A climate of collaboration
It’s called DOCSE for short, and it’s devoted to sustainable enterprise.
Concordia’s David O’Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise (DOCSE) is a research centre in the John Molson School of Business which develops sustainable practices through academic research, student education, training and professional development, programs and community outreach.
Named after benefactor David P. O’Brien, chairman of the board at the Royal Bank of Canada and Encana, DOCSE was inaugurated in November 2009. Since then, it has striven to be a leader in developing business practices that support corporate social responsibility, environmental health and safety, environmental management, community and greening activities.
Here, DOCSE researchers describe their projects:
Emerging Environmental Risks in Agricultural Supply Chains and Their Effect on Commodity and Stock Prices
Principal investigator: Thomas Walker, director of DOCSE, with Stéfanie Kibsey, DOCSE program coordinator.
What's the goal of your project?
Our goal is to explore how climate change-driven emerging risks affect the price and volatility of agricultural commodities as well as the stock price and accounting performance of the producers and users of the commodities (for example, food processors and retailers).
Natural disasters have been known to significantly and negatively affect industries, including the agricultural sector. Climate change can increase the likelihood of some natural disasters, and agricultural supply chains may be especially vulnerable to natural disasters that affect the availability of water. The associated risks are often referred to as emerging environmental risks.
Our research focuses on the agricultural commodity sector and the firms that use these commodities in their production process. We are interested in finding out whether sustainable agricultural supply chain management practices make firms resilient to commodity price shocks.
What's the most challenging aspect of your research?
The most interesting aspect of our research topic is the inherent complexity of both environmental risks and agricultural supply chains. Our research requires that we identify a variety of natural disasters affecting different points along the supply chain, and connect them with commodity price changes.
There are many types of natural disasters that affect water availability. Some disasters, such as droughts, can occur slowly over a long period of time, while other disasters, such as hurricanes, are relatively quick events. At the same time, supply chains can be large and complex. Putting all of these factors together can be quite challenging.
Tell us why your project is a good fit with DOCSE.
This project fits well within DOCSE’s mission to develop sustainable practices, in this case managing emerging environmental risks and sustainable supply chains. DOCSE and its associated faculty and students are leaders in this kind of research, making DOCSE the ideal environment for this project.
From Sharing to Exchange: An Extended Framework of Dual Modes of Collaborative Nonownership Consumption
Co-investigators: Andrea Kim, PhD candidate and staff researcher at DOCSE, Michel Laroche, Royal Bank Distinguished Professor in the Department of Marketing and JMSB alumnus Mohammad Reza Habibi (PhD, 15). Their findings were published this month in the Journal of the Association for Consumer Research. Kim speaks on behalf of the project’s three co-investigators.
What’s the goal of your project?
Andrea Kim: Reducing the impact of human activities on carbon emissions involves both the production and consumption sides. Our research investigates ways to reduce consumption through new business models.
Businesses in the sharing economy offer a lot of promise in this realm because they give an opportunity to increase the use and value of existing goods. Also, by sharing underutilized assets with others, they might also help lower the consumption of new goods.
The term “sharing economy” has become quite trendy in the media. We hear a lot about the success of many of these well-known first movers in this area, such as Airbnb and Uber. From a sustainability angle, if the associated business models are to have an impact on the environment, they should also be based on principles of true sharing. The goal of our research is to investigate whether businesses in the sharing economy are, in fact, about sharing.
What's the most challenging aspect of your research?
AK: In general, a challenging aspect of research in alternative and emerging business models such as those in the sharing economy is the rate at which many of these businesses are changing. On the one hand, research on emerging businesses is timely and addresses topics that are exciting. On the other hand, pursuing research in fast-moving industries also means frequent and rapid changes, making it difficult for scholarly research cycles to keep up to date with the changes.
Tell us why your project is a good fit with DOCSE.
AK: DOCSE helps with my research by providing an environment to collaborate with talented and supportive scholars in the field of sustainability. Many of our staff researchers come from different disciplinary lenses that help me think about my research from different angles. DOCSE also engages with industry, which is especially valuable for scholars in business research. The centre provides me with opportunities to encounter people from different for- and non-profit organizations which help keep my research grounded in reality.
The Impact of Natural Disasters on the Stability of the Financial System
Principal investigator: Mohammad Bitar, postdoctoral fellow, DOCSE
What is the goal of your project?
Mohammad Bitar: The project aims to develop detailed policy recommendations for the optimal design of banking regulation and supervision — such as the Basel III Accord, a comprehensive set of reform measures developed by the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision, to strengthen the regulation, supervision and risk of the banking sector — in light of natural disasters, including the growing threat of climate change-related disasters.
Climate change and the associated increase in the number of natural disasters in the last 20 years have shown that environmental risks are at least as important to financial system growth and stability as the avoidance of financial crises. For example, Hurricane Katrina, which hit New Orleans, Louisiana in August of 2005, is considered to be the costliest natural disaster in United States history. Property damage was estimated at $81 billion and insurance losses at $40.6 billion.
In 2011, Tōhoku, Japan was struck by a major earthquake and tsunami, which not only caused a nuclear crisis, but also severely affected the country’s economy, according to a report by the Congressional Research Service. These disasters had substantial financial ramifications for insurance firms and banks. Thus, such disasters should also be considered in the regulatory frameworks being developed for our financial system.
What's the most challenging aspect of your research?
MB: The most important aspect in this research is to convince regulators and policy-makers around the globe that natural disasters due to climate change are as relevant as the financial costs related to financial crises. We aim to provide empirical evidence that natural disasters matter for the banking and insurance industry and that their occurrence can harm economic growth and potentially put the world economy in a long period of recession.
The Basel III Accord does not address many of the most pressing issues that are increasingly discusses at financial conferences and in the academic literature. The rapidly emerging issues in need of consideration include ethics and moral behaviour in banking and, most importantly, the role of sustainability and addressing environmental risks — such as climate change-related disasters — in banking activities and financial reform.
Tell us how DOCSE helps.
MB: DOCSE not only provides a strong academic platform and training to students (undergraduate, MSc, MBA, PhD, etc.), but it also works on developing unique research databases to help researchers and practitioners quantify and measure environmental risks and existent regulatory frameworks that govern the stability and performance of the financial system.
Interested in submitting a proposal? Learn more about DOCSE's project eligibility and funding opportunities.
