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- November 2023
- Supplement
Accounting Outages at Plug Power? (C)
By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli and James Barnett
Set in June 2023, the C case explores Plug Power’s recovery from its financial restatements, how it benefited from government subsidies, and new strategic alliances.
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- November 2023
- Background Note
Life Cycle Assessment: An Overview
By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter
Life cycle assessment (LCA) is a holistic approach to quantifying the environmental impacts—including resources consumed and wastes produced—associated with the entire life cycle of a product, from the production or extraction of the raw materials used in its creation,...
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- November 2023
- Background Note
Corporate Climate Targets
By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter
Companies that are addressing climate change by mitigating their greenhouse gas emissions oftern set reduction targets. This note describes several types of widely-used carbon reduction targets, including carbon neutral, science based, net zero, real zero, and carbon...
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- October 2023
- Case
Prime Coalition: Estimating Climate Impact
A case on CRANE, a tool to help investors and green technology companies estimate the future climate impact of new technologies and products, called emissions reduction potential (ERP). The case includes material on CRANE’s methodology for estimating future carbon...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Cost-Efficient Decarbonization of Portland Cement Production
By: Gunther Glenk, Anton Kelnhofer, Rebecca Meier and Stefan Reichelstein
Accounting for nearly 8% of global annual carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, the cement industry is considered difficult to decarbonize. While a sizeable number of abatement levers for Portland cement production is becoming technologically ready for deployment, many are...
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Keywords:
Decarbonization;
Carbon Abatement;
Carbon Accounting;
Carbon Emissions;
Carbon Regulation;
Carbon Tax;
Net-zero Emissions;
Management;
Environmental Management;
Sustainable Cities;
Accounting;
Management Analysis, Tools, and Techniques;
Environmental Accounting;
Energy;
Environmental Sustainability;
Construction Industry;
Steel Industry;
Pulp and Paper Industry;
Real Estate Industry;
Consulting Industry;
Energy Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Utilities Industry;
Industrial Products Industry;
Europe;
North America;
South America;
Africa;
Asia
- September 2023
- Supplement
CMA CGM: Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Container Shipping
By: Willy C. Shih
Marine transport is the most cost-effective way to move large volumes over long distances, and container shipping is the backbone of international trade in goods. Yet shipping contributed 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, and the deep-sea segment, which...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Toward Decision-Useful Carbon Information
By: Gunther Glenk
Companies are increasingly viewed as crucial drivers for timely decarbonization. Current accounting practices for greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, however, often leave corporate carbon disclosures and abatement obscured. Here I introduce a taxonomy for assuring the...
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Keywords:
Carbon Emissions;
Decarbonization;
Carbon Accounting;
Net-zero Emissions;
Greenhouse Gas Emissions;
Environment;
Environmental Impact;
Management;
Sustainable Cities;
Corporate Disclosure;
Environmental Accounting;
Environmental Management;
Climate Change;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Accounting Industry;
Europe;
North America;
South America;
Africa;
Asia
- Article
Update on E-liability Accounting
By: Robert Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Piyush Jha
Since publication of the original E-liability carbon accounting paper (HBR, Nov 2021), we created the E-liability Institute to help companies, governments, and nonprofits implement the method. The Institute’s mission is to test and validate the method, and develop...
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- August 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Accounting Outages at Plug Power? (A)
By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli and James Barnett
Set immediately after a December 2019 short-seller attack, the case explores Plug Power’s long challenging history. It then focuses on two key issues raised in the short-seller report related to lease accounting and stock warrants that Plug purportedly used to boost...
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- August 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Supplement
Accounting Outages at Plug Power? (B)
By: Jonas Heese, Joseph Pacelli and James Barnett
The case is set in spring 2021, immediately after Plug Power made financial restatements dating back to 2018. The case describes the restatements, which revealed that Plug was reclassifying expense items to boost gross profits.
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- August 2023
- Supplement
Arla Foods: Data-Driven Decarbonization (A)
By: Michael Parzen, Michael W. Toffel, Amram Migdal and Susan Pinckney
Arla implemented a data based price incentive systems to measure, track, and influence climate friendly changes to reduce CO2 emissions across the world’s fourth largest dairy cooperative.
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Keywords:
Dairy Industry;
Business Earnings;
Earnings Management;
Environmental Accounting;
Agribusiness;
Animal-Based Agribusiness;
Acquisition;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Voting;
Environmental Management;
Climate Change;
Environmental Regulation;
Environmental Sustainability;
Green Technology;
Pollution;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Financial Strategy;
Price;
Profit;
Revenue;
Food;
Geopolitical Units;
Global Strategy;
Ownership Type;
Cooperative Ownership;
Performance Efficiency;
Performance Evaluation;
Problems and Challenges;
Natural Environment;
Science-Based Business;
Business Strategy;
Commercialization;
Cooperation;
Corporate Strategy;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Europe;
United Kingdom;
European Union;
Germany;
Denmark;
Sweden;
Luxembourg;
Belgium
- August 2023
- Case
Arla Foods: Data-Driven Decarbonization (A)
By: Michael Parzen, Michael W. Toffel, Susan Pinckney and Amram Migdal
Arla implemented a data based price incentive systems to measure, track, and influence climate friendly changes to reduce CO2 emissions across the world’s fourth largest dairy cooperative.
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Keywords:
Dairy Industry;
Business Earnings;
Agribusiness;
Animal-Based Agribusiness;
Acquisition;
Mergers and Acquisitions;
Decision Making;
Decisions;
Voting;
Environmental Management;
Climate Change;
Environmental Regulation;
Environmental Sustainability;
Green Technology;
Pollution;
Moral Sensibility;
Values and Beliefs;
Financial Strategy;
Price;
Profit;
Revenue;
Food;
Geopolitical Units;
Global Strategy;
Ownership Type;
Cooperative Ownership;
Performance Efficiency;
Performance Evaluation;
Problems and Challenges;
Natural Environment;
Science-Based Business;
Business Strategy;
Commercialization;
Cooperation;
Corporate Strategy;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Europe;
United Kingdom;
European Union;
Germany;
Denmark;
Sweden;
Luxembourg;
Belgium
- July–August 2023
- Article
Accounting for Carbon Offsets
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
Markets for carbon trading function poorly, and many traded offsets do not actually perform as promised. Without robust protocols for monitoring offsets and in the absence of proper accounting mechanisms, market-based approaches to reducing atmospheric GHG will be...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Second- versus Third-party Audit Quality: Evidence from Global Supply Chain Monitoring
By: Maria R. Ibanez, Ashley Palmarozzo, Jodi L. Short and Michael W. Toffel
To capitalize on the superior credibility and flexibility and lower cost of external assessments, many global buyers are shifting from using their own employee (“second-party”) auditors to relying more heavily (or entirely) on third-party auditors to monitor and...
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- May 2023
- Case
CMA CGM: Reducing the Carbon Footprint of Container Shipping
By: Willy C. Shih and Emilie Billaud
Marine transport is the most cost-effective way to move large volumes over long distances, and container shipping is the backbone of international trade in goods. Yet shipping contributed 3% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions, and the deep-sea segment, which...
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- May 2023 (Revised May 2023)
- Case
Arcos Dorados: Decarbonizing McDonald’s in Latin America
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel, Jenyfeer Martinez Buitrago and Mariana Cal
This case describes the decarbonization strategy of Arcos Dorados—McDonald’s largest independent franchisee, operating in 20 countries and territories in Latin America and the Caribbean—and how the company measured its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, including those...
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Keywords:
Accounting;
Environmental Accounting;
Agribusiness;
Animal-Based Agribusiness;
Plant-Based Agribusiness;
Change Management;
Forecasting and Prediction;
Environmental Sustainability;
Food;
Growth Management;
Supply Chain;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Strategy;
Agriculture and Agribusiness Industry;
Food and Beverage Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Consumer Products Industry;
Latin America;
North and Central America;
South America
- April 3, 2023
- Article
Getting a Clearer View of Your Company’s Carbon Footprint
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Stefan Reichelstein
E-liability accounting is a new technique that will help customers factor in a product’s environmental footprint into their purchasing decisions and will help create a competition dynamic that leads to reduced carbon outputs. This article describes two pilot studies—by...
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- 2023
- Working Paper
Deep Responsibility and Irresponsibility in the Beauty Industry
By: Geoffrey Jones
This working paper employs the concept of deep responsibility to assess the social responsibility of the beauty industry over time. It shows that many of today’s problems with the industry have deep historical roots. Products have carried too many health hazards....
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- March 2023
- Teaching Note
Sustainability Reporting at Dollar Tree, Inc.
By: Suraj Srinivasan and Li-Kuan Ni
Teaching Note for HBS Case No. 122-044. The case discusses the ESG strategy of Dollar Tree Inc., a U.S. Fortune 500 company in the deep discount retail industry and the shareholder pressure faced by the company. In 2022, the company faced a shareholder resolution from...
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Keywords:
ESG;
Sustainability;
Shareholder Activism;
Dollar Tree;
Sustainability Reporting;
ESG Reporting;
Board Of Directors;
Shareholder Engagement;
GHG;
Environmental Accounting;
Integrated Corporate Reporting;
Trends;
Communication;
Announcements;
Voting;
Environmental Management;
Climate Change;
Environmental Sustainability;
Values and Beliefs;
Corporate Accountability;
Corporate Disclosure;
Corporate Governance;
Governing Rules, Regulations, and Reforms;
Policy;
Reports;
Business or Company Management;
Risk Management;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Outcome or Result;
Strategic Planning;
Business and Stakeholder Relations;
Situation or Environment;
Opportunities;
Civil Society or Community;
Social Issues;
Public Opinion;
Strategy;
Adaptation;
Alignment;
Business Strategy;
Corporate Strategy;
Value Creation;
Retail Industry;
United States;
Virginia
- 2023
- Working Paper
Accounting for Carbon Offsets – Establishing the Foundation for Carbon-Trading Markets
By: Robert S. Kaplan, Karthik Ramanna and Marc Roston
Tackling climate change requires reductions in current and future greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions as well as the removal of existing GHG from the atmosphere. Carbon-offset producers purport to provide such removals. But poor measurement practices and inadequate controls...
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