Not a month goes by without a media campaign linking the supply chain of a well-known brand with unsavory labor practices or environmental mismanagement. Such exposés can devalue brands and reduce well-meaning corporate sustainability initiatives to hypocrisy. Beyond...
Many environmental management programs offer people incentives to engage in conservation activities. But these activities, carried out on a local level, often are difficult to monitor. Are people inclined to cheat to get the incentives? Research led by Rohit Jindal of...
We may be losing the war against climate change, as we fail to approach sustainability-related issues in the right manner. Read the article in Business Today In a recent article 'The Invisible Hand Won't Solve the Climate Crisis. Capitalism Must Evolve', US professor...
By Sudhir K. Sinha “Satyagraha” is Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of determined but nonviolent resistance—a sort of peaceful war. Now, CSR Satyagraha is a peaceful war being waged in India on corporate social responsibility (CSR), to fight the manufactured euphoria and...
Dr. Thomas P. Lyon recently taught a short course at Shanghai Jiao Tong University on Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy. Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, with appointments in both the University of Michigan’s Ross...
Erb Research Manager Melissa Zaksek and I were in Delhi earlier this month for the India Centre for Responsible Business’s fourth annual International Sustainability Standards Conference. International standards have traditionally been developed by western brands,...
Lucy Kellaway’s recent Financial Times commentary “How I Lost My 25-Year Battle Against Corporate Claptrap” made its way around staff inboxes at the Erb Institute. She attacks corporate “guff” that is full of cleverly crafted words and phrases—but that says,...
Focusing on sustainability, infrastructural development, cultural practices, resource extraction, and new media usage, this conference provides a space for leading scholars across all disciplines to explore the social and environmental realities of Chinese engagement...
In America, the agricultural sector is responsible for barely one percent of total energy consumption. But it's a different picture in India, where a whopping 18 percent of the nation's electricity goes to power agricultural water pumps. Problems in Indian...
A firsthand look at strategy and sustainability in India Over the course of three weeks, I traveled from Chennai to Bangalore to Mumbai to Delhi with a group of U-M undergraduate business students learning about business strategy and sustainability in India. They were...