Accounting for Climate Change

The first rigorous approach to ESG reporting by Robert S. Kaplan and Karthik Ramanna

From the Magazine (November–December 2021)

Michael Schauer

Summary.

The August 2021 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warns that pollution caused by humans has led to an increase in extreme events such as heat waves, heavy precipitation, droughts, and tropical cyclones. Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions from global economic activity are at the heart of climate change, with atmospheric CO2 already 50% above its pre-industrialization levels.

A version of this article appeared in the November–December 2021 issue of Harvard Business Review.

Robert S. Kaplan is a senior fellow and the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development emeritus at Harvard Business School. He coauthored the McKinsey Award–winning HBR article “Accounting for Climate Change” (November–December 2021).

Karthik Ramanna is a professor of business and public policy at University of Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government and was previously a professor and the Marvin Bower Fellow at Harvard Business School. He coauthored the McKinsey Award–winning HBR article “Accounting for Climate Change” (November–December 2021) and is author of The Age of Outrage: How to Lead in a Polarized World. He is cofounder and principal investigator of the E-liability Institute, a global not-for-profit advancing the urgent accounting upgrade needed to drive green innovation.

Accounting for Climate Change

Summary.

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