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Understanding and Overcoming Roadblocks to Environmental Sustainability: Past Roads and Future Prospects

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 May 2019

Ann-Kristin Bergquist ,
Shawn A. Cole ,
John Ehrenfeld ,
Andrew A. King  and
Auden Schendler
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Abstract

This article examines key barriers to business sustainability discussed at a multidisciplinary conference held at the Harvard Business School in 2018. Drawing on perspectives from both the historical and business literatures, speakers debated the historical success of and future opportunities for voluntary business actions to advance sustainability. Roadblocks include misaligned incentives, missing institutions, inertia of economic systems, and the concept of sustainability itself. Overcoming these roadblocks will require systematic interventions and alternative normative concepts.

Keywords

environmentsustainabilityexternalitiesbusiness voluntary actionclimate changesystematic interventions
Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 93 , Issue 1: Business and the Environment Revisited , Spring 2019 , pp. 127 - 148
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 2019 

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Footnotes

The authors would like to thank the Division of Research and Faculty Development at the Harvard Business School for funding the conference “Understanding and Overcoming the Roadblocks to Sustainability,” June 14, 2018. The conference organizers were Ann-Kristin Bergquist, Amy Edmondson, and Geoffrey Jones.

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