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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

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.
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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?
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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?
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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?
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Social Performance and Human Rights Series

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Sustainability Innovation & ESG Leadership Series

Latest Briefs

June 23, 2021
How Do Local Resources Drive Innovation in Emerging Technologies?
Using statistical analysis and historical investigation, the study examines advances in the early days of the aviation industry to better understand how technology adoption in a geographical region drives local innovation.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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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?
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August 23, 2018
Is Tax Avoidance a Sustainability Issue?
How does tax avoidance raise issues related to sustainability?
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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?
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