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Published By Oxford University, Authors, Liliana Doganova and Peter Karnøe  

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Clean and Profitable: Entangling Valuations in Environmental

Entrepreneurship

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Clean and Profitable: Entangling Valuations in Environmental

Entrepreneurship

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The outcome of innovation processes are determined by complex, historically grown valuation practices. In this book, a wide range of innovations are taken into consideration, from small inventions like entertainment novelties to large societal changes through new technologies. The chapters observe the particular local or distributed sites in which their episodes of innovation take place, and they identify the initial dissonance among those judging a newly proposed alternative. The emphasis of the inquiry, however, is on the practices of valuation that are at work when something succeeds in being “new”. The authors represent a wide variety of sub-disciplines and national backgrounds in the social sciences. They share an interest in social valuation and a pragmatist approach. The differences between their empirical evidence reflect the wide variety of appearances that valuation takes in contemporary society. They are anthropologists, economic or cultural sociologists, organization researchers, historians or political scientists. A number of chapters deals with aesthetic valuation, as in the tasting of a new vintage, or in the socio-technical process that shaped successful synthesizer sounds. Other chapters discuss the judgment processes in organizations, like architect offices or consultancy firms, and processes of evaluation and valorization in larger fields of practice, like accounting or mathematics. The studies are both of interest in their various professional fields, and contribute to a more general understanding of the social and cultural conditions under which innovations fail and succeed.

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Published By ScienceDirect, Authors, Liliana Doganova and Peter Karnøe  

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Building markets for clean technologies: Controversies, environmental concerns and economic worth

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Building markets for clean technologies: Controversies, environmental concerns and economic worth

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Are We the Last Generation — or the First Sustainable One? | Hannah Ritchie | TED

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Everybody can be a sustainability leader 

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Everybody can be a sustainability leader 

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Everybody can be a sustainability leader | Annick Schmeddes | TEDxGorinchem

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Published By Yale News, Author Zeyna Malik

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Personal Care Company recognized for sustainability

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Personal Care Company recognized for sustainability

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Connecticut-based Edgewell Personal Care Company recognized for sustainability

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U.S. Environmental Protection has recognized Edgewell, a multinational consumer products company headquartered in Connecticut, as an industry leader in freight and supply chain environmental performance.

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Published By Vanderbilt University, Author

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business 

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business 

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business | Vanderbilt + UBC

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Organizations who grasp the importance of sustainability in business can position themselves for success while making a positive impact.

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Defining Sustainability: Absolutely | Anjila Hjalsted | TEDxGoodenoughCollege

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Publisher Harvard Business School, Author, Natalie Chladek

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business

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In today's ever-evolving world, debating whether to incorporate sustainability into your business strategy is no longer an option. Considering a values-driven approach when developing business strategies can be vital to long-term success.

Before getting into why sustainability is essential to successful business strategies, it's important to define what sustainability in business is.

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What Is Sustainability in Business?

In short, sustainability in business refers to the effect companies have on the environment or society.

A sustainable business strategy aims to positively impact one or both of those areas, thereby helping address some of the world's most pressing problems.

Some of the global issues that sustainable business strategies help to address include:

Climate change

Income inequality

Depletion of natural resources

Human rights issues

Fair working conditions

Pollution

Racial injustice

Gender inequality

Although it may sound like it, sustainability in business is not purely altruistic. As Harvard Business School Professor Rebecca Henderson notes in the online course Sustainable Business Strategy, you can't use business to do good in the world if you're not doing well financially. Doing well and doing good are intertwined, and successful business strategies include both.

Many of today's firms have adopted the triple bottom line, which suggests that organizations should focus on more than just profits, or the "bottom-line," and also measure their environmental and social impact. These focuses can be referred to as "the three Ps,": people, planet, and profit. Quite often, this sustainable approach to business ultimately boosts business performance.

Why Is Sustainability Important?

In addition to driving social and environmental change, sustainability initiatives can contribute to an organization's overall success. It may seem counterintuitive that spending more money on sustainable business practices can boost a company's profitability, but studies show that the most sustainable companies are also the most profitable.

Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) metrics are often used to determine how ethical and sustainable an organization is. According to McKinsey, companies with high ESG ratings consistently outperform the market in both the medium and long term. While sustainability strategies might be an investment in the short term, they can lead to long-term benefits.

Benefits of Sustainability in Business

1. You'll Protect Your Brand and Mitigate Risks

Ending up on the front page because of a scandal is a CEO's worst nightmare. Not only do improper practices damage an organization's reputation and cost it customers, but dealing with a public relations disaster can divert valuable human and financial resources from the core business.

You don't want to become the company that allowed an oil spill or forced employees to work in unsafe conditions. By instituting a sustainable strategy that protects the environment and your workers, you also protect yourself from any damaging incidents.

2. Being Purpose-Driven Is a Competitive Advantage

Sustainability doesn't detract from business goals, and infusing your company with purpose can help attract a motivated, skilled workforce that drives financial success. In a Facebook Live discussion, Henderson noted a recent study showing that 89 percent of executives believe an organization with shared purpose will have greater employee satisfaction. Additionally, 85 percent say they're more likely to recommend a company with strong purpose to others.

Making your company an organization that does good in the world-rather than just a place that provides a paycheck-can be a competitive advantage when attracting the best talent.

: HBS Professor Explores the Impact Purpose Can Have on Your Organization

3. There's a Growing Market for Sustainable Goods

A 2019 study found that 73 percent of global consumers are willing to change their consumption habits to lessen their negative impact on the environment, and sustainable product sales have grown by nearly 20 percent since 2014. Millennials in particular are more willing to pay more for products that contain sustainable ingredients or products that have social responsibility claims. If your organization commits to sustainable products and practices, it could gain market share by converting sustainability-minded customers and increasing sales.

4. Cooperative Action Can Drive Change

As an individual, it can feel overwhelming, isolating, or simply impossible to effect change in a meaningful way. That's not the case when the most innovative, successful, and powerful companies are collaborating to solve some of the world's most pressing problems. While governments struggle to address public goods problems, purpose-driven companies working together to address these issues have experienced great success.

For example, palm oil is cheap, versatile, and found in about half of all packaged products, including soap, lipstick, and ice cream. But palm oil production has resulted in record greenhouse gas emissions and contributed to climate change.

In light of this, consumer goods producer Unilever committed to only using palm oil from certified sustainable sources in 2008. The organization cooperated with its competitors-as well as governments, NGOs, and indigenous peoples' organizations-to lead an industry-wide adoption of sustainable palm oil. As a result, Unilever continues to be a thriving organization, and the world has reaped the environmental benefits of sustainable palm oil harvesting practices.

The Value of Sustainability

Sustainability doesn't mean sacrificing profits or putting success on the backburner. Instead, it has become a crucial element to any organization's successful strategy. A business that doesn't factor in sustainability risks is less successful in several measures, including profitability, growth, and employee retention.

By integrating sustainability into your business strategy, you can find success because, rather than in spite, of sustainability.
Do you want to take a more values-driven approach to business? Explore our three-week online course This post was upated on March 22, 2021. It was originally published on November 6, 2019. Sustainable Business Strategy and learn how organizations can succeed financially while also playing a role in solving some of the world's most pressing problems.

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The Importance of Sustainability in Business | HBS Online

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Sustainability is a non-negotiable for business success. Here, we discuss why sustainability is important and the benefits it can offer your business.

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ERS conducts research on a range of climate change issues related to agriculture, including:

The impacts of climate change and weather on crop production, livestock production, and international trade

The implications of climate change for agricultural markets and the cost of government policies/programs

The potential for agriculture to adapt to changing climate conditions

The potential within agriculture for mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions

The role of USDA farm programs under changing climate conditions

Drought resilience and risk management

See the sidebar links to ERS climate-related resources; selected publications are highlighted below.

The Fifth U.S. National Climate Assessment (NCA5) surveyed recent scientific literature on climate change, impacts, adaptation, and mitigation. Quoting NCA5, these are major findings:

Global average temperatures over the past decade (2012-2021) were close to 2°F (1.1°C) warmer than the preindustrial period (1850-1899) (NCA5, Ch. 2, page 2-10).

Global surface temperatures will continue to rise until CO₂ emissions reach net zero, and surface temperatures are not expected to fall for centuries in the absence of net-negative emissions (NCA5, Ch. 2, page 2-29).

Temperatures in the contiguous United States have risen by 2.5°F and temperatures in Alaska by 4.2°F since 1970, compared to a global temperature rise of around 1.7°F over the same period. This reflects a broader global pattern in which land is warming faster than the ocean, higher latitudes are warming faster than lower latitudes, and the Arctic is warming fastest of all (NCA5, Ch. 2, page 2-11).

Many eastern regions of the country are getting wetter. Average annual precipitation from 2002-2021 was 5% to 15% higher relative to the 1901-1960 average in the central and eastern United States, a trend attributable to climate change (NCA5, Ch. 2, page 2-11).

Strong reductions in emissions of both CO₂ and non-CO₂ greenhouse gases (e.g., methane and nitrous oxide) are required to limit human-induced global warming to specific levels (NCA5, Ch. 2, page 2-5).

Agricultural Greenhouse Gas Emissions

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) publishes annual estimates of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, including emissions from agriculture (see Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2022, April 2024). USDA publishes a supplemental greenhouse gas inventory for agriculture less frequently, but it provides further background and regional detail not available in the EPA inventory (see the most recent USDA report, U.S. Agriculture and Forestry Greenhouse Gas Inventory: 1990-2018, USDA, Office of the Chief Economist, Technical Bulletin No. 1957, January 2022).

The greenhouse gases with the largest contribution to rising temperature are carbon dioxide (CO ₂), methane (CH ₄), and nitrous oxide (N ₂O). In estimating total emissions, global warming potentials (GWPs) are used to calculate carbon-dioxide equivalents for methane and nitrous oxide to sum emissions impacts over different gases.

EPA estimates that agriculture accounted for 10.5 percent of U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 2022. Of the 10.5 percent, electricity-related CO ₂ emissions accounted for 0.5 percent, and CO ₂ from on-farm energy use accounted for 0.8 percent. Agricultural practices that emit nitrous oxide include nitrogen fertilizer application and manure management. Major sources of agricultural methane emissions include enteric fermentation, manure management, and rice cultivation.

Globally, carbon dioxide emissions are the largest contributor to climate change. However, the emissions profile for agriculture differs from that of the overall economy. U.S. agriculture emitted an estimated 663.6 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2022: 46.6 percent as nitrous oxide, 41.7 percent as methane, and 11.6 percent as carbon dioxide (EPA 2024).

The EPA Inventory of U.S. Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Sinks: 1990-2022 (EPA 2024) also includes a land use, land-use change, and forestry (LULUCF) chapter, which provides an estimate of emissions (sources) and removals (sinks) from LULUCF conversions between forest land, cropland, grassland, wetlands, and human settlements. Carbon sinks include forest management to increase carbon in forests, harvested wood products, increases in tree carbon stocks in settlements, conversion of agricultural to forest land (afforestation), and crop management practices that increase carbon in agricultural soils (EPA 2024). The LULUCF estimated net sink is 854.2 million metric tons of carbon-dioxide equivalent in 2022.

Climate Change Impacts and Agricultural Adaptation

All dimensions of food security-availability, accessibility, utilization (or usability), and stability-are expected to be affected by climate change through long-term changes in average climatic conditions (e.g., annual precipitation and temperature), as well as increases in climate variability and the frequency, magnitude, and duration of climate extremes (NCA5, Ch. 11, page 11-14). These impacts will affect national and international markets; the prices of food, fiber, and energy; agricultural incomes; and the environment. How farmers respond or adapt-possibly mediated by policy and technology changes-will ultimately determine the impact of these altered growing conditions on production, natural resources, and food security. ERS publications that consider climate change and agricultural adaptation include:

Climate-Induced Yield Changes and TFP: How Much R&D Is Necessary To Maintain the Food Supply? (ERR-333, July 2024) To assess the potential impact of climate change on food supply and demand, yield change estimates were determined for corn, rice, soybeans, and wheat. These estimates were based on climate projections from global climate models and global gridded crop models. If no additional R&D expenditures are made (beyond 2016 expenditures), then total-factor-productivity (TFP) growth would be insufficient to meet global demand for the four crops in 2050.

Development, Adoption, and Management of Drought-Tolerant Corn in the United States (EIB-204, January 2019). Introduced in 2011, drought-tolerant corn accounted for 22 percent of total U.S. corn-planted acreage in 2016. Using data from USDA's Agricultural Resource Management Survey, this report documents trends in its development, adoption, and management, examining the role of drought exposure and moisture conservation practices, as well as genetically engineered seed traits, pricing, and irrigation.

Climate Change, Water Scarcity, and Adaptation in the U.S. Fieldcrop Sector (ERR-201, November 2015). Climate change is projected to adversely impact yields of corn, soybeans, rice, sorghum, cotton, oats, and silage, with some impacts as early as 2020. The potential reallocation of acreage into irrigated production in response to climate change may be constrained by limits on the regional availability of water resources and on declining relative profitability of irrigated production under conditions of heat stress.

Climate Change, Heat Stress, and U.S. Dairy Production (ERR-175, September 2014). In the United States, climate change is likely to increase average daily temperatures and the frequency of heat waves. Dairy cows are particularly sensitive to heat stress, and the dairy sector has been estimated to bear over half of the costs of current heat stress to the livestock industry.

Agricultural Production and Climate Change Mitigation

There are many opportunities to decrease greenhouse gas emissions of croplands and pasture, including improving soil health, improving nitrogen fertilizer management, increasing the number of trees and other perennials on the landscape, and reducing methane emissions (NCA5, Ch. 32, page 32-20). Farm operators can change production practices or land use to increase the carbon stored in soil or vegetation. Other changes in production practices and land use can result in reduced emissions of methane and nitrous oxide. In addition, agriculture can produce biofuels, which can substitute for fossil fuels and reduce greenhouse gas emissions across multiple sectors. These actions are considered forms of climate change mitigation. ERS publications that consider climate change mitigation include:

Cover Crop Trends, Programs, and Practices in the United States (EIB-222, February 2021). Depending upon the field, soil, climate, and weather, cover crops can result in a variety of on farm benefits: reduced soil erosion and compaction, improved water infiltration and storage within the soil profile, greater weed and pest suppression, and better nutrient cycling and soil stability to support machine operations. Cover crops can also provide public environmental benefits: less runoff of sediments and nutrients into waterways, reduced flooding in watersheds, and greater soil carbon sequestration.

Resource Requirements of Food Demand in the United States (ERR-273, May 2020). Three main factors determine the resource requirements of food demand: population, diet, and technology. This study focused on the use of natural resources in the U.S. food system by examining one of these factors, diet, to illustrate how food choices can affect use of resources.

Tillage Intensity and Conservation Cropping in the United States (EIB-197, September 2018). Most U.S. farmers prepare their soil for seeding, weed and pest control through tillage-plowing operations that disturb the soil. Tillage practices affect soil health, soil carbon content, water pollution, and farmers' energy and pesticide use, and therefore data on tillage can be valuable for understanding the practice's role in reaching climate and other environmental goals.

Dedicated Energy Crops and Competition for Agricultural Land (ERR-223, January 2017). Crops that are grown strictly for energy use, such as switchgrass in the United States, have received much attention as potential renewable sources for bioelectricity; however, markets do not presently exist for large-scale use of this resource. This study examines three policy scenarios that could create a market for bioelectricity using dedicated energy crops.

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ERS conducts research on a range of climate change issues related to agriculture.

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How much of global greenhouse gas emissions come from food?

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Estimates of food emissions can range from one-quarter to one-third. Where do these differences come from?

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Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship

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Bricolage versus breakthrough: distributed and embedded agency in technology entrepreneurship

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