Erb Quarterly Review - Spring 2017

Dispatches from Cuba Erb Faculty Director JOE ÁRVAI and Managing Director TERRY NELIDOV visited Cuba to explore ways in which the Erb Institute might help manage Cuba’s transition to a sustainable market economy. They met with two colleagues from Sol Economics and took a scholarly look at how the tension between many Cubans’ desire for sustainability and market evolution might unfold in real life. Árvai wrote about the experience in two blogs: http://myumi.ch/Lqqje and http://myumi.ch/6QqMO.

ANDY HOFFMAN AUTHORS CHAPTER IN STATE OF THE WORLD’S EARTHED With global environ­mental

on a Changing Planet includes chapters on

changes locked into our

traditional environmental education topics as

future, what we teach must

well as new topics essential for Earth education.

evolve. Environmental

In Erb Faculty Member ANDY HOFFMAN’s

education will need to

chapter on “The Evolving Focus of Business

both teach students to

Sustainability Education,” he opines that

be bold sustainability

business schools “must teach both enterprise

leaders and equip them

integration and market transformation simulta-

with the skills necessary to survive the turbulent

neously, even though these are fundamentally

century ahead. EarthEd: Rethinking Education

different approaches.” http://myumi.ch/JdrWV

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN’S ERB INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE

ERB.UMICH.EDU

MICHAEL POSNER

Turning rhetoric into reality, in pursuit of the triple bottom line

ROUNDTABLE ON HUMAN RIGHTS ISSUES The field of sustainability has evolved in recent years to include

CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE ROLE OF CULTURE AND KNOWLEDGE

Erb Faculty Director JOE ÁRVAI published the

roundtable on “Managing Human

Erb Faculty Director JOE ÁRVAI’s

aspirational rhetoric about the need to adopt

Rights Issues in Global Companies:

article “Knowledge as a Driver

What Are Best Practices and How

of Public Perceptions About

Are They Implemented?” This

Climate Change Reassessed” in

article http://myumi.ch/J75M2

Nature Climate Change discusses

describes some of the participants’

research that suggests that how

perspectives and conclusions.

much people know about climate

human rights issues. Consumers and investors have made these issues a priority, so businesses are responding. As they do, collaboration is critical. The Erb Institute and

article “Expanding the Reach of Participatory Risk Management: Testing an Online Decision-Aiding Framework for Informing Internally Consistent Choices” in Risk Analysis. Many business cases, and business school classes, are overflowing with

World Environment Center held a

change is unrelated to how much

BENCHMARKS FOR CLEAN ENERGY TECHNOLOGIES Erb Executive in Residence TOM CATANIA chairs the Clean Energy Manufacturing Analysis Center (CEMAC) Advisory Committee. A recent report from CEMAC is the first of its kind to isolate and quantify the economic effects of clean energy manufacturing sectors. The report,

Benchmarks of Global Clean Energy Manufacturing, evaluates clean energy technologies and establishes benchmarks for their manufacturing supply chains. This Erb Institute paper http://myumi. ch/LBPDQ discusses the key findings and what they mean for the global economy.

they care about it, or how much support they’ll have for actions aimed at addressing it. This research argues that our feelings

sustainability as a guiding principle for enterprise.

Research shows that decoupling economic progress from resource use and environmental decline can drive future success, and consumers are coming to expect businesses to provide products and services in a manner that addresses broad sustainability objectives. But knowing that the business transition toward sustainability is worthwhile and knowing how to make it happen are two different things. Decision scientist Joe Árvai and his team have been working with the private and public sectors to turn rhetoric into reality by developing and testing science-based decision-support systems that business can use to achieve the elusive triple bottom line. http://myumi.ch/LqqjN

about climate change are instead a function of “cultural variables,” which work independently from knowledge. New research by Árvai and colleagues from ETH Zürich suggests that this is not the case— and that much of the research comparing culture and knowledge misses the mark in terms of how knowledge and culture are measured. This research shows that education and decision support, aimed at the public and policy-makers, is not the lost cause that many followers of the culture wars think it is. http://myumi.ch/Lry5E

Many business cases, and business school classes, are overflowing with aspirational rhetoric about the need to adopt sustainability as a guiding principle for enterprise.

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN’S ERB INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE

ERB.UMICH.EDU

THE RANA PLAZA COLLAPSE AND THE REPUTATION COMMONS PROBLEM In 2013, an eight-story building housing five garment manufacturers collapsed in Dhaka, Bangladesh, killing 1,129 people and injuring 2,515 more. The building’s top floors had been constructed without permits and, to cut costs, it was built using too little rebar (reinforcing steel).

Twenty-three global apparel brands were eventually linked to one of the five garment factories in the Rana Plaza building, but this catastrophe created sustained attention from the public and the media to a wider set of problems associated with labor conditions in the garment industry.

This piece is part of a series by Susan Kayser, a former Erb postdoc researcher. http://myumi.ch/LBPD7

The importance of framing in presenting numbers Research from the Erb Institute has found that the careful selection of numerical frames in communications responsible behaviors can make

HOW SOLAR WATER PUMPS COULD REVOLUTIONIZE INDIAN AGRICULTURE

these communications more

In America, the agricultural sector is responsible for barely 1 percent of total energy

regarding prosocial or socially

Former Erb Postdoctoral Researcher TATIANA SOKOLOVA

persuasive. When people hear statistics, it’s not just the numbers themselves that

have an effect—it’s also how the numbers are presented.

The way numbers are framed affects how people evaluate that information and how they respond to it. http:// myumi.ch/JlpZm

Leapfrogging the Grid:

consumption. But in India, a whopping 18 percent of the nation’s electricity goes to power agricultural water pumps. The standard form of irrigation is flood irrigation, a common but inefficient system that involves pumping large amounts of water onto fields. The amount of water needed, and the energy required to move it, are particularly large in India, where the top crops are water-intensive rice and sugarcane. A new solution—solar-powered water pumps—can provide a more cost-effective, efficient and environmentally friendly alternative to current practices. http://myumi.ch/J754m

THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN’S ERB INSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL SUSTAINABLE ENTERPRISE

ERB.UMICH.EDU

Art that tells the story of our changing climate The artist ALISA SINGER created a series of more than 45 paintings called “The Art of Climate Change,” which delivers facts about climate change through art. For example, climate scientists have warned us not to exceed 2 degrees Celsius and 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit, so she created one sketch that uses the two numbers as its design. Each painting is derived from a different fact about climate science. http://myumi.ch/6w5pk

WHY COMPANIES ARE BECOMING B CORPORATIONS The landscape of American corporations is changing, writes Erb Postdoctoral Researcher TODD SCHIFELING in

Harvard Business Review. Since the financialization of the economy in the late

A CONFERENCE ON SOCIAL MOVEMENTS AND PRIVATE ENVIRONMENTAL GOVERNANCE To solve environmental problems, governments

University of Venice, the University

and nongovernmental organizations have shifted

of Ottawa and Wharton to the Ross

away from traditional public law and toward

School of Business in May for a

private environmental governance—relying on

conference on Social Movements

voluntary programs, information disclosure,

and Private Environmental

ecolabeling and corporate campaigns. However,

Governance. This meeting laid

the relevant research on these phenomena is

foundations toward building an

scattered across disciplines, making it difficult for

international, interdisciplinary

researchers to stay abreast of new developments.

research community interested in social

Erb Faculty Member TOM LYON invited an

movements, private governance and information

international and multidisciplinary group of

disclosure. Participants shared results on topics

economists, sociologists, lawyers, political

such as ecolabel competition, greenwash and

Todd has recently accepted a tenure-track position

scientists and management professors, arriving

effective certification systems—as well as the

with Temple University. Best of luck, Todd!

from places including the University of Paris,

challenges they face.

1970s, corporate governance practices have tightly linked the purpose of business with maximizing shareholder value. However, as the 21st century pushes on, there has been an increased emphasis on other stakeholder values, particularly social and environmental concerns.

This trend in corporate governance has fueled the emergence of a new organizational form: the Certified B Corporation. These corporations are social enterprises verified by B Lab, a nonprofit organization. http://myumi.ch/JdrWj

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