Is Business Broken?

Individual companies don't operate in a vacuum. They're part of industries, supply chains, financial markets, and a much larger system. So in this bigger picture, how did the idea of corporate sustainability become so ubiquitous and powerful? How did we come to believe that companies could take on some of society's biggest environmental problems while still turning a profit?

In the second episode of our three-part series inspired by BU Questrom’s Beyond Corporate Sustainability conference, host Curt Nickisch unpacks those questions with conference co-organizers Kenneth Pucker, professor of practice at Tufts University and former chief operating officer at Timberland, and Andy King, professor of strategy and innovation at BU Questrom.
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In 1990, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published a report confirming what many scientists already knew: that human activities are driving rapid, intensifying global warming. The science was clear, and there was momentum to act. But who should take the lead?

Beginning in the 1990s, a new answer emerged: corporations. If businesses were responsible for much of the world’s fossil fuel emissions, perhaps they could also be part of the solution. It seemed like a win-win: good for the planet, good for the business. Three decades later, corporate sustainability has profoundly shaped business education, investment, public policy, and academic research. But what if the idea itself has limitations?

In this three-part series inspired by BU Questrom’s Beyond Corporate Sustainability conference, we take a closer look at the promise and pitfalls of corporate sustainability and ask what it would take to move beyond it. This series is a departure from our usual Is Business Broken? programming: rather than bringing together competing perspectives, we’re taking a deeper look at one particular critique of corporate sustainability.

In this first episode, host Curt Nickisch unpacks the idea of corporate sustainability and more with Auden Schendler, climate activist and author of two books, Terrible Beauty and Getting Green Done; and Andy King, professor of strategy and innovation at BU Questrom and a leading scholar of corporate environmental strategy, voluntary programs, and environmental regulation.
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Where does innovation begin? What are the critical factors driving innovation today and tomorrow? And what happens when federal funding gets shaky, the IPO market stalls, and political uncertainty rattles an entire industry? A century and a half after Boston University Professor Alexander Graham Bell patented the telephone, questions around the innovation economy are more urgent than ever.

At a live show, recorded at the WBUR Festival in Boston, host Curt Nickisch sits down to explore these questions with Dr. Melissa Gilliam, President of Boston University; Kendalle Burlin O'Connell, CEO & President, MassBio, and Elizabeth Jurinka, Operating Director, Healthcare Policy, Vistria PRG.
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Ocean shipping carries close to 90% of global trade, and it accounts for about 3% of global emissions. The International Maritime Organization has set ambitious targets to reduce those by 20% by 2030, by 70% by 2040, and reach net zero by 2050.

Ships are expensive and pay for themselves over decades, and the technology for green fuels is still developing. What are you supposed to do if you're a shipping company? Do you invest early and take on the risk? Do you drag your feet? And why should we be thinking about the shipping industry in the first place?

Host Curt Nickisch unpacks this question and more with Ravi K. Mehrotra and Amulya Mohapatra from the Foresight Group; Chris Wiernicki, independent industry consultant and the former Chair and CEO of the American Bureau of Shipping; Valerie Thomas, professor of industrial engineering at Georgia Institute of Technology; and Justin Ren, Associate Professor of Operations and Technology Management at BU Questrom.

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We are living through a massive migration of wealth. More and more capital is leaving public markets and flowing into private equity. There's even a growing push to let everyday investors put their retirement savings into private markets. But as private equity's footprint expands, so does the debate over who actually benefits.

Has private equity made the economy more efficient, innovative, and productive — or has it become a system for extracting wealth at the expense of workers, consumers, and communities? Can private equity be a force for good? And if this is where the money is flowing, what rules and safeguards do we actually need?

Host Curt Nickisch unpacks this question and more with Danny Wadhwani, Private Equity investor and Co-founder at ThinkLite; Gretchen Morgenson, Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist from NBC News; and Thomas Wollmann, Associate Professor in Markets, Public Policy, & Law at Boston University Questrom School of Business.

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