UVA Darden Hosts Annual Conference on Corporate Sustainability

The University of Virginia Darden School of Business will welcome more than 100 leading academic thinkers beginning today as it hosts the annual conference of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (ARCS).

The event, now in its 15th year, brings together a wide variety of scholars and industry experts to discuss new research on corporate sustainability. Darden was a founding member of the organization, which now includes more than 25 top global business schools, and the inaugural host of the event.

Professor Mike Lenox

“The conversations and research around corporate sustainability have changed dramatically since the founding of the Alliance in 2009,” said Darden Professor Mike Lenox, a member of the founding ARCS team and president emeritus of the organization. “This year’s conference features leading scholars and practitioners shedding light on a diverse array of important topics including ESG scoring, U.S. technology policy, and corporate political activism.”

Held at UVA Darden DC Metro, the conference opens with a Ph.D. student workshop for emerging scholarship.

Professor Toni Irving

Subsequent days will feature sessions devoted to a range of new papers on topics such as the effect of pollution on corporate philanthropy, unpacking corporate decarbonization strategies, the economic impact of ESG ratings, managing conflicting stakeholders amid industry disruption, and many others.

In total, participants will discuss nearly 40 new pieces of research, with sessions chaired by several Darden professors, including Lenox, Dennie Kim, Toni Irving, Vidya Mani, Dwai Roy, Mary Margaret Frank, Young Hou and Carolyn Miles.

Duke Energy’s Katherine Neebe (MBA ’04)

A plenary conversation on the challenges faced by chief sustainability officers features Lenox with Duke Energy’s Katherine Neebe (MBA ’04) and Tina Jeffress of Panasonic. Additionally, Professor Ed Freeman is the featured speaker in a plenary discussion entitled “Toward a Global Stakeholder Capitalism.”

Panasonic’s Tina Jeffress

In 2022, Darden launched its own sustainability goals, committing to action in internal operations while keeping sustainability at the center of the Darden curriculum and forming a new sustainability council.

In February, Financial Times named Darden the No. 1 business school worldwide in the category of Carbon Footprint.

Learn more about the ARCS Annual Research Conference