In this talk, Professor Michael P. Lenox will summarize key points from his scholarship published in “Decarbonization Imperative- Transforming the Global Economy by 2050” (co-authored with Rebecca Duff, 2021 Stanford University Press). In this book, authors Lenox and Duff emphasize the need to effectively decarbonize the economy by 2050 to avoid the worst effects of climate change. They propose a radical reconfiguration of industries, particularly those contributing most harm to the climate crisis.
In his talk, Professor Lenox will describe how paradigm shifts involving disruptive innovation and calibration of industry dynamics across sectors of world economy—ranging from agriculture to industrials and building, energy and transportation are key to decarbonization. He will highlight possible challenges and obstacles to transformation and realistic scenarios, given current business practices and products. Finally, he will outline ways to move toward clean tech and decarbonization through a combination of markets, policy interventions and strategies.
About the Speaker: Professor Michael P. Lenox is Tayloe Murphy Professorship in Business Administration in University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. He teaches the core MBA strategy course as well as an MBA elective on Strategy in the Digital Age. He also serves as Special Advisor for the Dean, overseeing the research infrastructure in the Office of Research Services and leading other special projects. He served as the Senior Associate Dean and Chief Strategy Officer for the school between 2016 to 2023, and as Associate Dean of Innovation Programs and Academic Director of Darden's Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation between 2008 to 2016.
He helped found and served as the inaugural president of the multiple-university Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability. Prior to joining Darden in 2008, Professor Lenox was a professor at Duke University's Fuqua School of Business, where he served as the area coordinator for Fuqua's Strategy Area and the faculty director and founder of Duke's Corporate Sustainability Initiative. He received his Ph.D. in Technology Management and Policy from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1999 and the degrees of Bachelor and Master of Science in Systems Engineering from the University of Virginia. Professor Lenox has served as an assistant professor at New York University's Stern School of Business and as a visiting professor at Stanford University, Harvard University, Oxford University and IMD.
Professor Lenox's primary expertise is in the domain of technology strategy and policy. He is broadly interested in the role of innovation and entrepreneurship for economic growth and firm competitive success. In particular, he explores the business strategy and public policy drivers of the direction of innovative activity. Professor Lenox also has a long-standing interest in the interface between business strategy and public policy as it relates to the natural environment. His recent scholarly work includes the books "Can Business Save the Earth" (2018) and "The Decarbonization Imperative" (2021) both from Stanford University Press.
Professor Lenox's research has appeared in over thirty refereed academic publications and has been cited in several media outlets including The New York Times, the Financial Times and The Economist. In 2009, he was recognized as a Faculty Pioneer by the Aspen Institute and as the top strategy professor under 40 by the Strategic Management Society. In 2011, he was named one of the top 40 business professors under 40 by Poets & Quants.