This section introduction by MIT Sloan Management Review’s editor-in-chief covers the basics: what sustainability means, the alternate definitions, who this site is for, how it can help you, and why sustainability is about much more than simply “going green.”
Has demand for green products and services been affected by the downturn? And what factors affect consumer decisions to buy — or not buy — green in the first place? New research offers some surprising insights. Read more »
The author of Sustainability by Design: A Subversive Strategy for Transforming Our Consumer Culture says the current craze for going green is all wrong. Ehrenfeld has been thinking about this since 1967; it should be no surprise that he takes a much longer view.
MIT’s Judy Layzer is an expert on how sustainability pressures will drive change in the built environment of the city—and believes those pressures might make “healthy changes and opportunities” more possible than ever. Read more »
For years, it was the conventional wisdom: If you improved quality, costs would also rise. But then companies discovered the opposite was true. Now it’s time to learn this lesson all over again, as it applies to sustainability. Read more »
Scandals have taught Western companies an important lesson about operating in developing countries: It pays to commit to improving social and environmental conditions, or you’ll lose customers and investors. Read more »
There’s a big—and getting bigger—public discussion about sustainability, but it’s not the one managers need. An exchange between a skeptical environmentalist and our most famous one illuminates the argument at hand. Read more »
MIT Sloan’s Peter Senge, shows how companies, right now, can stop adopting sustainability measures that do “less bad” and start doing “more good,” both for the business and the world around it. Read more »
The director of MIT’s Engineering Systems Division and Center for Transportation and Logistics explores how the economic crisis pushes back matters of environmental sustainability—and how it doesn’t. Read more »
MIT Sloan School professor Thomas Malone addresses the mental models that impede management progress, the role of collective intelligence in solving climate problems, and his view of how wrong people are about what business is for. Read more »
Transparency, accidental innovation, trust, collaboration — as sustainability affects how the world works, so will it affect how business works in the world.
In this interview, Henry Mintzberg questions some of the conventional wisdom about managerial work.
