Authoring sustainability-minded case studies is one way CRB helps move sustainability further into the mainstream. Working with the Berkeley-Haas Case Series and the California Management Review, we develop case studies suitable for inclusion into the general business school curriculum.
Cases tackle real-time sustainability challenges companies face. We convene forums based on the case studies, to help companies understand the issue, identify potential solutions, and measure the impact.
Sample Case Studies:
- “General Mills: Driving Food Systems Change through Regenerative Agriculture” November 2019
- “Patagonia: Closing the Loop on Packaging Pollution” April 2019*
- “Sustainability Through Open Innovation: Carlsberg and the Green Fiber Bottle” September 2018
- “Patagonia’s Path to Carbon Neutrality by 2025” April 2018*
- “Reversing Climate Change Through Sustainable Food: Patagonia Provisions Attempts to Scale a “Big Wall”” April 2017
- “Rewarding Consumers for Recycling Packaging: Kimberly-Clark Seeks Shared Value” January 2017
- “Levi Strauss & Co.: Driving Adoption of Green Chemistry” July 2016
- “Patagonia: Driving Sustainable Innovation by Embracing Tensions” February 2016*
Best Case Award Winner 2020
“Patagonia: Closing the Loop on Packaging Pollution” by Sara Beckman, Kate O’Neill, Seren Pendleton-Knoll, William Rosenzweig, and Robert Strand won the 2020 Best Case Award.
This case describes pioneering outdoor company Patagonia’s search for solutions on packaging waste. As an apparel manufacturer that has also recently entered the consumer packaged goods industry, Patagonia has become attentive to the need to eradicate the large amount of plastic packaging waste found throughout its supply chain and retail operations. Single-use packaging waste has become a global crisis and Patagonia believes it is well-positioned to inspire change across industries.
Sustainable Case Compendium:
In collaboration with a team of Berkeley-Haas students, the Center for Responsible Business has curated a suite of business cases and articles that are primed to be readily integrated into core MBA curriculum. These sustainable cases encompass the broadest sense of the word to include social, environmental, and economic considerations. This list features cases and articles hosted on the Harvard Business Publishing site, published within the last 10 years that tackle pressing sustainability and responsibility challenges within the corporate space.
We encourage professors to examine how they can refresh and embed the below into their curriculum and/ or provide as supplemental readings on their syllabi. The CRB is eager to partner with Haas faculty to co-author cases that would be directly included into courses.