Energy and natural resources sector

There’s a vast opportunity for the private sector in making cities efficient and competitive.

The most dubious business plan can look solid—even smart—if it’s cast as a virtuous circle. “See, we invest our profits in innovation to create delightful products that customers buy—which generate profits that we invest in innovation!” Who could argue with that? Indeed, the merit of self-reinforcing systems seems so obvious that businesspeople instinctively describe their […]

Companies doing business in the developing world have to contend with the staggering human and financial costs of HIV infection—and most would agree that conventional approaches to controlling the epidemic aren’t working. In our experience in the labor-intensive mining industries of Russia, South Africa, and Botswana, we’ve seen infection rates among workers exceeding 90% in […]

For a leader, a public apology is always a high-risk move. Understanding what apologies can and cannot do will help you avoid both foolhardy stonewalling and unnecessary contrition.

A study quantifies the costs and identifies four ways to pay for it.

Are the energy markets shifting back toward coal? In some ways, they never left—coal generates more than 50% of U.S. electricity, for example. Yet since the 1950s, coal’s share of that market has declined against natural gas and other fuels, largely because emissions from coal-fired plants have hurt the environment and stirred up not-in-my-backyard sentiments. […]

Demand is flattening out (except for copper).

It’s time to diversify.

Like many manufacturers, DuPont traditionally has grown by making more and more "stuff." And its business growth has been proportional to the amount of...

Elon Musk is taking a page from Thomas Edison's book.

Every corporate executive needs to learn five lessons from California’s electricity crisis.

When a crisis forces outside directors to navigate major changes, investors and directors must adopt new roles. The largest such case to date provides some useful lessons. The Royal Dutch/Shell Group was a 60/40 joint venture between Royal Dutch Petroleum and Shell Transport and Trading. It was run by a five-person committee of managing directors […]

One man’s plan for blasting open the electricity market.

Miami is a perfect example.

As interest in clean energy surges, used solar panels are going straight into landfill.

The company needed a CEO who would challenge traditional industry models.

Welcome to a new era of decentralized power.

In psychology, the term “identified patient” refers to a family member — often a child or a teenager — who gets scapegoated for behavior that is actually just a predictable response to dealing with an unhealthy family. Tony Hayward is BP’s identified patient. He did want his privileged, aristocratic life back and he said so. […]

Our annual survey of emerging ideas considers the single most important trait of future leaders, the marketing potential of digitally split personalities, a challenge tougher than managing risk, and the best hope for oil-importing countries.

Postmerger integrations are tough. Generally, the acquirer puts the target’s distinctive capabilities under its own management and then struggles to pull the two companies’ operations together. Managers often end up plugging holes in dikes instead of focusing on the core business, and, when they finally emerge from this distraction, they often find that their customers […]