How Would possibly per chance per chance Harvard Decarbonize Its Present Chain?
Harvard College objectives to be fossil-gas neutral by 2026 and without spending a dime of fossil fuels by 2050. As allotment of this purpose, the university is attempting to decarbonize its provide chain and considers changing cement with a low-carbon change known as Pozzotive®, made with submit-user recycled glass. A a hit pilot conducting may per chance maybe per chance soar open up Harvard’s initiative to nick embodied carbon emissions, however it first needs credible files in regards to the magnitude and validity of seemingly carbon reductions.
Harvard Enterprise College professor emeritus Robert Kaplan and assistant professor Shirley Lu remark about the waft of emissions along the provision chain of Harvard College’s constructing projects, the different ideas of measuring carbon emissions, along with the E-liability advance, and the change to leverage blockchain skills to facilitate the waft of comparable and official emissions files in the case, “Harvard College and Urban Mining Industries: Decarbonizing the Present Chain.”
BRIAN KENNY: One fable share of recommendation I heard long in the past, is to apprehension finest about what I’m in a position to manage, which works mountainous except you’re in mark for an raze result that involves others over whom you do not desire any adjust. Such because the conundrum of firms all over the build the pickle, along with 96% of the Global 250 who bag dedicated to reducing their carbon footprint. There are stuff you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to manage on your physical plant, love energy and atomize reduction. Firms shuffle to mountainous lengths to acquire staff to adopt sustainability measures of their day-to-day work. But comparatively snappy, you tag that nearly all of the meaningful measures bag merchandise and services and products out of doors your sphere of adjust, which is able to form it nearly no longer seemingly to seek out official files to accurately measure and document your growth. It’s a area that some buy into consideration to be the holy grail of sustainability reporting. This day on Chilly Name, we’ve invited Professor Bob Kaplan and Shirley Lu to communicate in regards to the case titled, “Harvard College and Urban Mining Industries: Decarbonizing the Present Chain.” I’m your host Brian Kenny, and also you’re paying consideration to Chilly Name on the HBR Podcast Network. Shirley Lu’s research looks at corporate social responsibility with a highlight on issues connected to climate switch and gender selection. Bob Kaplan co-developed job-based mostly costing, and the Balanced Scorecard, which he applies to issues at the intersection of industry and society. They every are co-authors of at the unusual time’s case. Thanks each for joining me.
SHIRLEY LU: Thanks for having us.
BRIAN KENNY: Big to bag you ever relief, Shirley. Bob, you’re a significant-time guest here on, however a memoir here at Harvard Enterprise College, so we’re in actuality honored to bag you ever on the uncover. I believed this case used to be in actuality gripping, and it takes pickle in our possess backyard here at Harvard. Shirley, let me open up with you and seek files from you, what’s the central area in the case, and what’s your frosty name once you occur to open up this discussion in the examine room?
SHIRLEY LU: We desire students to contemplate in regards to the role of measurement when companies form choices about decarbonizing their provide chain. So, we open up the category by asking, “How can Harvard’s Chief Sustainability Officer, Heather Henriksen, wait on Harvard’s contemporary constructing structures to use a brand contemporary area cloth to interchange cement?” By the kind, cement contributes to eight% of global emissions, so a lot. This contemporary area cloth is opinion as Pozzotive, and it’s invented by this entrepreneurial firm known as Urban Mining Industries. They narrate that this area cloth has a 95% decrease carbon content material than cement. So now, how can Henriksen uncover this all to the College’s many, many stakeholders. There are the students, college, group, alumni, even the town of Cambridge and Boston, and this is the build she needs official and verified emissions numbers from the provision chain. Unquestionably, this case lets students to communicate in regards to the challenges with measuring provide chain emissions, many of them are four or 5 tiers down the provision chain, and detect varied methodologies along with person that’s known as E-liability, which is launched by Professor Bob Kaplan here and Professor Karthik Ramanna of their 2021 HBR article.
BRIAN KENNY: We’re going to dive into extra of that a microscopic of bit later. But first, I’d care for to know, Bob, why don’t I flip to you and seek files from, how did you hear about this case? How did you hear about Pozzotive, and what Harvard’s doing here?
ROBERT KAPLAN: Karthik and I published the article November 2021 in HBR. Just a few faculty at the university talked about, “This would possibly be of hobby to the university,” because Harvard is attempting to decarbonize, and its possess emissions are comparatively runt. Infrequently, one amongst us goes on a airplane and that airplane emits, so we acquire charged in build for those emissions. But most of the emissions that Harvard may per chance maybe per chance bag some adjust over, to acquire, Brian, to your opening comment, are in actuality embedded in the structures that it builds. Because the Chief Sustainability Officer, Heather, instructed me, “We invent a few structures. Those structures bag cement, they bag steel, they bag glass, they bag copper, all of which generate a spacious amount of emissions of their extraction, processing, and distribution.” Harvard used to be buying for straight forward the finest formulation to work better with its suppliers to decrease the footprint of the supplies that it’s purchasing and embedding in its structures.
BRIAN KENNY: Probably no longer surprisingly, Harvard has some very aggressive targets that they’ve location for reducing their carbon footprint. But what you’re describing listed below are things that reside intention upstream and intention downstream of the build the College is.
ROBERT KAPLAN: As I began to communicate with Heather about this, and he or she begins pointing out this product, which I had never heard of, or even that this form of product existed, I talked about, “Smartly, how can I be taught extra about this?” So we location up some calls, and I received to meet the founders and the senior executives of this firm to be taught what that they had. I talked about, “We’re buying for fresh content material that we are in a position to voice our students.” I believed, “Smartly, let’s acquire a teaching case that is lawful at the reducing fringe of environmental measurement.”
BRIAN KENNY: Shirley, I don’t desire to to find that our listeners… All americans’s heard about greenhouse gasoline emissions and carbon footprint. We may per chance maybe per chance just no longer all comprehend it the an identical intention. So maybe you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to diploma location for us initially of the conversation here, what are we talking about after we’re talking about greenhouse gasoline emissions?
SHIRLEY LU: Let me open up by in actuality describing Harvard’s advance to how they give opinion to greenhouse gasoline.
BRIAN KENNY: Big.
SHIRLEY LU: There’s two things that form them special. No 1, you talked about purpose. So the purpose Harvard has is to be triumphant in fossil gas neutral by 2026, and fossil gas free by 2050. That goes past lawful greenhouse gasoline. It’s essentially saying, “We can’t even use fossil gas,” after which use offsets to interchange them. The different allotment Harvard in actuality cares about, the correctly being penalties of fossil gas. The 2nd uniqueness that Bob lawful talked about is that Harvard treats the campus love a checking out bed. The assumption is, we are in a position to in actuality use students, researchers to seek out a lot of solutions, attempt and test it on the campus, institutionalize the most productive practices, after which amplify that to the increased society. So this seemingly use of Pozzotive is terribly in accordance to this center of attention.
BRIAN KENNY: How discontinue you measure greenhouse gasoline emissions? What are the approaches that Harvard’s the utilization of?
SHIRLEY LU: Harvard, love a few varied organizations, use the greenhouse gasoline protocol. To temporarily picture it, they separate emissions into three categories, three scopes. The significant scope, scope one, is snarl emissions. That’s anything that’s coming out of the firm’s chimney, or even autos owned by the firm. Scope two is oblique emissions, however finest those regarding electrical energy, or water, or cooling. Then scope three is the entirety else, the total a lot of oblique emissions, much like worker commutes, upstream provide chain emissions, downstream use allotment. Harvard, love a few companies, their majority is scope three because we don’t in actuality originate steel or cement, however a few that is coming from, in actuality, constructing and operational structures and labs.
BRIAN KENNY: But it’s fantastic, once you remark in confidence to dig into that, it’s lawful this ripple build of all these impacts that you just will must contemplate about and story for. The accounting parts in actuality complex on this, Bob. Is that lawful?
ROBERT KAPLAN: It is – because provide chains are rather complex and various. So every group would know its rapid suppliers, what are known as the tier one suppliers. Perchance they know a pair of of their tier two, the ones who are their dealer’s suppliers, however they won’t even know the majority of those. If you acquire to the provision chain for concrete, or steel, or copper, you do not desire any opinion who did the mining of this. Or once you occur to’re the utilization of natural gasoline, the build did the extraction advance from? Now not finest you don’t know what emissions they’re sending as much as you, you don’t even know their names or their existence. So, that’s the topic. How are you in actuality going so that you just can measure, grand much less affect the emissions of organizations that you just don’t know about?
BRIAN KENNY: The case describes E-liability accounting, and by no advance am I accustomed to accounting practices, in most cases talking. Can you spoil that down for us in a kind that maybe of us love me can adore what E-liability accounting is?
ROBERT KAPLAN: Let me uncover what the topic used to be that we addressed with E-liability accounting. Shirley described these three scopes and, in enlighten, scope three. The scope three fashioned says that every firm or group, whether or no longer it’s BMW, as in one amongst Shirley’s a lot of conditions, or Harvard, as on this case, has to estimate all of its provide chain emissions. The fashioned in actuality moreover says you will must measure the total emissions that occur at your buyer’s areas, and your buyer’s buyer’s areas.
BRIAN KENNY: Wow.
ROBERT KAPLAN: You bag some opinion, again, of your suppliers and bag some affect on that. But to know who are your buyer’s buyer’s seems to be love an no longer seemingly job.
BRIAN KENNY: It does.
ROBERT KAPLAN: So, what happens now, these two issues, one is that the measurements are no longer going to be very steady of your suppliers because, in reveal to bag it seemingly the least bit, the greenhouse gasoline protocol scope three says, “Smartly, once you occur to don’t are privy to it for steady…” Smartly, you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to use estimates, industry common estimates, so you don’t must acquire the enlighten estimates. It’s love working a financial accounting intention that claims, “When you’ve agonize measuring your mark of items offered, don’t apprehension about it. Merely use the frequent mark of items offered on your industry,” which can maybe per chance no longer be a in actuality strong foundation for working a financial accounting intention. But unquestionably, you may per chance maybe per chance bag lawful about no opinion in regards to the emissions that shuffle downstream from you once it leaves your product. So the E-liability methodology checked out this area, and it’s an actual area ’location off we discontinue desire to management provide chain emissions and express, “If we search for at it from the different path, moderately than search for at it from Harvard down or from BMW down, the tip down, search for at it from the underside up,” because that’s the kind the accounting course of begins. It begins with manufacturing of raw supplies, after which you sell it to your subsequent buyer and so that they buy it, that’s their input mark, and it lawful ripples up the provision chain. We talked about, “Why no longer discontinue it that intention?” So the E-liability talked about, “For any merchandise or services and products you take care of, acquire the emissions from your rapid suppliers, after which you add to that your possess emissions, the scope one emissions from your owned sources, after which buy that,” here’s maybe the build my prior work had some relieve, “Attach it to your output merchandise and services and products.” This is how job-based mostly costing works. You buy primary manufacturing facility and oblique charges, and build them down to particular person merchandise. So the E-liability methodology says, “Procure your purchased scope one emissions from all of your suppliers, and your possess, and build it out to your output merchandise and services and products.” When your buyer buys that product, they no longer finest acquire physical possession of the product, however they now, in build, possess the total emissions that were produced as much as that stage of manufacturing. When you discontinue it that intention, the emissions files flows naturally up the provision chain. Any group lawful has to acquire files from its rapid suppliers and ship the remodeled files, with its possess scope one emissions, to its rapid possibilities. That’s very seemingly to full, however you’ve to bag every entity on your entire global ecosystem here on the an identical page following the an identical fashioned, as we discontinue in our universal accounting standards.
BRIAN KENNY: K. But I acquire the elemental premise is, we’re constructing as we shuffle. If everyone’s doing it the an identical intention, and following the an identical solutions, then you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to talk in confidence to acquire your fingers around this and acquire some comparatively steady files.
ROBERT KAPLAN: One other metaphor that on occasion of us procure up lawful away, it’s love a mark-added tax. At every stage you’ve, what did you take care of in supplies? Then, what did you add? You then ship that as much as the next stage and that becomes their input. So it solves this it sounds as if intractable area in a rather straight forward intention that we’re already accustomed to the utilization of foremost accounting solutions.
BRIAN KENNY: K. Shirley, let me flip relief to you for a 2nd, because you talked about that the manufacturing of cement produces about 8% of the worldwide gasoline emissions across the realm. So, what makes it so intense the build it comes to producing a excessive carbon footprint?
SHIRLEY LU: Cement’s greenhouse gasoline emission, mainly coming from two sources. First, to form cement, you’ve to warmth up the limestone to 1,400 levels Celsius. To acquire to that excessive of a temperature, you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to’t use electrical energy. So you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to’t use renewable energy, you will must burn one thing. That’s around 40% of that entire emissions. Then the supreme 60%, it’s coming from the fact, at this excessive temperature what happens is, the chemical bonding of the limestone will then build a substance known as clinker. Clinker is that grounded into a powder, and that’s what we name cement. But that course of, the chemical reaction itself, guess what? Co2 comes out of that equation, and that 60%. The different thing, this displays that it’s a in actuality complex course of to nick emissions. So, we are in a position to name them a exhausting-to-abate sector.
BRIAN KENNY: When you may per chance maybe per chance procure a kind to originate one thing that had the properties of cement, however used to be a lot cleaner to originate, you may per chance maybe per chance discontinue it, and any individual’s performed that. So let’s remark about Pozzotive, which is the product here that Harvard used to be bringing into their constructing. Dispute us about that product.
SHIRLEY LU: Precisely. Pozzotive… Let me, earlier than that, snappy clarify one opinion so everyone is aware of what we’re talking about, because I acquire pressured between concrete and cement a lot. Concrete is what we ceaselessly watch in structures. It’s created the utilization of cement, and mixing in some rock and sand. So contemplate of cement because the glue that sticks together all these supplies. What Pozzotive does is, it’s a area cloth that can maybe per chance change cement, and it has cementitious properties in the sense that it can in all probability maybe per chance act love a glue as correctly. It is seemingly you’ll maybe per chance change as much as half of of the cement, and also you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to contemplate of that as substantially reducing emissions. Why is that? So the kind they build Pozzotive is to use submit-user glasses. These are your wine bottles, the glasses that you just watch in recycling boxes, they all acquire build into this municipal atomize facility that is going into Urban Mining Industries. What they discontinue is, they tumble these supplies, perfect it up, and flip them into a in actuality handsome powder. So this course of is largely mechanical, you watch. It has no chemical reaction. You don’t want the 1,400 levels Celsius. Because of the this truth, in aggregate, they’re exhibiting it’s a 95% reduction in the emissions content material.
BRIAN KENNY: K. It sounds love a dream product. It nearly sounds too steady to be correct.
SHIRLEY LU: That’s what I believed once I initially seen it, yeah.
BRIAN KENNY: I’d factor in that the concrete market itself, it’s allotment of a mature industry, it’s doubtlessly some very correctly-established gamers in it across the realm. How discontinue you even remark in confidence to penetrate a market love this with a product that has no longer in actuality been proven or tested?
ROBERT KAPLAN: There used to be a few companies available in the market which can maybe per chance be constructing and so that they wish to, lawful love Harvard, nick their environmental footprint. So, they build stress on their concrete suppliers and express, “We can’t discontinue industry as frequent. You’re going to must determine a kind to decrease the emissions in the concrete that at the very least you sell to us.”
BRIAN KENNY: There’s some leverage there, once you occur to’re the actual individual that is managing the improvement projects, that you just may per chance maybe per chance be ready to position on your services to incentivize them to contemplate about contemporary ideas of doing things.
ROBERT KAPLAN: It is seemingly you’ll maybe per chance. Unquestionably one of the gripping aspects of this case is, again, Harvard doesn’t bag powder from Urban Mining, they bag concrete. So, we had to talk over with one other player, Boston Sand and Gravel, which does care for cement or cement substitutes, that would just be fossil gas based mostly, love flit ash or slag. Or on this case, potentially Pozzotive. Shirley, maybe you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to picture how we interacted with Boston Sand and Gravel.
SHIRLEY LU: Precisely. Devour Bob described, Harvard doesn’t use Pozzotive immediately. Unquestionably, there’s rather a long provide chain between Harvard after which, at the tip, the improvement area cloth. So Harvard may per chance maybe per chance bag a main contractor. The primary contractor will then procure a contractor for the concrete that they’ll doubtlessly care for from, potentially, Boston Sand and Gravel. So now the demand is, after they build their concrete, can they change a pair of of the cement with Pozzotive? They are going to must test out a lot of system to make definite the topic cloth is powerful adequate, ’location off we’re talking in regards to the improvement industry. It’s a sluggish transferring industry, you desire the structures to delay for a hundred years. So, that they had the approach of doing that, and so that they advance up with two a lot of system that they contemplate will delay to the energy, and it uses a outlandish amount of Pozzotive. That’s why Boston Sand and Gravel is ceaselessly the firm that’s doing the checking out, and so that they wish to in actuality feel contented with the utilization of the topic cloth as well to correctly as any of the different occasions in that provide chain we lawful described, from Harvard.
BRIAN KENNY: So, suffice to tell, there’s going to be a mountainous want for these supplies going forward. To Bob’s earlier level about everyone being on the an identical page because it pertains to measuring the utilization of those supplies, everyone has to be aligned. Is that lawful?
SHIRLEY LU: Yes, precisely.
BRIAN KENNY: Bob, let me advance relief to you for a 2nd. The case does remark about blockchain as a skills to be historical here. This is one other time frame that I contemplate of us hear a lot about, they don’t in actuality realize blockchain necessarily in the an identical intention. But, are you able to remark about how it’d be applied here?
ROBERT KAPLAN: We’ve described how the solutions waft from a dealer, potentially love Urban Mining, to a transportation automobile, after which the solutions goes to the Boston Sand and Gravel that mixes it, after which it goes to a main contractor. The primary contractor says to Harvard, “K, this concrete has 40% much less carbon emissions per ton than mature Portland cement. In the case, Shirley constructed an Excel spreadsheet the build the students acquire to play with the different mixtures that she described, the system, and the intention in which those bag an impact on the carbon content material. Take into story a skeptical pupil or alumni talking to the director of sustainability and saying, “Demonstrate it.”
BRIAN KENNY: Yeah, undoubtedly.
ROBERT KAPLAN: “Why must I give money for the improvement of this constructing at its low carbon? I desire to be assured that it’s lawful.” So, the demand is, once you occur to’ve got this very complex provide chain, thousands and thousands of organizations feeding files as much as aggregators love Boston Sand and Gravel, after which they’re sending files to the contractor, how discontinue you validate this files? Unquestionably one of the solutions, again, of the E-liability methodology is, first, that the emissions must be measured once, and finest once, at the pickle the build they occur, whether or no longer it’s Urban Mining, or the transportation truck, or the cement mixer at Boston Sand and Gravel. And, it needs to be assured at that level. Now, by the time the product comes as much as Harvard, it’s very complex for Harvard’s auditor to shuffle the total intention relief into the provision chain and determine, “Are these files steady on carbon?” So, I believed, “Gee, blockchain has this functionality of a distributed ledger.” So I used to be having conversations with IBM, sustainability of us in primary. But I requested them, “You bag Blockchain, don’t you?” They talked about, “Yes.” “Wouldn’t this be a steady software program for this?” So that they build Shirley and me in touch with their blockchain sector. It turns out, they’d already performed this area however in a outlandish context. They’d been employed by Walmart, and subsequently a lot of meals outlets, to originate a clear chain of watch of quality and security files of the total meals that finally ends up on the meals retailer’s shelves, initiating with the farm or the plantation the build it’s grown. They in actuality constructed this blockchain resolution. It’s known as Meals Have confidence, that offers a downstream retailer visibility into the enlighten quality and security files for every one of its suppliers, for every one of its merchandise. What we realized is, we lawful had to relabel this. Also, the solutions has to bag assurance. On the local diploma, somebody had to shuffle there and express, “Yes, this files that we’re placing on the blockchain is rarely any longer finest non-public and staunch,” which blockchain does, “But it in actuality has assurance documents connected to who gave that audit or assurance at that field.” So we introduced IBM into the conversation, so that they created a mockup or a uncover of how they would possibly maybe per chance adapt the Meals Have confidence blockchain to the carbon accounting area that that they had here.
BRIAN KENNY: Wow.
ROBERT KAPLAN: In precept, if that were build into pickle, this is peaceable in prototype stage, that can provide the total stakeholders of Harvard College self belief that the solutions were steady, and had been verified and audited, and lets belief the numbers on carbon emissions which can maybe per chance be coming out of the intention.
BRIAN KENNY: It moreover makes me wonder, if everyone is gathering this files in the an identical intention, and the solutions’s official and steady, are there a lot of forms of insights, even past the rapid software program, that we are in a position to be ready to win from these devices of files?
ROBERT KAPLAN: Smartly, there’s a few issues on ESG. We’re lawful talking about E, and one enlighten E, which is greenhouse gases, and no longer water or a lot of forms of pollution. But in primary, when stakeholders, along with investors, however moreover communities, desire to protect companies in mark for performance, they don’t lawful point out their possess firm’s performance, they in actuality point out their provide chain performance. Everyone is aware of from Nike, and several other a lot of examples, that after you occur to’ve got a sinful raze result in one amongst your suppliers, the tip use firm is the person that’s going to be held in mark for it. Lets use the an identical solutions of E-liability to open up and display screen issues love microscopic one labor and slave labor. Lets display screen use of battle minerals, lets display screen security and correctly being files of staff, the total intention down a provide chain, and use it for a grand extra strong and verifiable build of environmental and societal accountability.
BRIAN KENNY: That’s very extremely efficient. So has Harvard been ready to calculate any emissions reduction from these efforts, or this is peaceable in the trial allotment?
SHIRLEY LU:
What makes this case special is, the entirety is evolving. So, Harvard is now moreover attempting to determine the emissions content material, as well to the pricing of those supplies.
ROBERT KAPLAN: This has been an uncommon case because every Shirley and I are actively all in favour of its advent. On the total, in a case writing, we buy a area that has already befell, and our job is to return in history and story what befell, however no longer be all in favour of the approach. But we’ve been all in favour of the approach, and the approach is ongoing. So Harvard hasn’t began to communicate about mark, and it wouldn’t remark about mark with Urban Mining. It is miles going to finest remark about mark with the primary contractor for a brand contemporary constructing. So the demand is, in the case, what can we discontinue to acquire at this most notable area? In precept, how grand extra would the Harvard must pay in a contract to acquire acquire entry to to this low carbon concrete? So Shirley and I had to contemplate about a form of how lets bag this discussion shuffle on at faculty.
SHIRLEY LU: Precisely. We in actuality requested the students to build a spreadsheet to in actuality examine the different system from the celebrated combine of lawful the utilization of cement. Now you add in some Pozzotive in a lot of ratios, what’s that entire emissions turning out to be? that number, it’s what lets in managers, or on this case Harvard, to contemplate in regards to the resolution. They may per chance maybe layer in a lot of files, how grand are we willing to pay per ton of carbon saved, for occasion, to relieve them pick how grand extra they’re willing to pay for a top price, if any, for this product?
BRIAN KENNY: Enact you think that Harvard’s willingness to buy into consideration this signals some broader switch in the kind that firms are interested by a lot of ideas to nick their carbon footprint? Or, is Harvard love an outlier? Because, for us, it’s this form of most notable initiative overall.
ROBERT KAPLAN: My sense in the work that Karthik Ramanna and I are doing in a lot of varied sectors is, there’s substantial hobby in companies that desire to decarbonize their provide chain. But to this level, they’ve lacked a rigorous methodology for measuring the most up-to-date carbon content material of its merchandise and services and products, grand much less the reduction that can maybe per chance occur in the event that they adopt contemporary processes and contemporary product designs. So, I contemplate there’s gargantuan hobby. This case lets in Harvard to relieve voice, no longer finest a lot of universities or spacious correctly being methods, however moreover companies, a kind to shuffle about measuring the unusual carbon that’s being produced in the merchandise and services and products which can maybe per chance be being purchased. But moreover, how they would possibly maybe per chance contract otherwise with the organizations, their suppliers, to acquire entry to decrease carbon content material merchandise and services and products.
Brian, to your level, what this implies is that companies are interested by, after they’re sourcing all their merchandise and services and products, no longer lawful what the mark is, and the usual, and the initiating, and the functionality, however how grand carbon used to be emitted to acquire entry to that services and products or merchandise? So it’s one other dimension that comes into the procurement resolution, and the logistics resolution, and in a roundabout intention how we make our merchandise and services and products so as that we are in a position to use decrease carbon parts.
BRIAN KENNY: Correct. One other seemingly profit here is that, firms which can maybe per chance be willing to pay a microscopic of bit extra to switch on this path moreover reach some mark energy from this, due to us care a lot in regards to the merchandise and services and products they care for and the companies that they discontinue industry with. To clutch that any individual is ceaselessly working and going that extra mile to maybe build a much less of an impact on the atmosphere, I contemplate in a lot of ideas can relieve your mark.
SHIRLEY LU: When you’ve steady measures.
BRIAN KENNY: When you’ve steady measures, and also you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to rely on them. Obvious.
ROBERT KAPLAN: The measures are steady and audited. They’re no longer greenwashing. Indirectly, that’s the message from the case.
BRIAN KENNY: This has been a mountainous conversation, and I in actuality adore you joining me to communicate about it. I’ll seek files from you each to chime in with one final response, which is, once you occur to desire of us to take be aware of one thing in regards to the case, what would it no longer be? Shirley, I’ll open up with you.
SHIRLEY LU: Obvious. Lend a hand to the initiating, which is measurement. Size lets in us to determine the most productive use of resources. One thing that wasn’t obvious to me in the case is that, they were the utilization of glass and recycling to interchange cement as an alternate of increasing contemporary glass. Because once you occur to build contemporary glass the utilization of recycled glass, you build the an identical amount of emissions because the utilization of virgin glass. So here, by in actuality doing the carbon accounting, you may per chance maybe per chance be ready to bag a examine that greater impact by turning it to interchange cement.
BRIAN KENNY: Bob, how about you?
ROBERT KAPLAN: Smartly, as a co-developer of every job-based mostly costing and the Steadiness Scorecard, I clearly endorse Shirley’s enthusiasm for measurement. Let me procure on one thing else. What it is, it’s in actuality, commodities are no longer any longer commodities. When you concentrate on what we’re working with in concrete, or steel, or glass, or copper, we contemplate about them as is that they’re commodities. But once you acquire to the carbon content material, they’re no longer commodities. It is seemingly you’ll maybe per chance differentiate what otherwise would be a commodity by making it decrease carbon and discontinue precisely, Brian, what you talked about. Perchance you’ll bag possibilities which can maybe per chance be willing to pay a mark for a product that’s now differentiated by its decrease carbon content material. That’s a comparatively most notable development.
BRIAN KENNY: Bob, Shirley, thank you for joining me on Chilly Name.
SHIRLEY LU: Thanks.
ROBERT KAPLAN: Thanks for fascinating and web field hosting us.
BRIAN KENNY: When you revel in Chilly Name, you may per chance maybe per chance love our a lot of podcasts, After Hours, Native climate Rising, Deep Draw, Belief Solid, Managing the Future of Work, Skydeck, and Ladies at Work. Find them on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen, and once you occur to may per chance maybe per chance buy a minute to price and analysis us, we’d be grateful. When you’ve any solutions or lawful desire to tell hi there, we desire to listen to from you. Email us at coldcall@hbs.edu. Thanks again for joining us. I’m your host, Brian Kenny, and also you’ve been paying consideration to Chilly Name, an legit podcast of Harvard Enterprise College and allotment of the HBR Podcast Network.
