norbert bol 
Norbert Bol
JULY 3, 2022
Norbert Bol. The last three blogs I wrote, were about supply chain sustainability in real estate. These blogs triggered me to learn more about supply chain sustainability and learning in general.
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Norbert Bol
AUGUST 8, 2021
Norbert Bol. Last week the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) published their report on the State of Supply Chain Sustainability 2021. It is this report MIT explores how supply chain sustainability is being implemented in global supply chains.
Norbert Bol
DECEMBER 31, 2019
Norbert Bol. Happy New Year to everyone and welcome in the new roaring ’20s. In the coming decade, we shall experience how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to be more important in our everyday lives.
Norbert Bol
JUNE 19, 2022
Norbert Bol. Supply chain sustainability in real estate is a journey not a destination! In the real estate industry there are many ecological, social, governance and economic aspects interacting with each other on a local level.
Norbert Bol
JANUARY 10, 2021
Norbert Bol. Dear readers, First of all I would like to wish you a healthy, safe and successful 2021! Sorry for not keeping my promise to blog more in 2020 about responsible technology and artificial intelligence as I wrote in Happy New Year: The new roaring ’20 s.
Norbert Bol
JANUARY 13, 2019
Norbert Bol. Growing consumption does not increase happiness or health! In industrialized countries there is no increase in happiness or health when consumption grows (Fanning et al., 2019). From a sustainability perspective this can be an important finding as global human consumption today is already outstripping what the planet can reproduce.
Norbert Bol
DECEMBER 1, 2019
Norbert Bol. Last week the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) launched their study on Artificial Intelligence (AI) for Sustainable Development: “ STEERING AI AND ADVANCED ICTS FOR KNOWLEDGE SOCIETIES – A Rights, Openness, Access and Multi-stakeholder Perspective on Internet Freedom” . The study recognizes arti?cial
Norbert Bol
APRIL 14, 2019
Norbert Bol. Last week I wrote about the “ green finance gap “, where investments in green technology suffer from a lack of financial resources and less attractive risk-return expectations compared to other investments.
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 14, 2018
Norbert Bol. In the october edition of Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Christensen et al. 2018) conclude that they were surprised about the low-tech financial decision rules that are being applied to green office investments.
Norbert Bol
SEPTEMBER 14, 2021
Norbert Bol. In my previous blog the state of supply chain sustainability in real estate was discussed based on the latest report of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
Norbert Bol
DECEMBER 31, 2019
Norbert Bol. Happy New Year to everyone and welcome in the new roaring ’20s. In the coming decade, we shall experience how Artificial Intelligence (AI) is going to be more important in our everyday lives. AI will give us more opportunities to be more productive as AI never sleeps and giving us room to be more creative in becoming more sustainable. On the other hand, there can be a threat that we as humans will lose control.
Norbert Bol
JANUARY 1, 2019
Norbert Bol. At the start of 2019 I wish everyone a happy and healthy 2019! Whatever in life we are planning to do to be happy and healthy, we have different options to choose when we are buying a product or a service. Do we always choose the most sustainable option? The short answer is no. Shim et al. 2018) show there can be many hurdles in our decision making proces that prevent us from choosing eco-friendly or sustainable products and services (see graph).
Norbert Bol
MARCH 24, 2019
Norbert Bol. Innovative sustainable technology is considered to be positively contributing to sustainability. For example where new technologies are able to solve climate change problems providing clean energy solutions. Gonella et al. 2019) show in their article that we often have a too optimistic view on technology and sustainability. The question can be raised if it is true that new sustainable technology always have the purpose to serve the cause of sustainability? .
Norbert Bol
APRIL 7, 2019
Norbert Bol. There is at the moment a lack of sufficient financial resources that is directed toward green investments in order to meet the climate goals that were set in 2015 during the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP-UNFCCC). This lack of sufficient financial resources is also known as the “green finance gap” .
Norbert Bol
MARCH 17, 2019
Norbert Bol. Last week I wrote about the use of narratives in strategic foresight using the speeches of Steve Jobs as examples (see last week’s blog ). Narratives can be helpful in finding opportunities and limits in a challenging environment. Van Cattenburg & Duijn (2019) present in their new article in Futures, how the allegorical narratives of William Shakespeare (1564-1616) can be used in strategic foresight and complex issues such as sustainability.
Norbert Bol
FEBRUARY 17, 2019
Norbert Bol. In my last blog I related culture to sustainability. In the april 2019 edition of the Journal of Cleaner Production there is an interesting article about corporate culture and corporate sustainability by Islam et al. 2019). In this article corporate culture is seen as an essential attribute to improve corporate sustainability performance. S ustainability issues are often multidimensional and cannot only be managed through logic. Also cultural aspects play a role.
Norbert Bol
FEBRUARY 2, 2019
Norbert Bol. A sustainability-centered marketing strategy is not leading to superior customer-brand relationships and fi rm performance. In general this is the outcome of a recent study by Mena et al. 2019) where they have compared three marketing strategies: Market-driven strategy with a focus on customers, employees and suppliers. Stakeholder-focused strategy that includes customers, employees and suppliers but also shareholders, communities, and regulators. .
Norbert Bol
DECEMBER 2, 2018
Norbert Bol. Do companies in the sharing economy care more about sustainability than companies in the traditional economy? This is an interesting question as the sharing economy has a positive connotation towards sustainability, because of the ef fi cient use of resources and accessing as opposed to acquiring and consuming. The sharing economy is currently gaining momentum in almost every sector in the economy.
Norbert Bol
MAY 21, 2018
Norbert Bol. Today I am writing my 100th blog post on Strategy Blogs. In this blog I want to share some of my expierences about writing 100 blog posts on a non-commercial basis including a picture overwiew of my blogs. When I started to blog about strategy, innovation and sustainability, I had no experience in blogging.
Norbert Bol
JANUARY 10, 2021
Norbert Bol. Dear readers, First of all I would like to wish you a healthy, safe and successful 2021! Sorry for not keeping my promise to blog more in 2020 about responsible technology and artificial intelligence as I wrote in Happy New Year: The new roaring ’20 s.
Norbert Bol
FEBRUARY 27, 2019
Norbert Bol. Original post on Linked In: Norbert Bol (25 February 2019), Successful office investments in disruptive times. Last week I gave a short presentation at the VIP Europe Conference of IREI in Amsterdam about the impact of innovation, technology and sustainability on office investments in the Netherlands. In this blog I want to share the main content my presentation in a more aggregated way.
Norbert Bol
FEBRUARY 24, 2019
Norbert Bol. On our way to becoming a green economy, we need products and services that have a positive impact on the environment and society. Companies are researching, developing and testing many environmental product and service innovations. Clausen et al. 2019) show that there is not a lack of these innovations, but there is a too low percentage of these innovations that are successful. . Only a third of environmental innovations is successful.
Norbert Bol
MARCH 31, 2019
Norbert Bol. In modern supply chain management, sustainable supply chains are often seen as profitable supply chains. More use of clean technologies in supply chains significantly reduce carbon- and other greenhouse gas emissions. However the cost of investment in clean technology is substantial. According to Apple’s Green Bond Report, Apple invested USD 1.657 billion (2016-2017) in clean technologies (CleanTech).
Norbert Bol
MARCH 29, 2015
Norbert Bol. The april (2015) special edition of the scientific journal of Long Range Planning is called “ Doing more with less? Sustainability strategy in constrained economic times “ The different articles in this special edition all focus on the sustainability behavour of companies in tough times. One might expect that in tough times there is less focus on sustainability.
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 9, 2016
Norbert Bol. During the last few weeks I have had interesting discussions about the question: “are we doing enough to create a sustainable future?” ” The discussions were interesting because they were all very open in the first place. I also found that people are not only willing to contribute but are also willing to share their contributions with me and others. There is also the willingness to share the restraining factors that prevent them from doing more.
Norbert Bol
NOVEMBER 6, 2016
Norbert Bol. In the January 2017 issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production there is a study that has investigated the relationship between green management and the performance of Italian firms. The study shows that the relationship between green management and performance is U-shaped. This means that environmental activities have a positive effect after a minimum threshold.
Norbert Bol
MARCH 9, 2019
Norbert Bol. Steve Jobs is often described as a visionary who was willing to take actions that reshaped a range of industries such as software, computers, cloud computing, tablet computing, cellphones, music, TV and movies. The combination of vision and taking appropriate actions made him a great example of a discipline which is called strategic foresight.
Norbert Bol
SEPTEMBER 20, 2015
Norbert Bol. There is scientific evidence that companies with a strong commitment to innovation and sustainability outperform competitors with lower commitments. In the International Business Review of October 2015 the researchers Costa, Lages & Hortinha show that the relationship between innovation, sustainability and business performance is more complex.
Norbert Bol
JULY 21, 2015
Norbert Bol. Reporting on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and sustainability has grown exponentially. The quality of the reporting has also improved, including historical information and forward-looking statements. A recent study by Aiezza (2015 in press) shows that there is still a strong bias towards optimistic trends when it comes to reporting on sustainability issues. Risks, failures and other difficulties are often missing or at least relativised.
Norbert Bol
JUNE 7, 2015
Norbert Bol. Companies have a responsibility for the environment and society, but on the other hand companies cannot resolve all the environmental and social problems in the world. Successful companies however view sustainability as one of the biggest trends that will shape the future and use sustainability as an innovation tool.
Norbert Bol
JANUARY 27, 2019
Norbert Bol. Sustainability has become an important aspect in every business nowadays. However, how can we implement sustainability successfully in our business practices? Lambrechts et al. 2019), show how individual sustainability competences can play a role in business projects and especially in building projects.
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 25, 2015
Norbert Bol. Boosting creativity and innovation. When we want to boost creativity and innovation in an organization, there is not only a need for creative people but there is also the need for an organization supporting an innovative culture (see also the blog: Innovation is built on the desire for success ). A recent study towards the personal factors of creativity and innovation (da Costa et al.,
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 4, 2015
Norbert Bol. To create innovations it is probably true that our desire for success should be greater than our fear of failure. At the same time we should have the abilty not be afraid to fail but instead have the ability to learn from our mistakes. Many innovations are the fruitful result of trial and error. Error or failure are part of the process.
Norbert Bol
SEPTEMBER 12, 2015
Norbert Bol. There have been many studies towards sustainability and its effect on the cost of equity of a firm. In the October issue of the Journal of Corporate Finance an interesting study is presented on this topic by Ng & Rezaee (2015). This study not only includes the individual dimensions of sustainability performance as prior research has done, but it also includes the overall relationship.
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 18, 2015
Norbert Bol. Nowadays, many companies engage in social causes that are aligned with the social concerns of their customers. In the Strategy Blog “ Business sustainability and cost of equity ” it was shown that social sustainability has a more indirect effect to business performance. In the November edition of the Strategic Management Journal Fosfuri et al.
Norbert Bol
SEPTEMBER 27, 2015
Norbert Bol. In the recent blog Innovation through collaboration some important conditions were presented how people with different expertise can work together to develop innovative ideas, such as being open to innovative work, respecting others and willing to learn. It is also important to understand how to create such an environment. Leavy (2015) shows that it is most important for innovation leaders to create an environment where people are willing and are able to collaborate.
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 7, 2018
Norbert Bol. Most companies nowadays understand the need to become more sustainable. In general it is fair to say that companies are making progress and have a positive intention to become more sustainable. So called breakthrough sustainability innovations are however scarce. Mostly because these type of innovations are complex and can not be done by one company alone or by a new startup. So what are the hurdles that prevent breakthrough sustainable innovations?
Norbert Bol
OCTOBER 21, 2017
Norbert Bol. This week is the start of the Dutch Design Week in Eindhoven, where 2500 designers present their ideas, experiments and solutions. The theme of the event is “Stretch”, to encourage both designers and the public to get involved with each other and to break out of their comfort zone. Everybody has different comfort zones depending on the subject and circumstances.
Norbert Bol
JUNE 26, 2016
Norbert Bol. Leadership can be found at any level of an organization. This means that you don’t have to be a manager to be a leader. To make this work it must be possible in an organization to lead one another. Recent research shows that this can take place when there is enough diversity and commonality.
Norbert Bol
MARCH 14, 2015
Norbert Bol. The scientific journal Organizational Dynamics is preparing a special issue about “The leadership imperative for sustainability and corporate social responsibility” In other words what is the responsibility for sustainability of business leaders? Most business leaders describe their responsibility in terms of economic-, social- and ecological performance.
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