Poverty vs Global Warming

By Anonymous A comment made by the protagonist in our Aspen case got me thinking: in countries like India that don’t have the existing infrastructure, we have a chance to do it right the first time. It got me thinking about two directly opposing dilemmas: global warming vs global poverty. How do we reconcile the […]

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IdentiGEN – Insurance for your Supply Chain

By Jesse In our discussion of IdentiGEN and their go to market strategy we identified three main players with which they could align themselves: regulators, trade associations, individual companies. IdentiGEN appeared to want to resist playing on the side of the regulator and preferred to align with companies. They brought their value to the beef […]

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The Circular Economy – Who Should Be Participating?

By Ashleigh The phrase itself – the circular economy – is easy enough to understand. It generally represents the concept of using recycled materials as inputs into manufacturing processes with outputs in turn later recycled themselves. Massive potential benefits are possible with large-scale adaptation to a closed-loop system such as this, from environmental (reduced deforestation […]

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Is current shale production a decoy?

By Kate While cynics would argue that the precipitous decline in the price of oil stems from yet a new chapter in geopolitical oil-driven politics, as Saudi Arabia and the OPEC oil cartel have driven prices down to destroy the US shale revolution, such tunnel vision causes many to miss the bigger picture. While significant […]

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Does “Greenwashing” have Positive Outcomes?

By Anonymous In the Aspen Skiing Company case, we learned about the bad publicity companies in the ski industry receive for being one of the most energy-intensive industries and for being a major contributor to deforestation. Despite these facts, Aspen managed to build a reputation for being environmentally conscious as well as for showing a […]

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Stepping back What are the biggest levers to reduce CO2 emissions?

By Franziska In our class discussions we covered a diverse set of corporations with a diverse set of strategies to reduce the amount of CO2 in our atmosphere. These corporations attack different specific problems in various locations around the world and apply diverse technologies and business models. Considering the size of the problem and the […]

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Brightsource and the search for a reduced carbon powered world

By Eleanor Supporting the development of the world community and subsequent growing energy needs, while at the same time attempting to minimize the impacts of global climate change caused by fossil fuel consumption is one of the most complex issues of the 21st century. How can emerging nations grow their economies while avoiding the legacy […]

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Shared value and fiduciary duty: the harder tests are yet to come

By Anonymous Our recent cases on Nestle, Whole Foods, and Dow have danced around the idea of “doing well by doing good”. Whether you believe it’s social values or financial motives that drove these businesses to take the steps they did, the gains of their strategies are undeniable. We stopped short, however, of examining generalizable […]

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Storage – the Holy Grail of Energy Technology

By Andrew With the cost of renewable energy now becoming competitive with existing fossil sources we might be compelled to declare the war on carbon won. However that would be premature. The reason for this is the uncertainty and timing of renewable generation. For example, not only does solar require the sun to shine but […]

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Oil Glut Déjà Vu

By Mohamed Over the past couple of months oil prices have declined to a four-year low of approximately $82 WTI / $85 Brent per bbl – more than 20% decline since mid-June 2014 (see Exhibit 1). While Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil exporter, is considered the key driver for the price drop by not […]

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