...
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- Article
We Need Better Carbon Accounting. Here's How to Get There.
By: Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna
Any effective system of greenhouse gas (GHG) accounting needs to measure each company’s supply-chain carbon impacts accurately. Such information would provide visibility and incentives for the company to make more climate-friendly product-specification and purchasing...
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- 2022
- Working Paper
Climate Solutions Investments
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, George Serafeim and Hui (Stacie) Wang
An increasing number of companies are providing products and services that help reduce carbon emissions in the economy. We develop a methodology to identify those companies and create a sample of publicly listed climate solutions companies allowing us to study their...
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Keywords:
Decarbonization;
Climate Finance;
Climate Impact;
Climate Risk;
Environment;
Sustainability;
Carbon Emissions;
Electric Vehicles;
Energy;
Renewables;
Climate Change;
Investment;
Environmental Sustainability;
Renewable Energy;
Transportation Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Energy Industry;
Industrial Products Industry;
China;
United States;
Asia;
Europe
- 2021
- Article
Decarbonizing Everything
By: Alex Cheema-Fox, Bridget LaPerla, George Serafeim, David Turkington and Hui (Stacie) Wang
We analyze how the use of different climate risk measures leads to different portfolio carbon outcomes and risk-adjusted returns. Our findings are synthesized in a rules-based investment framework, which selects a different type of climate metric across industries and...
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Keywords:
Climate Risk;
ESG;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
ESG Disclosure;
ESG Disclosure Metrics;
ESG Ratings;
Investing;
Investing For Impact;
Investment Strategy;
Environment;
Decarbonization;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Environmental Management;
Environmental Accounting;
Investment;
Strategy;
Investment Portfolio;
Investment Return
- 2021
- Working Paper
Science-Based Carbon Emissions Targets
By: David Freiberg, Jody Grewal and George Serafeim
We examine the effect of voluntarily adopting a standard for setting science-based carbon emissions targets on target difficulty and investments to achieve those targets. We find that firms with a track record of setting and achieving ambitious carbon targets are more...
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Keywords:
Target;
Targeting;
Target-setting;
Target Efficiency;
Management Control Systems;
Management Accounting;
Environment;
Environmental And Social Sustainability;
Climate Change;
Environmental Management;
Environmental Accounting;
Environmental Sustainability;
Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques
- September–October 2020
- Article
Social-Impact Efforts That Create Real Value
By: George Serafeim
Until the mid-2010s few investors paid attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) data—information about companies’ carbon footprints, labor policies, board makeup, and so forth. Today the data is widely used by investors. How can organizations create...
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Keywords:
Sustainability;
Sustainability Management;
ESG;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
ESG Disclosure;
ESG Disclosure Metrics;
ESG Ratings;
ESG Reporting;
Social Impact;
Impact Measurement;
Social Innovation;
Purpose;
Corporate Purpose;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Strategy;
Social Enterprise;
Society;
Accounting;
Investment;
Environmental Sustainability;
Climate Change;
Corporate Strategy;
Mission and Purpose;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Financial Services Industry;
Chemical Industry;
Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Pharmaceutical Industry;
North America;
Europe;
Japan;
Australia
- 2021
- Working Paper
Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data and Information
By: David Freiberg, DG Park, George Serafeim and T. Robert Zochowski
As an organization’s environmental impact has become a central societal consideration, thereby affecting industry and organizational competitiveness, interest in measuring and analyzing environmental impact has increased. We develop a methodology to derive comparable...
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Keywords:
Environment;
Impact;
Measurement;
Environmental Ratings;
Corporate Valuation;
Financial Materiality;
Sustainability;
Environmental Impact;
Environmental Strategy;
Impact-Weighted Accounts;
IWAI;
Environmental Sustainability;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Measurement and Metrics;
Valuation
- February 2020 (Revised August 2021)
- Case
Australia: Commodities, Competitiveness, Climate and China
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Laura Alfaro
For the past few decades, Australia has dealt with the benefits and costs of repeated mining booms—inflation, a housing bubble, a current account deficit, and growing dependence on China. Between 1996 and 2007, however, Australia had most of these issues under control...
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- February 2020 (Revised February 2022)
- Case
Sustainable Product Management at Solvay
By: George Serafeim, Vincent Dessain and Mette Fuglsang Hjortshoej
In November 2019, Ilham Kadri, CEO of Solvay, a Belgian specialty chemicals and advanced materials group, with annual revenues of more than €10 billion in 2018, announced the group’s mid-term strategy, eight months after she took the helm as Solvay’s 11th CEO. The case...
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Keywords:
Sustainability;
Sustainable Business And Innovation;
Sustainability Management;
Sustainable Development;
Management Accounting;
Innovation;
Carbon Emissions;
Sustainability Reporting;
Sustainability Targets;
Target-setting;
Product;
Management;
Transformation;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Chemical Industry;
Europe;
Belgium
- September 2016
- Article
The Effect of Target Difficulty on Target Completion: The Case of Reducing Carbon Emissions
By: Ioannis Ioannou, Shelley Xin Li and George Serafeim
Targets are an integral component of management control systems and play a significant role in achieving desirable performance outcomes. We focus on a key environmental performance objective—reduction of carbon emissions—as a setting in which to examine how target...
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- February 2013
- Teaching Note
Australia: Commodities and Competitiveness (TN)
By: Laura Alfaro, Richard H.K. Vietor and Hilary White
For the past few decades, Australia has dealt with the benefits and costs of repeated mining booms—inflation, a housing bubble, a current account deficit and growing dependence on China. Between 1996 and 2007, however, Australia had most of these issues under control...
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- February 2013 (Revised December 2015)
- Case
Groom Energy Solutions: Selling Efficiency
By: Michael W. Toffel, Kira R. Fabrizio and Stephanie van Sice
Groom Energy Solutions helps organizations reduce their energy use and costs through the implementation of energy efficiency measures, which create long-term financial and environmental benefits. With early success serving customers in the cold storage and industrial...
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Keywords:
Groom Energy Solutions;
Jon Guerster;
Salem, MA;
Energy Management;
Energy Efficiency Paradox;
Sustainability Management;
Manufacturing;
Cold Storage;
Commercial Real Estate;
Enterprise Smart Grid;
Carbon Accounting;
LED Lighting;
Sustainability Research;
Entrepreneurship;
Environmental Entrepreneurship;
Energy Entrepreneurship;
Energy Services;
Electricity;
Startup;
Expansion;
Growth;
Sustainability;
Business Startups;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Energy Conservation;
Revenue;
Geographic Location;
Human Resources;
Management;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Market Entry and Exit;
Operations;
Service Delivery;
Strategic Planning;
Science;
Environmental Sustainability;
Climate Change;
Society;
Social Issues;
Technology Adoption;
Energy Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Technology Industry;
Utilities Industry;
United States;
Boston
- August 2012 (Revised June 2017)
- Case
Australia: Commodities, Competitiveness, Climate and China
By: Richard H.K. Vietor and Laura Alfaro
For the past few decades, Australia has dealt with the benefits and costs of repeated mining booms—inflation, a housing bubble, a current account deficit and growing dependence on China. Between 1996 and 2007, however, Australia had most of these issues under control...
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- September 2008 (Revised August 2009)
- Case
Columbus Tubing: Steel is Real
By: Daniel C. Snow, Gary P. Pisano, Elena Corsi and Gudrun Urfalino Kristinsdottir
Columbus Tubing must choose to improve an old technology (steel) or to develop a new material (carbon fiber). The decision must take into account a complicated context: increased demand for the "old" steel products made in Italy, increasing power of carbon fiber...
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- February 2007 (Revised March 2007)
- Case
UBS and Climate Change--Warming Up to Global Action?
By: Felix Oberholzer-Gee, Forest L. Reinhardt and Elizabeth Raabe
Marco Suter, Executive Vice-Chairman, UBS Board of Directors, carefully studied the chart on his desk. It showed the public commitment of major financial institutions to help mitigate global warming. Evidently, UBS lagged behind its competitors. The graph was part of a...
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- Teaching Interest
Reimagining Capitalism: Business and Big Problems
By: George Serafeim
Professor Serafeim teaches with Professor Rebecca Henderson the course "Reimagining Capitalism: Business and Big Problems" in the second year of the MBA. Cases taught in this course include among others:
Fighting corruption and turning around an organization... View Details
Keywords:
Capitalism;
Corporate Accountability;
Leadership;
Sustainability;
Climate Change;
Inequality;
ESG;
＂ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
Corporate Social Responsibility;
Culture;
Corporate Purpose;
Change;
Performance;
Strategy;
Measurement And Metrics;
Competitive Advantage