Environment : Center for Social Innovation (CSI)

Articles : All | News Articles | Stanford Social Innovation Review Articles | Blog Posts

Topic :

Business, Global Issues, Socially Responsible Business, Environment

This Old Green House

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Fall 2010

Clean Energy Works Portland gets consumers—and the workforce—energized about weatherization.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Cause Marketing, Global Issues, Social Enterprises, Social Innovations, Environment

A Bigger Pie

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2010

Mission Pie, a for-profit bakery and café, supports local farmers while training at-risk kids.

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Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Cause Marketing, Global Issues, Philanthropy, Social Innovations, Socially Responsible Business, Environment

Research: Evil Green

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2010

New research shows that buying green products makes people more likely to cheat and steal.

-Subscription Required

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Business, Global Issues, Socially Responsible Business, Environment

Research: Unsoiled Reputations

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Fall 2010

As it turns out, family values play an important role in the socially and environmentally responsible practices of big businesses. According to recent research, family firms pollute less than nonfamily firms—and experts say that’s due to the family values that these firms were founded upon.

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Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Global Issues, Social Policy, Environment, Government

Climate Soldiers

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Fall 2010

THE CLIMATE WAR: True Believers, Power Brokers, and the Fight to Save the Earth by Eric Pooley

We are honored to bring you the last article written by one of the world’s most prominent climatologists, Stephen H. Schneider, who died of an apparent heart attack while flying from Sweden to London on July 19. The article is a review of the new book, The Climate War, by business journalist Eric Pooley.

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Environment

Market Stresses Won’t Halt Saudi Arabian Oil’s Market Dominance, says CEO Jum’ah

The leader of the Saudi Arabian Oil Company, the world’s largest producer of crude oil, says he doubts that either the current instability of world financial markets or a U.S. push toward oil independence will stop his company’s growth.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Green Tech Must First Make Economic Sense, Says Vinod Khosla

Zero emission buildings and hybrid vehicles have broad appeal, but any climate change solution must first make economic sense in order to truly be effective, venture capitalist Vinod Khosla, MBA ’80, told a business school audience during the 2008 von Gugelberg Memorial Lecture.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Innovative Partnership Models: Harnessing the Power of Your Network

A panel discusses the need to use innovative and collaborative thinking processes when modifying supply chains to address prominent social and environmental problems. In addition to encouraging collaboration with members of one's network, they also recommend seeking feedback from unlikely stakeholders to include new perspectives.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Healthcare

Criticism May Produce Innovation, Wal-Mart CEO Scott Says

Wal-Mart’s innovative approach to environmental sustainability and its addition of health care services to stores were partly triggered by critics of the company in other areas. CEO Lee Scott spoke with Sloan Fellows.

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Environment

About Forty Years Until the Oil Runs Out

If the world had to rely on the United States for all of its oil, the supply wouldn’t last very long—one year to be exact, speakers told a conference titled “Reduce Your Ecological Footprint."

Resource: News Article

Topic :

Environment, Government

What’s Next: The Green to Go Green

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Fall 2008

In Berkeley, here comes the sun.

-Subscription Required

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Environment, Government

Fast Food and the Family Farm

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2008

It’s time to reform how we grow food and what we have for dinner. —By Bruce Boyd

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Environment, Government

A Lot of Hot Air

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2008

A popular Mexico City program for cutting air pollution from vehicles doesn’t work; in fact sales of new cars, used cars, and gasoline have climbed since the program’s launch in 1989.

-Subscription Required

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

From the Ground Up

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Summer 2008

Part academic institution, part activist group, part think tank, ATREE crosses sectors to breed a new species of conservation agency in India. —By Brandon Keim

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Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Arts, Culture, and Religion, Environment, Government

Praise the Lord, but Dim the Lights

Stanford Social Innovation Review: Spring 2008

The Regeneration Project helps the environmental movement get religion. —By Suzie Boss

-Subscription Required

Resource: Stanford Social Innovation Review Article

Topic :

Economic Development, Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

MicroEnergy Credits Corporation: Catalyzing Clean Energy for the BoP

Using existing microfinance institutions and recent developments in the carbon credit markets on the supply side to facilitate the adoption of clean energy for the very poor.

Resource: Blog Post

Video/Audio : All | Audio | Video

Topic:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Philanthropy, Responsible Investing

Risks and Opportunities of Going Green

What does Wall Street make of the trends in cleantech, corporate environmental strategy, corporate social responsibility, and emerging carbon markets? In this audio lecture, sponsored by the Stanford Center for Social Innovation, two Goldman Sachs managers discuss how their investment firm is making the financing of corporate deals contingent upon the incorporation of increasingly stringent environmental criteria.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Environment

Business Solutions to Climate Change

Better design integration and materials innovation can lead to big energy and cost savings, and rapid return on investment, particularly in the automotive and housing industries. Amory Lovins, one of America's most influential energy speakers, offers some profitable business-led solutions to climate, oil, and nuclear proliferation problems in this Stanford Center for Social Innovation sponsored audio lecture. Lovins offers strategies to reduce US oil dependence through a menu of renewable and fossil fuel types.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Economic Development, Environment

Environmental Sustainability and Economic Development

[photo - Harriet Babbitt, Nancy Birdsall, Cameron Sinclair, Lawrence Summers]

Environmental sustainability faces one of its toughest challenges when it comes to international growth. In this panel discussion, experts consider how the accelerated rate at which developing nations now follow the footsteps of the United States is leading to the ever greater exploitation of natural resources. They discuss ways to achieve sustainable development.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment

Reducing U.S. Emissions Affordably

Now that global warming is recognized as a real and serious problem, discussion is turning to practical challenges of reducing emissions in the long term. Host of the Center for Social Innovation, Rick Duke, discusses a new report by McKinsey & Company that considers how to address the problem affordably. In this audio lecture, Duke outlines some of the emerging technologies and public policy changes that will be needed to support such a process.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Making Salmon More Sustainable

In Chile, the farming of salmon seemed the ideal solution to the depletion of world fish populations--until it became clear that acquiculture causes its own environmental problems. In an audio interview by Eric Nee, managing editor of the Stanford Social Innovation Review, Rodrigo Pizarro explores the challenges of acquiculture and the foundation's project to reduce the impact of salmon farming through a sustainable system of seaweed cultivation.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Environment, Government, Leadership

Al Gore: Leaders Must Supply Vision, Values & Goals

The Stanford Graduate School of Business View from the Top Series hosted former Vice President Al Gore where he spoke to over 600 students on leadership, solutions for the climate crisis, and sustainable capitalism.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

Cutting Greenhouse Gas Emissions: Perspectives from California

California, the ninth largest economy in the world, recently launched a new carbon cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to 1990 levels by 2020. Mary Nichols, chair of the California Air Resources Board, leads this program that could provide a model to support other regional or national efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

US-wide Carbon Policy: Two MBAs' Perspectives

As part of the annual Conradin Von Gugelberg Memorial Lecture on the Environment, Mike Volpe, MBA '13, and Jake Saper, MBA '14, lay out an argument for a US-wide carbon policy.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

James Sweeney: A Sustainable Energy System

James Sweeney, director of Stanford's Precourt Energy Efficiency Center, discusses green cities at a Stanford GSB conference.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

Kung Wang: Energy and Cross-Strait Relations

Professor Kung Wang of China University of Technology discussed energy and cross-Strait relations at the "Innovations for Smart Green Cities: What's Working, What's Not, What's Next" conference.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

Investing in Green Tech

Kleiner Perkins is greening its portfolio with an alternative energy fund.

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment

Environmental Sustainability and Global Warming

Promoting environmental sustainability is the responsibility of every world citizen, says Nobel Laureate and former Vice President Al Gore in this audio lecture. Speaking at the 2009 Tech Awards, he urges his audience to consider how they may make changes and press for policies that will address global warming. He asks Westerners, in particular, to consider how the consequences of their own actions may be causing suffering for millions displaced by climate change.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Economic Development, Environment

Examining the 21st Century Oil Company

The Saudi Arabian Oil Company exemplifies how an organization may go from good to great through a focus on innovation. In this audio lecture, CEO Abdallah Jum'ah shares with an audience of Stanford MBA students how he has harnessed the brainpower of his people to come up with breakthrough solutions in areas such as technology, tools, processes, and organizational management. His talk demonstrates how living the values of innovation, insight, and principle can transform an organization and change the world.

Resource: Audio

Topic:

Environment, Leadership

What It Takes to Be a Remarkable Leader: John Doerr, Venture Capitalist

What are the ingredients for great leadership and entrepreneurship today?

Resource: Video

Topic:

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Lighting the Way to Economic Development

Let there be light! That's Sam Goldman's motto, and he's taking it around the world. The founder of d.light design talks with Stanford Center for Social Innovation correspondent Sheela Sethuraman about how he is bringing affordable, ecologically sustainable electricity and lighting to billions who are now operating in the dark. In this audio interview, he details aspects of the design, function, marketing, and distribution of the organization's products, as well as the kind of impact the social enterprise is having in some of the most remote, poor areas.

Resource: Audio

Case Studies : All | Academic Cases

No Results Found

Topics:

Environment, Nonprofit Management

Wild Salmon Center

The Wild Salmon Center was created to provide anglers access to excellent fishing in return for funding research and conservation. The case discusses the Center’s efforts to protect the pristine watersheds of the Kamchatka Peninsula by developing ecotourism to raise funds for conservation.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Gardenburger

The CEO of Gardenburger, a seller of veggie burger products and other food alternatives to meat, considers the company’s advertising strategy. He aims to take the company from the small health-food niche to the consumer mainstream.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Touring in the Galapagos Islands

Various economic and environmental issues face the owners of a cruise business in the Galapagos Islands. The case gives special attention to the efforts of locals to preserve and enhance their own ecotourism business prospects.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

Ma Jun and the IPE: Using Information to Improve China's Environment

The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs is Chinese environmental non-profit that has single-handedly revolutionized brought pollution standards and compliance to more than 47,000 sites and 22 multinational corporations in China. This case tells the story of the organization and its founder, environmental entrepreneur Ma Jun.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

Maria Yee Inc.: Making 'Green' Furniture in China

Maria Yee Inc. occupies a unique position as an environmentally conscious premium household furniture maker with two direct-owned factories in China and distribution through several large U.S. retailers. This case addresses the unique challenges that an entrepreneurial company faces in reaching its full potential as a business while advancing its green strategy.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

Environmental Enhancements in Road Vehicle Technologies

In 2007, the issue of global warming brought carbon dioxide emissions to the forefront of Americans’ minds. This paper examines some of the emerging innovations designed to reduce oil consumption.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment

Disclosure Dilemma: Financial Reporting of Contingent and Environmental Liabilities

The case discusses U.S. and international accounting guidance regarding the disclosure of contingent and environmental liabilities.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

Fuel Economy Standards 2007

In 2007, Congress was discussing a 40 percent increase in required fuel efficiency. The automobile industry had a choice to fight the ruling., but instead decided to focus on influencing the details of the legislation.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

Note on Energy

Entrepreneurs and investors will find in this note a broad overview of the energy sector in 2008, highlighting trends and market dynamics.

Resource: Academic Case

Topics:

Environment

The Electric Car: The Major Players

The case covers and analyzes the major players in the electric car industry, including start-up and established automakers, battery makers, retrofitters, utility companies and the government.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Environment, Nonprofit Management

Wild Salmon Center

The Wild Salmon Center was created to provide anglers access to excellent fishing in return for funding research and conservation. The case discusses the Center’s efforts to protect the pristine watersheds of the Kamchatka Peninsula by developing ecotourism to raise funds for conservation.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Gardenburger

The CEO of Gardenburger, a seller of veggie burger products and other food alternatives to meat, considers the company’s advertising strategy. He aims to take the company from the small health-food niche to the consumer mainstream.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Touring in the Galapagos Islands

Various economic and environmental issues face the owners of a cruise business in the Galapagos Islands. The case gives special attention to the efforts of locals to preserve and enhance their own ecotourism business prospects.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Environment

Ma Jun and the IPE: Using Information to Improve China's Environment

The Institute of Public and Environmental Affairs is Chinese environmental non-profit that has single-handedly revolutionized brought pollution standards and compliance to more than 47,000 sites and 22 multinational corporations in China. This case tells the story of the organization and its founder, environmental entrepreneur Ma Jun.

Resource: Academic Case

Topic :

Environment

Maria Yee Inc.: Making 'Green' Furniture in China

Maria Yee Inc. occupies a unique position as an environmentally conscious premium household furniture maker with two direct-owned factories in China and distribution through several large U.S. retailers. This case addresses the unique challenges that an entrepreneurial company faces in reaching its full potential as a business while advancing its green strategy.

Resource: Academic Case

Research Papers : All

Topics:

Business, Socially Responsible Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment

Don't Tweak your Supply Chain - Rethink It End to End

The article examines environmental issues related to supply chains and supply chain management. Attempts to introduce sustainable practices into supply chains often meet with unexpected financial or environmental costs.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Socially Responsible Business, Corporate Social Responsibility, Environment

Modern Management: Good for the Environment or Just Hot Air?

Establishments in better managed firms are significantly less energy intensive. Better managed firms are also significantly more productive. These results suggest that management practices that are associated with improved productivity are also linked to lower greenhouse gas emissions.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Environment, Government, Leadership

Would Boycotting BP Do Any Good?

[photo - gulf_oil_spill_source_la_times]

Consumer and environmental groups, angry over the spreading oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, are calling for a boycott of BP, the oil giant that owns the well gushing oil onto beaches and marshes. According to research by Phillip Leslie and Larry Chavis, boycotts do in fact work and they're something businesses should be concerned about.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Environment

A Room with a Viewpoint

Managers and marketers can motivate consumers to participate in environmental conservation programs by telling them how the majority of other people behaved in the same situation. Researchers specifically studied how to ask hotel guests whether or not they wanted to reuse their towels during the course of a stay. The study highlights the benefits of employing social science research and theory—rather than business communicators’ hunches, lay theories, or best guesses—in crafting persuasive messages. Guests given a description : "the majority guests in this hotel asked to reuse their towels," were 9% more likely to make the same decision than guests who were simply asked to "help save the environment" with no information on comparative behavior. Guests were motivated even further when the description matched their social demographic even more closely. They were even more likely to reuse their towels when told the majority of people staying in their room in the past had done so.

Resource: Research Paper

Topics:

Environment

Slowing Introductions of New Electronic Products Reduces E-Waste

Some types of regulations governing disposal of electronic waste can reduce the world's mountains of devices waiting to be recycled, and also slow the rate of new product introductions says Stanford Graduate School of Business Professor Erica Plambeck.

Resource: Research Paper

Courses : All

Topic :

Environment

Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers - advanced: OIT 339

Designed for students with strong modeling/optimization/simulation skills, this course allocates more time to environmental and energy science and its implications for management and policy, and less time to the basics of modeling/optimization/simulation. Students apply spreadsheet modeling, optimization, and Monte Carlo simulation to resource management and environmental policy.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Environment

Environmental Science for Managers and Policy Makers: OIT 338

This course explores the fundamental science of ecosystems, climate, and energy. Students learn to apply spreadsheet modeling, optimization, and Monte Carlo simulation to resource management and environmental policy.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Environment

Initiating, Sustaining, and Monetizing Green Marketing: MKTG 551

This course addresses numerous questions about how to initiate and sustain green marketing. It also explores what technological and marketing innovations are likely to arise in the future.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Environment

Business and Environmental Issues: GSBGEN 547

This speaker seminar examines the overlap and synergies between the business and environmental fields. Weekly speakers include leaders from both the for-profit and nonprofit sectors.

Resource: MBA Course

Topic :

Environment

Environmental Entrepreneurship: GSBGEN 339

Markets have tremendous potential for solving environmental problems. Through case analysis, guest speakers, and the creation of business plans in environmental entrepreneurship, students will learn to apply core business principles of finance, marketing, economics, operations, accounting, and more to the provision of environmental goods and services.

Resource: MBA Course

Innovators : All

Topic :

Environment

Water World

Leading a Social Innovation Study Trip lands Robyn Beavers, MBA '10, in a new industry.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Environment

Jeremy Sokulsky, MBA '04

Jeremy Sokulsky, MBA '04, President, Environmental Incentives, discusses how he's drawing upon the tools and training he received from the GSB to help make a difference.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Economic Development, Environment

How Growth Can Be Green

A Stanford GSB student looks at the value of renewable energy in the developing world.

Resource: Student

Topic :

Environment

Jack May (MBA '84)

Jack shares his unexpected adventures on Kangaroo Island, Australia, and how his discovery in habitat restoration has become an international example.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Environment

Frank Gibson Myers (MBA '66)

"Gib" shares his passion for America’s Great Plains and the possibility and promise of creating a prairie wildlife reserve of three million acres, and the hope it represents.

Resource: Alumni

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Yohei Iwasaki (MBA '10)

Yohei Iwasaki and mOasis are enabling farmers to grow more crops from less water and to cultivate previously underutilized land, producing a sustainable environment that significantly reduces food and water shortages.

Resource: Innovators

Topic :

Environment, Leadership

Yoriko Kishimoto (MBA '81)

As mayor of Palo Alto in 2007, Yoriko Kishimoto championed a call to action to build a green economy through innovation, including strategies for zero waste, walkable communities, renewable energy, green building, farmers markets, and open space.

Resource: Innovators

Topic :

Environment

Ashley Boren (MBA '89)

Ashley Boren explains how protecting the environment can also be good for business. She spoke at the Oct 20, 2011 anniversary event celebrating the school's 40 year commitment to educating socially-conscious leaders.

Resource: Innovators

Topic :

Environment, Social Entrepreneurship

Lee Zimmerman and Brian Anderluh (MBA '94)

As co-owners of Evergreen Lodge in Yosemite, a social enterprise that combines environmental stewardship and socially-minded employment strategies, Lee Zimmerman and Brian Anderluh discuss keys and barriers to success, potential for scale, and opportunities for the future.

Resource: Innovators

Topic :

Board Governance, Business, Cause Marketing, Nonprofits, Social Enterprises, Socially Responsible Business, Environment, Leadership, Nonprofit Management

An interview with Michael DeLapa (MBA '85)

Michael DeLapa is heavily involved in environmental, land use, and energy issues. He has launched several non-profits in the Bay Area as well as the California Fisheries Fund.

Resource: Alumni

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