Publications
Publications
Show Results For
-
All HBS Web
(2,030)
- Faculty Publications (600)
Page 1 of
600
Results
→
- 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,...
View Details
- 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...
View Details
- October 2023
- Case
KOKO Networks: Bridging Energy Transition and Affordability with Carbon Financing
By: George Serafeim, Siko Sikochi and Namrata Arora
The problem was massive: two million hectares of African forests were lost annually to charcoal production for cooking, an area equivalent to 13 times Greater London, resulting in one billion tons of carbon emissions yearly. At the same time, an estimated 700,000...
View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Buy-In Effect: When Increasing Initial Effort Motivates Behavioral Follow-Through
By: Holly Dykstra, Shibeal O'Flaherty and A.V. Whillans
Behavioral interventions often focus on reducing friction to encourage behavior change. In
contrast, we provide evidence that adding friction can promote long-term behavior change when
behaviors involve repeated costly efforts over longer time horizons. In...
View Details
- October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Rheaply: Circularity For Every Business
By: Rembrand Koning and Alicia Dadlani
In March 2023, Garry Cooper, cofounder and CEO of Chicago-based Rheaply, needed to demonstrate that Rheaply’s expanded vision could translate into building cash flows and metrics needed to raise a Series B and turn the business into a model for financial and...
View Details
- October 2023 (Revised November 2023)
- Case
Recycle & Re-Match: The Future of Soccer Turfs
By: George Serafeim, Lena Duchene and Carlota Moniz
By August 2023, Re-Match, an artificial turf waste-to-value company, had operations in Denmark and the Netherlands and had recycled over 160,000 tons of waste and plastic fiber. With recent capital injection from the VC firm Verdane and a dual revenue business model,...
View Details
Keywords:
Carbon Emissions;
Carbon Abatement;
Sustainability;
Recycling;
Waste Management;
Technology;
Entrepreneurial Management;
Entrepreneurship;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Business Model;
Decisions;
Energy Conservation;
Investment Return;
Profit;
Technological Innovation;
Patents;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Market Entry and Exit;
Digital Platforms;
Wastes and Waste Processing;
Business Strategy;
Competition;
Expansion;
Technology Adoption;
Sports;
Environmental Sustainability;
Green Technology Industry;
Service Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Rubber Industry;
Sports Industry;
Denmark;
Netherlands;
France;
United States;
Pennsylvania;
Europe
- 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...
View Details
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
- Case
Amager Bakke: Municipal Waste to Energy
By: Willy Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter
This case describes the Amager Bakke waste-to-energy (WtE) plant in Copenhagen, which merges traditional waste incineration with a combined heat and power (CHP) plant and air pollution control (scrubbing) technology, and had plans to add carbon dioxide (CO2) capture...
View Details
Keywords:
Decarbonization;
Climate Change;
Innovation;
Innovation Focused Strategy;
Environmental Operations;
Environmental Sustainability;
Circular;
Waste Heat Recovery;
Waste Management;
Carbon Regulation;
Buildings and Facilities;
Energy;
Environmental Management;
Pollution;
Energy Industry;
Denmark;
Netherlands;
Europe;
European Union
- 2023
- Working Paper
Global Harms, Local Profits: How the Uneven Costs of Natural Disasters Affect Support for Green Political Platforms
By: Silvia Pianta and Paula Rettl
The emergence of green constituencies enables climate action. Conventional wisdom holds
that first-hand experience with natural disasters helps build green coalitions by increasing
the salience of the costs of environmental degradation. Focusing on fires in Brazil,...
View Details
Keywords:
Climate Impact;
Politics;
Environmental Issues;
Environmental Protection;
Economic Analysis;
Economic Behavior;
Economic Geography;
Economy;
Economics;
Climate Change;
Environmental Management;
Political Elections;
Natural Disasters;
Green Technology;
Environmental Sustainability;
Latin America;
Brazil
- Article
Stock Price Reactions to ESG News: The Role of ESG Ratings and Disagreement
By: George Serafeim and Aaron Yoon
We investigate whether ESG ratings predict future ESG news and the associated market reactions. We find that the consensus rating predicts future news, but its predictive ability diminishes for firms with large disagreement between raters. Relation between news and...
View Details
Keywords:
ESG;
ESG (Environmental, Social, Governance) Performance;
ESG Disclosure;
ESG Ratings;
ESG Reporting;
ESG Disclosure Metrics;
Sustainability;
Investments;
Disagreement;
Rating Disagreement;
Ratings;
Environmental Sustainability;
Social Issues;
Corporate Social Responsibility and Impact;
Performance;
News;
Investment;
Financial Markets;
Stocks;
Price
- 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...
View Details
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;
Consulting Industry;
Energy Industry;
Auto Industry;
Construction Industry;
Transportation Industry;
Financial Services Industry;
Green Technology Industry;
Industrial Products Industry;
Information Technology Industry;
Manufacturing Industry;
Public Administration Industry;
Steel Industry;
Utilities 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...
View Details
- August 2023 (Revised September 2023)
- Technical Note
Power-to-X
By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel and Kelsey Carter
To reduce greenhouse gas emissions that were contributing to climate change, the world needs to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. Power-to-X (PtX) refers to an array of processes that convert electricity (power) to various gaseous and liquid...
View Details
- 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.
View Details
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.
View Details
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 2023
- Case
Vytal: Packaging-as-a-Service
By: George Serafeim, Michael W. Toffel, Lena Duchene and Daniela Beyersdorfer
The Germany-based startup Vytal operated the largest digital-native reusable packaging-as-a-service network globally, having raised nearly €15 million, established a large network of restaurant partners, and prevented the use of millions of single-use take-out food...
View Details
Keywords:
Climate Change;
Climate Risk;
Digital;
Platform Strategies;
Data;
Packaging;
Sustainability;
Start-up;
Startup;
Entrepreneurship;
Entrepreneur;
Impact;
Circular;
Growth Strategy;
Innovation;
Environmental Sustainability;
Innovation and Invention;
Business Growth and Maturation;
Growth and Development Strategy;
Business Startups;
Resource Allocation;
Risk Management;
Adoption;
Strategy;
Performance Productivity;
Service Delivery;
Service Operations;
Supply Chain;
Distribution;
Green Technology Industry;
Service Industry;
Retail Industry;
Germany;
Europe
- July 2023
- Technical Note
Agricultural Innovation and Sustainability in the Netherlands
By: Willy C. Shih, Michael W. Toffel, Kelsey Carter, Jennifer Godfrey, Rafaella Mazza and Katrina Yeh
This note describes some of the most significant agricultural innovations in the Netherlands, their drivers, environmental performance implications, some challenges facing the sector, and the potential replicability of these innovations to other contexts.
View Details
- July 2023
- Supplement
Reimagining Enel: Enabling Sustainable Progress (A)
By: Michael Tushman and Kerry Herman
This case describes the transformation of Enel from a traditional “brown” or fossil fuel energy firm to a sustainable and green firm focused on renewables, and finally to an energy supplier and integrated energy services firm. It describes a set of capabilities...
View Details
- 2023
- Working Paper
The Economic and Environmental Effects of Making Electricity Infrastructure Excludable
By: Husnain Fateh Ahmad, Ayesha Ali, Robyn C. Meeks, Zhenxuan Wang and Javed Younas
Electricity theft occurs when individuals cannot be excluded from accessing services. We study the impacts of an infrastructure upgrade in Karachi, Pakistan -- converting bare distribution wires to aerial bundled cables (ABCs) -- that was intended to prevent illegal...
View Details
- 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...
View Details