Authors:

  • George Serafeim

Excerpt

July 20, 2022, Interview: ""Make the business case" is a key aphorism in sustainability, and many of you dear GreenFin Weekly readers have long been fighting the good fight as case-makers. Underpinning this case is a canon of credible research, much of which has been delivered by George Serafeim at Harvard Business School, who has been doing ESG before it was cool (or even called "ESG"). Importantly, Serafeim has been pondering the critical questions and penning equally critical research papers to support a core tenet of sustainability for issuers and investors alike. Purpose and profit are not mutually exclusive, he says, but are deeply intertwined and interdependent. I may not have read all that was assigned in graduate school, but Serafeim’s work was key to equipping us students of sustainable enterprise to go forth and be effective. Serafeim has teased out measurable and meaningful answers to questions at the center of ESG: Are purpose and profit substitutes or complementary? What are the technological, societal and market forces reshaping this relationship? What can we all do to better link purpose and profit as entrepreneurs, managers, consumers, employees and investors?"

Non-HKS Harvard Faculty Author Website - George Serafeim