FII Institute’s partnership with HEC Paris is one that thrives on the hopes of furthering one agenda: making a positive impact on humanity. 

FII Institute’s THINK Pillar, which is guided by experts, partnered with esteemed academia, and run through a passionate team, aims to empower the world’s brightest minds to identify the solutions that make a difference in lives globally. 

THINK achieves this by collaborating with high-caliber partners, such the reputable HEC Paris, to build momentum towards change and pursuing thought leadership in the service of humanity.

To that extent, Daniel Halbheer, an Associate Professor of Marketing and the Academic Director of the Climate & Earth Centre at the HEC Paris S&O Institute at HEC Paris was chosen as the holder of the FII Institute research chair on “Business Models for the Circular Economy”.

Business leaders, consumers, and governments alike are increasingly becoming aware of the enormous resource and waste footprints resulting from the “take-make-dispose” approach of the linear economy. The resource and waste footprints are key drivers of the world’s most pressing environmental problems, including global warming, biodiversity loss, and pollution.

To tackle these problems, firms must develop innovations across product design, recovery of end-of-life products, and recycling technologies that enable the transition from a linear to a circular economy. In addition to closing the loop, firms must also find new ways of extending the loop, for example through product reuse, repair, and remanufacturing. 

The purpose of this research chair on Circular Economy is thus to develop new business models that drastically reduce resource and environmental footprints and at the same time have economic and social benefits.

This report covers Halbheer’s achievements for the Chair during 2022—a year in which a lot of effort was put into research, teaching, and outreach activities.

Research

• The paper “Carbon Footprinting and Pricing Under Climate Concerns” (joint with Marco Bertini, Stefan Buehler, and Don Lehmann) was published in the Journal of Marketing. For this paper, Halbheer won the 2021 Rigor & Relevance Research Award by the Swiss Academy of Marketing Science. 
• The paper “Managing Service Shutdowns: Cash Refunds or Vouchers?” (joint with Rachel Chen, Eitan Gerstner, and Paolo Roma) has been accepted for publication in the International Journal of Research in Marketing.
• The manuscript “Product Design and Consumer Participation in Circular Business Models” (joint with Stefan Buehler and Rachel Chen) has been published on the Social Science Research Network repository. This paper was presented in a research seminar at Bocconi University, and it has also been submitted to several research conference scheduled in 2023. 

Teaching

• The newly created “Climate and Business Certificate” (joint with Igor Shishlov) took place between May 2 and June 1, 2022. Because of this course, Halbheer and Shishlov and were awarded a highly selective CAD 10,000 Case Study Grant by the Monitoring and Evaluating Climate Communication and Evaluation Project to create a package for climate change education.
• The newly launched “HEC Climate Days” (joint with François Collin and Igor Shishlov) took place on May 30-31, 2022 as an integral part of the Climate and Business Certificate.

Outreach

• The article on “Business Schools Must Do More to Address the Climate Crisis” was published as a digital article in the Harvard Business Review.
• The article on “Business School Collaboration: Embracing Our Responsibility Towards Our Planet” was published in the EFMD Global Focus Magazine.
• The short piece “A Circular Economy That Benefits Businesses and the Planet” was published in the BNP Paribas Perspectives.

For 2023, a number of impactful activities are underway, taking the partnership between the two entities to new heights whilst changing the world one step at a time. The Institute believes that at the intersection of human need, technological feasibility and economic viability are the answers that will shape a better world for all.