Business of Sustainability Theme

Sustainability at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business

Theme Inaugurated: May 2022

The Business of Sustainability supports connects scholarly and research strengths across the Charles H. Dyson School of Applied Economics and Management, the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, and the Cornell Peter and Stephanie Nolan School of Hotel Administration. The theme combines the three schools to fuel our mission to “inspire leaders to build sustainable, shared prosperity.”

The SC Johnson College uses the Business of Sustainability theme, combined with the other interdisciplinary themes, to provide a nexus for faculty collaboration across the college, focusing on research, teaching and learning initiatives, and external engagement.

News and Highlights

Pioneering Sustainability

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise celebrates 20 for 20 honoree Agata Smeets, MBA ’11, head of environment and product sustainability at Gap Inc.

From Classroom to Climate Action: Revolutionizing Sustainability in Africa

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise celebrates 20 for 20 honoree CJ Fonzi, MBA ’08, cofounder and COO of Africa Climate Ventures.

Energy & Sustainability

World Economic Forum Expert: “Circularity” Can Drive Growth

Hernán J.F. Saenz III, MBA/MILR ’98, urged businesses to minimize waste, maximize product lifecycles, and separate economic growth from resource consumption.

Research Spotlights

Emma Wang

Public environmental enforcement and private lender monitoring: Evidence from environmental covenants. Stacy Choy, Shushu Jiang, Scott Liao, and Emma Wang. 2024. Journal of Accounting and Economics.

Research by Wang and her co-authors examines how public environmental enforcement impacts private lenders’ efforts to monitor corporate pollution, particularly through environmental covenants. Their findings suggest that public enforcement strengthens lenders’ monitoring, reducing toxic chemical releases and highlighting the complementary roles of public and private sectors in curbing corporate pollution.

Andrew Karolyi and John Tobin-de la Puente

Biodiversity finance: A call for research into financing nature. G. Andrew Karolyi and John Tobin-de la Puente. 2023. Financial Management.

Karolyi and Tobin highlight the significant economic risks posed by biodiversity loss, which could soon surpass climate change as a major focus for sustainable finance, given that over half of the world’s GDP depends on nature. They emphasize the need for financial economists to address gaps in research on pricing biodiversity risks and the flow of private financing, noting that while climate change impacts can be mitigated, species extinction is irreversible.

Aaron Adalja

A Perspective on Data Sharing in Digital Food Safety Systems. Chenhao Qian, Yuhan Liu, Cecil Barnett-Neefs, Sudeep Salgia, Omer Serbetci, Aaron Adalja, Jayadev Acharya, Qing Zhao, Renata Ivanek & Martin Wiedmann. 2022. Critical Reviews in Food Science and Nutrition.

Food safety is a topic that concerns all of us and digital tools can help ensure food quality and safety. As Adalja and his team found, these tools can be severely limited by the lack of willingness to share data due to liability or publicity concerns.