Sustainable Business and Technology

ENVR E-157 Sustainable Business and Technology (23427) (4 credits)

Spring 2016 term

Class times: Mondays beginning Jan. 25, 7:40 to 9:40 PM in Maxwell -Dworkin G115.

Optional sections to be arranged in CANVAS (using the Blue Button feature in the “Conferences” tab)

Course tuition: noncredit and undergraduate credit $1,350, graduate credit $2400.

Website:  https://canvas.harvard.edu/courses/8379

Online Option Available

Course Instructors:

Ramon Sanchez, ScD, Director of the Sustainable Technologies and Health Program.

Director of Corporate Outreach and Strategy. 

Center for Health and the Global Environment

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

 

Matthew Gardner, PhD, Director, Sustainserv, Inc.

 

Catlin Powers, ScD, Program Leader – Rural Health and Renewable Energy.

Center for Health and the Global Environment

Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health

 

 

Teaching Fellows:

TBD

Course purpose:

With the increased awareness of how business and economic activity impact our planet and societies, we are seeing a boom in entrepreneurial activity premised on social responsibility, environmental friendliness, energy efficiency, and other sustainability-related attributes. This course seeks to examine the trends in green business and drivers of innovation, and to identify which activities are based on enduring principles and which are likely to be fleeting.  Through conversations with local entrepreneurs, case studies, and lectures, this course provides students with an introduction to the principles of sustainable business, and the opportunity to look at a variety of new businesses, business models, intellectual property management practices and technologies that may play a role in an energy- and resource-constrained future.

 

In this day and age, businesses and policy makers face many new and different challenges and expectations. These include the issues of climate change, job creation in a sustainable economy, corporate responsibility and transparency, environmental stewardship and protection of human health.  In order to meet these challenges, these same actors must be able to engage on wide range of issues such as constraints on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, understanding of economic dynamics, improvement of food production operations, mitigation of wasteful consumption trends, global education practices and effective management of funding for basic and applied research.

 

Sustainability is, at its core, the balance of environmental, social, and economic goals in a way that does a better job of taking account of future needs and risks than current social systems do.  It is increasingly clear that business and environmental professionals need to understand these issues and that the investment community will be increasingly looking to identify companies that demonstrate the ability to understand, anticipate and potentially manage themselves profitably in this quickly evolving landscape. Being able to assess the broader strategy and performance of a company or organization, and particularly its approach to economic and environmental sustainability is becoming a high-profile complement to more conventional management skills. Companies have a significant impact on environmental and economic stewardship through their own activities, and by the impacts of their products and services.

 

Over the last several years, many corporations, universities and public institutions have embraced more sustainable practices which are a core component of their long-term business strategy.  In parallel, resources are increasingly being focused on technological advances in energy, transportation, construction, materials, electronics and agriculture in anticipation of a new “sustainable world order”. 

 

Course description:

 

This course will start with an overview of the challenges of sustainability, including the expected impacts of climate change, resource constraints on various sectors of the economy (including job creation), expectations around corporate governance, with a specific focus on impacts on the United States. 

 

It will then clearly embed the issues of carbon management, sustainable practices, waste reduction, social development and resource management in the larger set of goals encompassed in what is known by the closely related terms of “corporate sustainability” or just “corporate responsibility.” It will address issues with responsible corporate and institutional behavior and the need for it to be measured against quantifiable and transparent metrics. 

 

The course will next discuss how social and corporate needs become opportunities, how these opportunities become innovation drivers and how innovation creates economic and sustainable development. This section will include an analysis of schemes for trading emission offsets, intellectual property transfers and other market opportunities related to population dynamics including those among developed and developing countries. The unique roles of venture capital firms, government legislation and universities in starting innovation and creating intellectual property assets are analyzed in detail.   

 

Lastly, to address current global problems, a large number and variety of new technologies will likely be developed, not all of which will stand up to environmental claims or will be financially feasible to implement.  The course will conclude with an examination a variety of technological advances for specific sectors of the economy. 

 

Overall, the primary objective of this course is to provide students with insights into career, innovation and investment opportunities given the context of a changing world and a changing climate. 

 

Learning Objectives

 

At the end of this course, the student should be able to:

• Identify the pressures faced by society and the planet, including the causes of climate change, water management, and other global problems, as well as their potential economic, social and environmental impacts (focused mainly in the United States)
• Understand the ways that the private sector is addressing sustainability related issues including CSR management and reporting, global frameworks for sustainability, and different codes of conduct.
• Comprehend the data and measurement schemes for sustainability. What are the appropriate metrics against which to assess the relative “sustainability” of a company or even a specific product?
• Sustainable markets, products and services. What are the opportunities? Where are the markets?
• Use intellectual property tools to identify different opportunities for sustainable and economic development
• Identify the main features of different technologies in order to evaluate their economic and social value (this includes carbon mitigation and adaptation technologies)
• Understand technology innovation and how to manage it properly to reduce risks in each stage of the process (from idea conception to mass implementation in a global society)
• Understand and assess the potential for key technologies in order to identify potential opportunities for investing in new innovations

 

 

Session	Date	Topic	Assignment (note: date listed is date assignments are due)	Instructor(s)
1	January 25th	Introduction to course, faculty and students.  Introduction to Energy Consumption and its Relationship to Climate Change	Prepare your personal Introduction Slide for next week	Catlin Powers, Matthew Gardner, Ramon Sanchez
2	February  1st	The Potential Impacts of Climate Change and Introduction to Technologies and Wedges	Readings	Ramon Sanchez
3	February 8th	Market Intelligence Techniques, Intellectual Property issues related to business development Quiz 1 (available online after this session)	Readings	Ramon Sanchez
4	February 15th (Online Using CANVAS Blue Button)	Role of Government and Universities in Basic Research.  Relationship between risk and sustainability.	Readings	Ramon Sanchez
5	February 22th	Technological Solutions for Carbon Mitigation and Carbon Adaptation.	Readings Assignment 1	Ramon Sanchez
6	February 29th	What is a Sustainable Company?	Readings	Matthew Gardner
7	March 7th	How do you measure sustainability? ·         Life-Cycle-Analysis ·         GHG inventories ·         Measuring social impacts and benefits	Readings Assignment 1 is due (before class time)	Matthew Gardner
8	March 14th	Spring Break (No class)	TA session one evening this or next week
9	March 21th	“Green” Markets ·         Market opportunities for sustainability ·         Consumer and corporate demand ·         Products vs. Services? ·         Examples of failures Quiz 2 (available online after this session)	Readings	Matthew Gardner
10	March 28th	Opportunities for Entrepreneurship: Case studies ·         Software ·         Retail and consumer goods ·         Mobility Food and Agriculture	Readings Project Proposal is due:  Initial proposal for a project on technology for carbon or environmental mitigation or adaptation Assignment 2 is posted	Matthew Gardner
11	April 4th	Lessons Learned on Integrating a team for a Start-up.  Some recommendations for the first year	Readings	Catlin Powers
12	April 11th	Funding options for technological start-ups:  Venture Capital, Angel Investors, Crowdfunding, Venture Philanthropists, Cooperatives, etc.	Readings   Assignment 2 is due	Catlin Powers
13	April 18th	Integrating your Business Plan, Promotion strategies, recommendations to enhance future development or funding opportunities and how to advance policy recommendations, etc.   Quiz 3 (available online after this session)	Readings	Catlin Powers
14	April 25th	Prototype development and recommendations for dealing with the supply chain for highly technological and sustainable projects	Readings	Catlin Powers
15	May 2nd	Student Presentations		Catlin Powers, Matthew Gardner, Ramon Sanchez
16	May 9th	Student Presentations	Final Project Due	Catlin Powers, Matthew Gardner, Ramon Sanchez

 

Session 1 Readings

 

Global Climate Change Impacts in the United States. US Global Change Research Program

http://downloads.globalchange.gov/usimpacts/pdfs/climate-impacts-report.pdf

Read executive summary and key findings

 

World Economic Forum’s Global Risks 2014

http://www3.weforum.org/docs/WEF_GlobalRisks_Report_2014.pdf

Read just page 9 and then pages 12 to 17

 

Turn Down the Heat Report

http://www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2013/06/14/000445729_20130614145941/Rendered/PDF/784240WP0Full00D0CONF0to0June19090L.pdf

Executive Summary from pages xv to xviii (anything before Sub-Saharan Africa)

 

 

 

Session 2 Readings

 

 

Solving the Climate Problem: Technologies Available to Curb CO₂ emissions. Robert Socolow, Roberta Hotinski, Jeffery B.Greenblatt, and Stephen Pacala, and supplemental information

http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/pdfs/climate_problem.pdf

The whole document

 

Climate Change and Water. IPCC Technical Paper VI.

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/technical-papers/climate-change-water-en.pdf

Executive summary (pages 3 and 4), the rest is optional

 

Optional:

 

Introduction to the Wedges FLASH Movie

http://cmi.princeton.edu/wedges/flash_intro.php

 

Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC Working Group 3: Summary for Policymakers

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg3/ar4-wg3-spm.pdf

 

Food, Fibre, and Forestry Products. IPCC Fourth Assessment Report http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg2/ar4-wg2-chapter5.pdf

 

Addressing the Health Impacts of Global Environmental Change. Samuel Myers

 

Climate Change and the Global Water Crisis: What Businesses Need to Know and Do. UN Global Compact. May 2009.

 

Session 3 Readings

 

http://www.uspto.gov

 

Carayannie E.G. et al. (1998), The Wealth of Knowledge, Converting Intellectual Property into Intellectual Capital.  Available at:

http://www.uni-klu.ac.at/wiho/downloads/CARAYANNIS_IPR_IJTM.pdf

 

 

 

 

 

Session 4 Readings

 

PriceWaterhouseCooper- PwC (2010), Government’s Many Roles in Fostering Innovation.  Pages 2 to 25, the rest is optional. Available at:

https://www.pwc.com/gx/en/technology/pdf/how-governments-foster-innovation-2010.pdf

 

Session 5 Readings

 

Policy Response to Climate Change (The Stern Review), just the pages before “Stern Review Abbreviations and Acronyms”
http://mudancasclimaticas.cptec.inpe.br/~rmclima/pdfs/destaques/sternreview_report_complete.pdf

 

A Critique of the Stern Report by Robert Mendelsohn of Yale University

http://environment.yale.edu/files/biblio/YaleFES-00000260.pdf

 

“Climate Change 101: Business Solutions,” Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Climate101-Business-Jan09.pdf

 

 

“Climate Change 101: Cap and Trade,” Pew Center on Global Climate Change.

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/Climate101-CapTrade-Jan09.pdf

 

“The European Union's Emissions Trading System in Perspective,” Pew Center on Global Climate Change, A. Denny Ellerman, Paul L. Joskow, May 2008

http://www.pewclimate.org/docUploads/EU-ETS-In-Perspective-Report.pdf

 

 

Optional:

 

‘Technology for a Low Carbon Future’ Climate Group and The Office of Tony Blair, 6 July 2009

 

2006. H. Tietenberg, Emissions Trading: Principles and Practice, Second Edition, 2006.

Chapter 1 only

 

“State and Trends of the Carbon Market 2009,” World Bank.

 

IETA: Greenhouse Gas Market 2011

http://www.ieta.org/assets/Reports/ieta%202011%20ghg%20market%20report%20final.pdf

 

 

“Fortifying the Foundation: State of the Voluntary Carbon Markets 2009,” Ecosystem Marketplace & New Carbon Finance, Katherine Hamilton, Milo Sjardin, Allison Shapiro, and Thomas Marcello, 20 May, 2009

 

 

 

Sessions 6 & 7 Readings

 

Part Two of Daniel C. Esty and Andrew S. Winston, Green to Gold – How Companies Use Environmental Strategy to Innovate, Create Value, and Build Competitive Advantage, Yale University Press, 2006

 

Sessions 8 & 9 Readings

 

The Greenhouse Gas Protocol – A Corporate Accounting and Reporting Standard, World Business Council for Sustainable Development and World Resource Institute, Revised Edition (download at http://www.ghgprotocol.org/files/ghgp/ghg_project_protocol.pdf)

 

Chapters 1-4 of “Cradle to Cradle – Remaking the Way we Make Things”  William McDonough and Michael Baumgartner, Northpoint Press, 2002

 

Session 10 Readings

 

“The New Frontier in Sustainability” from Businesses for Social Responsibility, 2010. http://www.bsr.org/reports/BSR_New_Frontier_Sustainability.pdf

 

Session 11 Readings

“Startups Lead the Way to Crack the Unsolvables” http://www.greenbiz.com/blog/2014/01/24/startups-lead-way-cracking-unsolvables

 

Kawasaki, Guy, “The Art of the Start:  The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything,” Portfolio, 2004

Chapter 1, The Art of Starting

Chapter 2, The Art of Positioning

Chapter 6, The Art of Recruiting.

 

Recommended:

Jablokow K. and Mason J. (2002). Review of the Innovator’s Dilemma by Clayton Christensen. Available at: http://www.personal.psu.edu/faculty/j/m/jmm27/course/535/papers/inn_dil.pdf

 

Session 12 Readings

 

Kawasaki, Guy, “The Art of the Start:  The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything,” Portfolio, 2004

Chapter 3, The Art of Pitching

Chapter 7, The Art of Raising Capital.

 

 

 

Session 13 Readings

Kawasaki, Guy, “The Art of the Start:  The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything,” Portfolio, 2004

Chapter 4, The Art of Writing a Business Plan

 

Session 14 Readings

 

Lovins L.H. & Cohen B. (2012).  The way out: kick-starting capitalism to save our economic ass.  Hill and Wang.

 

Environmental Protection Agency (2003).  Lean Manufacturing and the Environment: Research on Advanced Manufacturing Systems and the Environment and Recommendations for Leveraging Better Environmental Performance.  Available at:

http://www.epa.gov/lean/environment/pdf/leanreport.pdf

 

 

 

Grading:

Homework Assignments (2)                – 20% (10% each)

Online Quizzes (3)                               – 45% (15% each)

Final Project                                        – 25%

Final Presentation                               – 10%