Funding Opportunities | Center for Sustainable Business

The Center for Sustainable Business has funding available for research. If you are interested, consider sending us a proposal for research

Decarbonizing Middle America: the wicked problems impeding the just transition to clean and circular economies

What are the wicked problems impeding the just transition to clean and circular economies, and how do we manage the use of critical materials that will be integral to this transition without creating the next oil?

Potential research topics include, but are not limited to:

How to accelerate the pace of technology adoption and innovation needed to transition to a decarbonized world by 2050?
How do we make sure people aren’t being left behind in this transition? Cost of energy perspective, jobs perspective, etc.
How do we manage the use of critical resource materials that will be integral to this transition?
How to align investment policies more closely with companies’ stated goals?
How to improve the grid to allow for better integration of renewables?
How policy (particularly net metering) can support the move to renewables?

Workforce 100%: turning rhetoric into action for workforces 100% representative of their communities

Turning rhetoric into action for workforces 100% representative of their communities. What are the barriers to companies achieving decent work for all across their value chain, and how we overcome them?

Potential research topics include but are not limited to:

Workforce development is particularly important in the energy sector, where we risk leaving fossil-specialized communities behind if we don’t think about how to help them integrate into the energy transition:

How can we bring down GHG emissions in a way that doesn’t leave fossil-specialized communities behind? And how can we build on their existing skill sets to make the transition into clean tech easier?
Given that the energy industry has been struggling to operate under lockdown conditions, how can we build more resilient energy systems as we also transition to cleaner energy technologies?

Much like the overall ESG space, there is still progress to be made on ESG metrics about “thriving work,” as what is important varies across businesses and organizations, and consumers also need information:

How can we better inform consumers so that they can make informed decisions about their product purchases and ensure they aren’t coming from slave labor?
How can we better capture the needs of workers? Are we listening to people enough and giving them the right environment to voice their opinion?
How do you find a common definition for “thriving work” when it varies so widely from person to person and also across cultures?
What sort of metrics can we include that are broadly applicable across all industries?

Beyond simply offering “thriving work” and opportunities for workers, what is it that workers are looking for now and what exactly is driving current labor shortages?

Companies are raising their benefits and offering perks to workers to join their team, but this doesn’t seem to be working in filling job gaps—what is it that people are actually looking for? What is the labor shortage really about? Do we provide the right conditions for employees to be treated fairly and with dignity? Is it about wages, or is it about comparison between industries (for example, restaurant/food service workers feel they’re in the wrong spot in the “totem pole”)?
How can we give leaders and managers more agency to take better care of their workers?

ESG Rosetta Stone: raising sustainable business literacy across functions, levels, and industries

Raising sustainable business literacy across functions, levels, and industries. What does company disclosure look like for translating climate risk into resource allocation for business planning?

Potential research topics include, but are not limited to:

How do you communicate sustainability to employees and build ownership?
How do you communicate your sustainability journey externally to customers?
How do you measure and disclose the value of the risks you're disclosing?
How do companies show the climate risk that translates into resource allocation for resilience planning?
Which outcome metrics should companies disclose to maximize ROI? Forward vs historic, Ratings volatility across Raters, etc.

Examples of Research Projects Supported by the CSB

Building Democratic Systems for Startups

With Center for Sustainable Business support, Trevor Young-Hyman, Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Sociology in the Katz School of Business at the University of Pittsburgh, has undertaken a new research project on the formation of democratic business organizations in the entrepreneurship space. See below for a more in-depth description of this forthcoming working paper.

Worker cooperatives, credit unions, grocery cooperatives, professional partnerships, and utility cooperatives are all examples of democratically governed organizations, where members hold formal power to either govern directly or elect representatives to a governing body. Democratic organizations have been suggested as a means to formalize socially responsible business, through a governance structure that provides representation to community and worker stakeholders.

Democratic firms have demonstrated a number of socially beneficial outcomes: expanding access to market opportunities for marginalized groups, reducing poverty, reducing internal wage disparity, increasing employment stability, and prioritizing environmental sustainability. However, a key question concerns their creation and emergence: we have little understanding of the relationship between democratic organization and entrepreneurship. While some have characterized entrepreneurial firms as inherently less hierarchical, the demands for strong leadership and rapid decision-making in entrepreneurial firms may hinder democratic organization.

In this project, we explore this question through a longitudinal ethnographic study of a nascent democratic organization in Pittsburgh. We negotiated permission to collect audio and video recordings of meetings, interview workers, observe the day-to-day life of the organization, access archival documents, and scrape chat data from their online platform. We collected data between 2018, when the worker cooperative was established and was completed in 2020.

We will use an inductive coding process to develop a theory around the ways that democratic organization and entrepreneurial demands interact, how they reinforce each other, how they conflict, and how these conflicts can be resolved.

Discover more of our Working Paper Series

Post Doc Research Fellow

Seeking a Research Fellow

The University of Pittsburgh (Pittsburgh, PA) School of Business and Prof. CB Bhattacharya, the H.J. Zoffer Chair in Sustainability and Ethics is seeking a research fellow based in Pittsburgh to serve as a key member of his research team.

Description

The fellowship, funded by the Zoffer Chair via a grant from the Berg Foundation, is a two-year appointment that is renewable based on the candidate’s performance. The overarching goal of this position is to advance the understanding of sustainability and corporate responsibility in transforming business models within complex organizational environments. Expected start date is June 2022.

In addition to joining ongoing research activities examining sustainability and corporate responsibility, ethics and leadership, the Fellow will assist with the development of new research efforts, pedagogic material, and coordinate workshops. Prof. Bhattacharya founded the Center for Sustainable Business in October 2019, which has received more than $1 million in funding, and the Fellow will have many opportunities to work with the Center and the several companies (e.g., Accenture, Dick’s Sporting Goods, IBM, etc.) that support it.

Qualifications

The candidate should preferably have finished their Ph.D. or in exceptional cases, completed their doctoral defense. The candidate’s doctorate can be in any relevant field with strong preference given to degrees in business management followed by the social sciences (sociology, psychology, political science, anthropology). Experience in and knowledge of sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and theories of ethics and leadership in business are required. As well, knowledge of research methods and sophisticated statistical techniques is a must. Emphasis is on the ability of the Fellow to collect and analyze data and create publication-ready manuscripts for key academic outlets. Candidates must have some experience in publishing and other research-related activities. Expected start date is June 2022. Salary range is $50,000 to $65,000 (depending on qualifications) plus full University of Pittsburgh benefits for the duration of employment.

The ideal candidate will help with all activities pertaining to publishing books and articles – e.g., literature reviews, popular press and sustainability report searches, data collection, data analysis, etc. I will also need help in preparing presentations, teaching material, grading, academic reviews and other activities germane to academic life. Overall, this is an ideal learning opportunity where the candidate will not only gain training and exposure to an exciting and increasingly important research field but also learn more about the joys and challenges of thriving in an academic environment.

Application Procedures

Review of applications will begin immediately and continue until position filled or search closed. To be considered for this position, please submit a current curriculum vitae, statement of research interests, a writing sample, and contact information for three references to postdocsearch@katz.pitt.edu with Subject “Bhattacharya Research Fellow”.

The University of Pittsburgh is an Affirmative Action/Equal Opportunity Employer and values equality of opportunity, human dignity, and diversity. EOE, including disability/vets.

Download the job description as a PDF

Other Pitt Funding Opportunities to Support Academic Research in Sustainable Business

Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation: Annually, the Mascaro Center for Sustainable Innovation (MCSI) at the University of Pittsburgh requests faculty grant proposals for interdisciplinary sustainability education and research initiatives. Find out more information and apply
Office of Sustainability: A multitude of sustainability-focused and related funding opportunities exist across the University of Pittsburgh, see the full round-up at Pitt Sustainability

Please contact us with any questions and/or proposals.