Professor Toffel is the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management. His research examines how companies are addressing climate change (especially decarbonization) and other environmental and working condition issues in their operations and supply chains. He co-founded and hosts the , which covers a range of business and climate change topics, and co-created the microsite to summarize evidence-based academic research on that topic.
He serves as the Faculty Chair of the , is a co-Principle Investigator of the of the Digitial, Data, and Design (D3) Institute at Harvard, co-chairs , leads the Climate Change Deep Dive for the Advanced Leadership Initiative (ALI) program, serves on the Harvard Committee on Climate Education, and teaches the HBS Technology & Operations Management core MBA course.
His work ranges from academic articles based on econometric analyses of large datasets to case studies of individual companies. His research on occupational health and safety has been profiled and featured in the national press including and . His research has been published in many top scholarly journals including Science, Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Organization Science, in practitioners journals including Sloan Management Review and California Management Review, and in mainstream outlets including The Atlantic Monthly and Newsweek/Daily Beast. Prof. Toffel is co-editing the , and recently co-edited the .
He serves as an Associate Editor at MSOM, and is on the editorial boards of Strategic Management Journal and Organization Science. He is on the Working Board of the Responsible Research for Business and Management () network and a co-founder and steering committee member of the Alliance for Research on Corporate Sustainability (), which organize leading annual academic conferences to foster high-quality research on practically relevant (RRBM) and corporate sustainability topics (ARCS).
His co-authors include , , , , , Kira Fabrizio, , Andrea Hugill, , Chonnikarn (Fern) Jira, , , , , , , Melissa Ouellet, , , , , , , , , and .
He recommends the , , , , and to keep up on corporate environmental news, and to track corporate lobbying
Toffel has organized several conferences, including on at HBS (2020), in Washington DC (2015), at HBS (2010), at the National Press Club in Washington DC (2009), HBS (2008), and at HBS (2007).
Professor Toffel received a Ph.D. from the Haas School of Business' department at the University of California at Berkeley, an MBA from the Yale School of Management, a Master’s in Environmental Management () from the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies, and a BA in Government from Lehigh University. He has worked as the Director of Environment, Health and Safety at the , based in Singapore. He has also worked as an environmental management consultant for Arthur Andersen, Arthur D. Little, and . He started his career as an operations management analyst at J.P. Morgan.
Professor Toffel is a Town Meeting Member for the Town of Brookline.