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Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business

Sustainable Business Insights: Research Briefs for Practitioners

The Ray C. Anderson Center for Sustainable Business is committed to sharing its affiliated faculty’s intellectual capital. Written with the needs of practitioners in mind, these research briefs translate cutting-edge academic research into an easy-to-read format emphasizing business insights.

We invite our industry partners to contact the authors to discuss the implications of the research for their company.

Carbon-Conscious Business Series

Latest Briefs

August 28, 2019

How Does Car Sharing Interact With Sustainable Product Design?

Although car sharing has the potential to cannibalize car sales, it can boost auto manufacturers’ profitability. Manufacturers can reach more customers and increase the selling price of products because car sharing allows for better market segmentation. Higher-end manufacturers benefit more from providing this type of service

Circular Economy Series

Latest Briefs

June 03, 2019

What Are the Implications of Recycling Technology Choice on Environmental Benefits of Recycling?

Collective recycling systems have long been criticized for restricting the environmental benefits of extended producer responsibility because of free-riding issues among producers. This study revisits and refines this assertion and shows that when recycling technology choice is taken into account, collective recycling systems can lead to higher environmental benefits than individual recycling systems.

April 24, 2018

How Optimized Remarketing and Refurbishment Can Help Grow Revenue and Improve Circularity

How should manufacturers allocate refurbished consumer returns between remarketing and warranty fulfillment to extract maximum value for the manufacturer? How does the optimal allocation of returns to remarketing and warranty fulfillment change over the product life cycle? How do return rates, remarketing potential, refurbishing costs, failure rates, and product pricing affect optimal allocation?

March 23, 2018

Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR): What are the Design Implications on Durable Products?

How do different policy requirements influence strategic design choices such as recyclability and durability? How can policymakers set requirements to achieve desired results, while avoiding unintended consequences?

February 24, 2018

Patients in Kenya receive Mobility Carts donated by MedShare. Photo Credit: MedShare.

Operational Strategies to Match Surplus with Humanitarian Needs

How can medical surplus recovery organizations (MSROs) overcome a challenging supply chain—limited supply, high and varied demand, and limited information about recipient needs—to deliver the right medical product to the right recipient healthcare facility? Can MSROs simultaneously provide information about their inventory levels and obtain accurate need information from recipients?

Social Performance and Human Rights Series

Latest Briefs

April 17, 2020

How Do Social Liberalization Policies Impact Innovation?

The study explores the impact of two social liberalization policies (legalization of samesex civil unions and medical marijuana) and one anti-liberalization policy (passage of abortion restrictions) on innovation in the United States. The results of the study show that liberalization policies increase state-level patenting, while the anti-liberalization policy reduces patenting

January 30, 2020

How Does the Power Dynamic Between Referrers and Hiring Managers Affect Employees’ Support for New Hires?

The results of this study shed light on the unintended consequences of referral-based hiring practices. The hiring process itself can erode employees’ views of hiring managers depending on the power of a referrer in relation to that of the hiring manager.

May 22, 2018

Why Businesses Should Not Be Allowed to Invoke Religious Exemptions

Should there be a religious exemption for secular businesses from public accommodation statutes that protect prospective patrons from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation?

January 24, 2018

Rescuers work at the collapsed Rana Plaza building in Dhaka in 2013. Photograph: ZUMA/REX

How Did Markets React to the Rana Plaza Disaster?

How did stock markets react to the Rana Plaza disaster, which killed more than 1,200 garment workers and injured another 2,400 in Bangladesh in 2013?

Sustainability Innovation & ESG Leadership Series

Latest Briefs

March 12, 2021

When Do Public Supplier Lists Improve Profits and Sustainability Goals?

This study showed that under certain conditions, a firm’s commitment to publishing a list of approved suppliers motivates suppliers to work towards eliminating safety, environmental, or other responsibility violations.

December 12, 2019

How Can Top Management Encourage Middle Management Buy-In for Corporate Social Responsibility?

Investment decisions can be framed financially or non-financially. Managers who personally support CSR will invest more in their organizations’ CSR initiatives when they are framed in non-financial units rather than as financial investments.

March 28, 2019

How Can Nonprofit Organizations Maximize Social Impact for Distressed Individuals?

An NPO should invest more in guiding and advising its clients to choose the best-suited service when it is not severely resource-constrained, or when different types of clients are not evenly mixed in the population.

February 14, 2019

How Does Financial Misreporting Impact Borrower Reputation?

Misreporting firms experience an increase of 20-86% in their interest rate spread in the first eight years after they restate previously inaccurate financial information.

October 25, 2018

How Does a Firm’s Environmental Profile Impact Its Cost of Equity and Debt Capital?

How do a firm’s environmental strengths and concerns influence the interest rate it receives when borrowing money from financial institutions? How does a firm’s environmental footprint (its environmental strengths and concerns) affect the return required by investors? Is a firm’s environmental profile simply a substitute for unaccounted default risk? Do environmental concerns influence the number of institutional investors a firm has or the number of banks from which they borrow money?

August 23, 2018

Is Tax Avoidance a Sustainability Issue?

How does tax avoidance raise issues related to sustainability?

July 20, 2018

Is Greenwashing Prevalent?

Do firms that make positive discretionary environmental disclosures in the press improve their overall environmental performance more than firms that do not make such public disclosures?

June 26, 2018

How Does the Stock Market React to Announcements of Environmental Initiatives?

How do announcements of environmentally friendly initiatives affect the shareholder value of publicly traded companies?