Corporate social responsibility

Eliminating algorithmic bias can unlock value for your company.

Managers should make environmental investments for the same reason they make other investments: because they expect them to deliver positive returns or to reduce risks.

There are plenty of reasons to be disappointed with the Copenhagen climate talks that start today: the meeting will not result in a binding agreement, the timeframe for such an agreement is potentially years away, and of course, neither the US nor China has committed to binding reductions. While all this is certainly disappointing, the […]

Impact investing--directing capital to ventures that are expected to yield social and environmental benefits as well as profits--provides investors with...

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General Electric paid no taxes in 2010. Or at least that was the major takeaway from a recent bomb-dropping exposé in the New York Times. At a time of...

According to conversations with 25 directors.

A better approach to stakeholder management

On December 9, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg joined Microsoft founder Bill Gates and wealthy investor Warren Buffet in signing the Gates-Buffet Giving...

On Friday, the New York Times breathlessly declared in a cover story that during the recession, "As Consumers Cut Spending, 'Green' Products Lose Allure."...

Last year we heard a chorus of “water is the new oil,” including a memorable BusinessWeek cover depicting oil baron T. Boone Pickens knee-deep in H20. This year the cry is “water is the new carbon” in response to a heightened awareness that resources such as water are more critical and valuable to a company’s […]

It’s always fun to predict what’s going to happen. The risk of being spectacularly wrong is very high, but that’s what makes the exercise so entertaining. ‘Tis the season for dwelling, quickly, on what we’ve learned this year — de-leveraging is really painful and when gas prices are high, people want smaller cars — and […]

If you are the leader of a large organization (or only of yourself) who cares about improving the world, here’s a question you should consider: How will you participate in the global solution networks that are increasingly managing to address the world’s problems? A global solution network is a group of independent parties that have […]

We’ve lost sight of how to communicate value to investors. Integrated reporting can get us back on track.

Companies should to monitor progress in delivering both social benefits and business value. Here’s how Coca-Cola did it.

Future Economy Nature Needs Advocates Henry M. Paulson Jr. is the Chairman of the Paulson Institute, whose mission is to strength the U.S.-China relationship and advance sustainable economic growth in both countries. He served as U.S. secretary of the treasury from 2006 to 2009 and is a former chairman and CEO of Goldman Sachs. This interview […]

“Better late than never.” That could be the slogan for this blog or for the business world’s slow evolution toward taking climate change seriously. In both cases, I think it holds true. Leading Green isn’t Harvard Business Publishing’s first foray into environmentally conscious business thinking. We’ve been distributing ideas meant to help companies improve their […]

Lessons from PwC’s paydown program.

You may have noticed that there’s a movement afoot to persuade capitalists to behave better. Persuade is the operative word. The agitators I’m talking about aren’t socialists. They tend not to put a huge amount of faith in regulation. They celebrate entrepreneurship and innovation. But they think something has gone wrong with the way businesses […]

Factor social benefits and the use of resources into a company’s value.