Costello Research Sustainable Operations

Costello Research Risk Management

Accounting Faculty Research

Research

How large is the U.S. “green economy”?

Marianne Klinker — Wed, 10 May 2023 14:45:01 +0000

How large is the U.S. “green economy”? Marianne Klinker Wed, 05/10/2023 - 10:45

A �鶹��Ƶ professor is the sole academic working with the U.S. government in an unprecedented effort to measure environmental-economic activity.

One way to gauge a country’s attention to the environment may be measuring how much of its economy is devoted to protecting, rehabilitating, and preserving the natural environment. While the U.S. has made prior attempts at tracking “green jobs” and “green goods and services,” the U.S. government does not currently account for this sector.

Kelly Wentland

Kelly Wentland, an assistant professor of accounting at �鶹��Ƶ School of Business, is helping to fill this data gap. She is the sole academic working with the U.S. Department of Commerce’s Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) to develop a pilot account tracking the environmental, goods and services (EGSS) sector of the U.S. economy. (The UN defines ESGG as “compris[ing]…the economic activities that result in products for environmental protection and resource management”.)

Wentland and the BEA team have produced a pilot EGSS account, along with preliminary results that formed the basis of a recent working paper, presented at the March 2023 NBER-CRIW conference.

“What we’re doing is, we’re developing a national account based on the supply side of our economy,” Wentland explains.

Ninety countries have introduced their own environmental-economic accounts based on frameworks from the UN Statistical Commission. The challenge for Wentland and the BEA team was to design their pilot account so that it would be comparable to those of other countries while aligning with established approaches from the U.S. federal government. This involved making a huge number of close comparisons between European and American product and industry classification standards to identify shared data points that mapped to UN guidelines.

After carefully selecting for relevant economic activity during the years 2015 and 2019, the team used the BEA’s supply-use tables–extremely detailed compilations of economic inputs and outputs for more than 5,300 product categories–to build their estimates.

So far, the reaction to Wentland’s work from government-affiliated economists has been markedly positive.

They found that EGSS accounted for $620.6 billion in 2015, and $724.5 billion in 2019. The top four categories were responsible for about 70 percent of the total. These were: waste management (far and away the top category, comprising one-quarter of the entire sector), management of water, wastewater management and protection of biodiversity and landscapes. This roughly matches up with equivalent studies in the EU, which also have waste management as the largest environmental-economic category, with 26-27 percent of the total.

Wentland and her collaborators also divided EGSS activity into private- and public-sector output. In 2015, the government portion of environmental output stood at 28.3 percent, and the private-sector contribution at 71.7 percent. By 2019, the balance had shifted slightly, with 27.2 percent attributed to government spending, and 72.8 percent to commerce.

Wentland stresses that the account is very much a work in progress. “It’s very important to point out that it is not an official BEA national account. It is purely a pilot effort to see how far we can get with the data the U.S. already has.” Part of the purpose of the pilot is to identify gaps in the current data available as future avenues to improve estimates. Environmental research and development (R&D) is one potentially significant area where data were inaccessible.

“A lot of companies are putting out sustainability reports, but when you get down to what percentage of them actually include an annual dollar value attached to their activity, it’s very low,” Wentland says. She notes that the SEC’s proposals for mandated environmental reporting–which may be scaled down amid strong corporate pushback–could help fill this void. “The alternative is likely adding questions to other lengthy surveys the BEA collects from these companies.”

So far, the reaction to Wentland’s work from government-affiliated economists has been markedly positive. “The main critique had to do with the international guidelines for product classifications themselves, rather than our methodology,” Wentland reports.

As of this writing, further development of the EGSS pilot account hinges upon the progress of President Biden’s budget for 2024. “It’s formally listed in the budget that they have an increase allocated to this as part of the increase in the BEA’s budget. Obviously, we’ll have to see how things pan out in terms of whether the budget moves forward.”

As Wentland sees it, calculating the dollars and cents that go into the “green economy” would enable granular, impact-focused policy debate on climate issues. “You could think about research or policy that wants to say, ‘When we spend more on EGSS, do we see emissions change or which types of investment have more impact than others?’ You have to be able to measure both the effort and the outcome, in order to be able to say something about its effectiveness.”

Topics

Accounting - Costello

ESG - Costello

Costello Research Government Accounting

Accounting Faculty Research

Research

Institute for a Sustainable Earth (ISE)

More School of Business Faculty Research

Are there upsides to “overboarding”?
July 14, 2025
“Doing well by doing good”? There’s a framework for that
July 2, 2025
In the workplace, relationships equal reality
May 28, 2025
Why it doesn’t—and shouldn’t—always pay to be a super-successful CEO
May 7, 2025
Study: Left-handed CEOs are more innovative
April 29, 2025

In This Story

Kelly Wentland

When Value Is in the Service, Not the Ownership

Marianne Klinker — Tue, 16 Nov 2021 20:39:30 +0000

When Value Is in the Service, Not the Ownership Marianne Klinker Tue, 11/16/2021 - 15:39

In This Story

Ioannis Bellos

It’s a cliché, but the car has shaped American history and culture since its invention. Even the American landscape evolved around the rise of the private car—train lines were abandoned as railroad tracks were pulled up in favor of highways; gas stations and motels sprang up in otherwise desolate places; and cities scrambled to design systems for getting millions of cars in and out efficiently. We could ask which came first, the car or the cultural identity related to the freedom cars provide, but, once again, the relationship Americans have with cars is changing. We still want to get from point A to point B with the speed, efficiency, and privacy cars offer, but the urge to own them privately is waning.

Ioannis Bellos

Ioannis Bellos, associate professor of information systems and operations management, began researching service design as a PhD student at Georgia Tech. When talking about his research, he quotes advertising icon Leo McGinneva who famously said, “People don’t want quarter-inch bits, they want quarter-inch holes.” That is, the customer wants what the product can do, not necessarily the product itself. Bellos was drawn to researching businesses that don’t link customer value to product ownership. Car sharing, offered through services like Car2Go, Getaround, and Zip Car, is a perfect example. “In the context of mobility, getting from point A to point B is what matters, not owning the vehicle,” says Bellos.

American car manufacturers are scrambling to reinvent themselves in many ways, from developing electric cars to driverless ones, but Bellos points out an interesting effect of car sharing: The car manufacturers are in on it and are trying to figure out the best way of not selling cars. He notes that many car-sharing companies are actually owned by manufacturers.

“Car makers, especially high-end ones, saw an opportunity for market expansion,” Bellos says. “They can reach out to more customers by providing a way to use the cars without owning them.” Car sharing offers ease of transport with the privacy of a personal car but without the headache of upkeep—giving the customer that quarter-inch hole while bypassing owning the drill altogether.

Topics

Costello Research Business Model Innovation

Costello Research Strategic Management

Costello Research Innovation Strategy

ISOM Faculty Research

School of Business Faculty Niki Vlastara Says Changing Consumer Behavior is the way to Ensure a Sustainable Future

Marianne Klinker — Tue, 24 Aug 2021 20:06:19 +0000

School of Business Faculty Niki Vlastara Says Changing Consumer Behavior is the way to Ensure a Sustainable Future Marianne Klinker Tue, 08/24/2021 - 16:06

In This Story

Mariniki (Niki) Vlastara

Years spent engaging with consumers in the business world made Niki Vlastara realize that how sustainability concepts and proposals were marketed significantly influenced how successful they became. As she worked her way into academia and eventually to the �鶹��Ƶ School of Business it’s been her focus to study how to best engage and convince both customers and corporations to act with people, planet, and prosperity in mind.

Niki Vlastara

Vlastara, an assistant professor in the Marketing Department, joined the School of Business in 2019. Her research interests focus on consumer behavior, consumer ethics and sustainable development— making her a perfect member of the Business for a Better World Center (B4BW) Affiliate Faculty team. Before entering academia, she held different executive positions in marketing and revenue planning in the leisure industry and served as a consultant in business development for startup ventures, developing their marketing strategy and communications plans.

Recently, we had the opportunity to catch-up with Vlastara to learn more about her journey to the business for good space, and how his research contributes to the cause.

What motivated you to start working in the sustainability space?

Before transitioning into academia, I spent a number of years in business—particularly in executive positions. In those roles, I was involved in streamlining and introducing sustainability into our operations and marketing department in order to minimize costs and waste. Years later, after I had started my PhD, I realized that change is most possible and achievable when all stakeholders are involved. Moreover, I came to understand that people must be convinced of the benefits a new or different approach will bring—such as acting in a sustainable way—before they will change their behavior. That is the main reason my research, both then and through today, is focused on consumer behavior, and, in particular, examines the intersection of the ethics of consumption and sustainability. I believe understanding what motivates changes in customer behavior may lead us to identifying more effective ways to communicate both the urgency, and the benefits of sustainable behavior. Ideally this will result in a more sustainable and equitable future for all.

What can you tell us about your ongoing research?

The United Nations World Commission defines development as sustainable if it meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs. I am very motivated to contribute to efforts that will help ensure that kind of development increases. Consequently, my research pays close attention to the messages consumers and corporations alike receive on that issue. Trying to define what affects the future is in itself difficult, and I have been trying to determine how to characterize, outline, and describe a future with increased risk due to climate change, and how that to make the message understandable, relevant, and pressing enough to motivate change in consumer behavior.

But you’re doing more than just research, can you describe some of your other activities?

I am part of the Centre for Research into Sustainability, which is a group of academic researchers in accounting, finance, marketing, management, and operations management that work on sustainability issues. In addition to my affiliation with B4BW, while at �鶹��Ƶ I also joined the Institute of Sustainable Earth because I believe that sharing and cooperating through disciplines can provide a wealth of original ideas and courses of action to achieve our goals. In that same vein, my being part of the Gender and Consumer Behavior group of academic researchers has provided me with a more inclusive and diverse way to approach certain subjects and problems in business.

Before coming to �鶹��Ƶ, I was on board of the Miami Chapter of U.N. Association where I helped promote the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals to the local community, corporations and education centers.

Niki, thank you so much for your work in this field and your commitment to B4BW. What could we be doing to support you and your colleagues’ research and other efforts?

I believe that B4BW is offering tremendous value serving as a platform for discussions, the exchange of ideas, and most importantly by spearheading ways for action. Looking to the future, the development of a minor based on the principles espoused by B4BW would help ensure our students and faculty truly think about these issues differently, and help create a better world indeed.

Topics

Costello Research Digital Platforms

Costello Research Business Model Innovation

Business for a Better World Affiliate Faculty in the News

Business for a Better World Center News

SBUS Marketing Department