University at Buffalo School of Management

New York Sustainable Business Roundtable, a collaborative of organizations working to integrate sustainability to benefit the triple bottom line: people, planet and profit. "By choosing a more sustainable option, your employees will be happier, it benefits your customers, and therefore you bring in more business—how can you say no to that?" Lately, Vedantam says, regulatory action has focused on extended producer responsibility (EPR), which makes manu- facturers pay for the eventual disposal of their products. For example, a 2018 New York State law created a pharmaceutical industry-funded drug take-back program to protect water- ways and public health. Three states have passed EPR laws on plastic packaging, and New York is considering becoming the fourth. "Historically, companies had no regulatory reasons to worry about the plastics in their products," Vedantam says. "But now companies like Coca-Cola and Pepsi are looking at biodegradable plastics to try to preempt these regulations and mitigate their environmental impact." Investing in the future Perhaps the biggest driver behind corporate America's push into sustainability is investors. As director of strategy and marketing for CleanCapital, Carly Battin, MBA '09, knows that better than most. A clean energy investment platform, CleanCapital helps investors accelerate the flow of capital into the solar and energy storage markets. Aer just six years in operation, the New York City-based company is approaching $1 billion in acquisitions and owns 300 solar projects across the U.S. (including the Steel Solar site in Lackawanna, New York, that supplies green power to UB). "There are certainly strong moral and ethical arguments for sustainability, but more than that, it's what investors are demanding," Battin says. "If you try to raise money now, one of the top questions investors will ask is, 'Have you done your ESG screening?' Sustainability is very much a part of the conversation." With that screening, investors hope to avoid major scan- dals that tarnish a brand's reputation, Alexandra McPherson says, pointing to Johnson & Johnson, which lost billions in liti- gation that alleged its baby powder contained asbestos and caused ovarian cancer. "The world's investment houses are looking at these problems in their due diligence," she says. "They understand that companies aligned around ESG best practices perform better financially, and they see the costs when companies don't react to concerns around consumer safety, climate change, environmental racism, and diversity, equity and inclusion." On the flip side, investors also recognize the opportunity that sustainability presents, giving rise to countless startups and even new industries. CleanCapital and the renewable 12 Buffalo Business Autumn 2022 Climate action at UB — by the numbers With its updated climate action plan, UB aims to reach net-zero carbon emissions by 2030—and it's going to take all of us in the School of Management and across the university to get there. Here are a few recent highlights in UB's quest to achieve that goal. In its latest impact rankings, Times Higher Education ranked UB No. 1 out of 1,101 universities worldwide for good health and well-being—a key component of the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. On the same ranking, UB was No. 2 for climate action out of all U.S. schools. Since April 2021, UB's Food Recovery Network—founded by JD/MBA student Matthew Taboni, pictured above— has recovered 5,000 pounds of food from UB dining halls and redistributed it to a local food pantry. Aditya Vedantam, assistant professor, is a partner in the New York State Center for Plastic Recycling Research and Innovation at UB, established with a $4.5 million state grant last spring. Every year, UB uses nearly 225 million kilowatt hours of solar and wind power, ranking fifth nationally in the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Green Power Partnership ratings. 5,000 POUNDS $ 4.5 million # 2 # 1 225 million Photo: Meredith Forrest Kulwicki

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