Stories
Stories
Gore All Business at HBS
Topics: Education-Campus LifeEducation-Campus LifeEnvironment-Environmental SustainabilityEnvironment-Pollution and PollutantsGovernment and Politics-TaxationOrganizations-Corporate Social Responsibility and ImpactStrategy-Business StrategyWe are managing the planet as if it were a business in liquidation,” former U.S. Vice President Al Gore declared to a capacity audience of 900 MBA students during a talk titled “A Change in Business Climate” presented in Burden Auditorium in December. Gore explained that the population explosion, coupled with the revolutions in science and technology, have greatly magnified the impact of humans on the earth’s ecosystem. “But the biggest challenge we face,” he said, “is changing the way we think about our relationship with the environment.”
Business, Gore asserted, must conduct itself with a greater appreciation for the long-term consequences of present actions, with “externalities,” such as air, water, and trees, appearing as items on balance sheets. If price tags are the only tool used to measure value, said Gore, “then things that don’t have price tags appear to have no value.” In his talk, sponsored by the School’s Leadership and Values Initiative, Gore stated that in an ideal world, employment-based taxes would be replaced by levies on pollution, which is by definition an indicator of waste and inefficiency. Gore, who has long argued that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to global warming, said that solving the environmental crisis represents “the greatest source of new business opportunity in the world.” He recounted how business and governments worldwide had worked together to resolve the ozone-depletion problem by tightening regulations and by eliminating the use of CFCs through improved and cost-saving industrial processes. Indeed, companies that are not responsive to environmental problems and concerns will see their business suffer, as American car manufacturers have, Gore noted.
In attacking the climate crisis, Gore concluded, the rest of the world will follow if America provides leadership. “This is the only crisis that has threatened the end of human civilization,” he said, “and we are moving in the opposite direction.”
Gore and David Blood (MBA ’85) are founding partners of Generation Investment Management, a firm that makes long-term investments in companies adhering to sustainability principles. Earlier in the day, the pair visited Professor Forest Reinhardt’s Business and the Environment course to discuss their activities.
Post a Comment
Related Stories
-
- 16 Nov 2023
- HBS Alumni News
Dean Datar Meets with Alumni in Boston
Re: John Williams (MBA 1978); Renee Fry (MBA 1999); Juan Enriquez (MBA 1986); Keon Holmes (MBA 2005); Christine Parker (AMP 199); Gautam Ramchandani (MBA 1977); Srikant M. Datar (George F. Baker Professor of Administration Dean of the Faculty) -
- 22 Sep 2023
- Skydeck
Skydeck Voices: The Most Important Person I Met at HBS
Re: Lou Hughes (MBA 1973); Dmitry Kozachenok (MBA 2013); Nadine Dlodlo (MBA 2008); Faith Hindman (MBA 2003); Michelle Kinch (MBA 2003); Nicole Wee (MBA 2018); Lee Koffler (MBA 2003); Ryan W. Buell (C. D. Spangler Professor of Business Administration); Frances X. Frei (UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management) -
- 30 May 2023
- HBS Alumni Bulletin
Finding PRIDE
Re: Paul Raeder (MBA 1979); Virginia Smith (MBA 1982); Paul Donaher (MBA 1981); Elliot Matz (MBA 1981); Annette Friskopp (MBA 1990); Sam Shaffer (MBA 1991); Jonathan Rotenberg (MBA 1992); Jim Sherman (MBA 1991); David Carney (MBA 1996); Javier Bordes-Posadas (MBA 2004); Kristin Richards (MBA 2023); Ernie Phinney (MBA 1978); David Kusin (MBA 1979); Steve Mendelsohn (MBA 1984); Jon Zimman (MBA 1980); Sharon Silverstein (MBA 1990); Andy Tobias (MBA 1972); John Barabino (MBA 1996); Edward H. Chang (Assistant Professor of Business Administration); Caroline M. Elkins (Thomas Henry Carroll/Ford Foundation Professor of Business Administration); Willis M. Emmons (Senior Lecturer of Business Administration Director, C. Roland Christensen Center for Teaching and Learning); Frances X. Frei (UPS Foundation Professor of Service Management) -
- 11 May 2023
- HBS Alumni News
How FOMO Became a Fixture
Re: Patrick McGinnis (MBA 2004)