“My work explores how organizations transform to create value today while building a sustainable future for generations to come.”
spotlight
Stairway to impact or highway to failure?
Sustainable new ventures aiming to address grand challenges like climate change or biodiversity loss must balance social and ecological goals with profit. How do their business models evolve over time to manage these tensions?
reports
Sustainability Transformation Monitor (2025)
The Sustainability Transformation Monitor (STM) is Germany’s largest long-term study surveying companies, banks, and investors about the sustainability transformation and its financing. It provides insights into how sustainability is embedded in corporate strategies and financial systems. It tracks progress in decarbonization, ESG reporting, and sustainable finance across industries. The STM serves as a key reference for understanding how the German economy is moving toward a climate-neutral and competitive future.
Sustainability People Report (2025)
The Sustainability People Report explores how sustainability professionals in Germany are shaping the transformation toward a more sustainable economy. Based on a large-scale survey, it analyzes job market trends in terms of the profiles, salaries, motivations, and career paths of individuals working in sustainability roles across companies. It provides a unique insight into the people driving the sustainability transition.
From Climate Attitudes to Action (2025)
The study explores why widespread awareness of climate change has not yet translated into sufficient behavioral change. We surveyed over 22,000 people across 21 countries to examine differences between what individuals say about climate action and what they actually do. The report identifies persistent climate scepticism, regional disparities in pro-environmental behavior, and key barriers such as cost and lack of information. It offers actionable insights for policymakers and businesses to close the global “say–do gap” and encourage meaningful climate action.
academic paper
Activating the sustainable consumer: the role of customer involvement in corporate sustainability (2025)
Tackling grand challenges and making sustainable development a reality through sustainable consumption crucially depends upon both companies’ activities as well as individuals’ consumption choices. In opinion polls, many consumers claim to favor sustainable products over conventional ones. However, a large gap remains between their stated purchasing intentions and actual decisions, posing a challenge for companies in predicting product demand and strategically managing their product portfolios. In this study, we develop a conceptual framework to demonstrate how companies can encourage sustainable consumption behavior among their customers by involving them in their corporate sustainability activities.
Talk, but don’t talk too much: how corporate sustainability communication evokes stepwise organizational change (2025)
Many companies communicate about their corporate sustainability (CS) activities to demonstrate conformity with stakeholder expectations. This communication is known as CS talk. While the common notion views CS talk as a retrospective description of CS activities, some studies have adopted a formative view of CS talk, acknowledging its potential to trigger CS-related organizational change, i.e., CS walk. Building on this view, we develop a novel conceptual framework describing the link between CS talk and walk. We propose that while CS talk stimulates future CS walk, too much talk can inhibit companies from aligning their words with actions, leading to an inverted U-shaped relationship between CS talk and walk. Moreover, we suggest that the extent to which external stakeholders monitor a company amplifies the inverted U-shape effect. Beyond that, we assert that the performative impact of CS talk on walk gradually unfolds within companies by initially triggering symbolic CS walk, which subsequently translates into substantive CS walk.
Stairway to impact or highway to failure? A cognitive perspective on business model design processes in nascent sustainable ventures (2025)
Sustainable new ventures seeking to tackle grand challenges such as climate change or biodiversity loss through new business models face the difficult task of reconciling social and ecological goals with profit. To provide a better understanding of how founders balance such tensions and develop viable business models, this longitudinal case study traces the evolution of business models in six nascent sustainable ventures. We find that depending on the founding team's cognitive configuration (i.e., narrow vs. paradoxical), sustainable new ventures develop business models along two alternative paths. Reflecting different approaches to business model design in terms of what is done, how it is done, and when it is done, these trajectories explain why some ventures survive beyond the proof-of-concept phase while others do not.
articles
How the Real Economy and Banks Can Work Better Together (german only, HAUFE, 2025)
Sustainability Risks in the Risk Management of German Banks: An Empirical Before-and-After Analysis 2023–2024 (german only, CORPORATE FINANCE, 2025)
Becoming More Sustainable with A/B Testing (german only, HAUFE, 2024)
podcasts
Season finale: Status quo of sustainable transformation with Dr. Manuel Reppmann from the University of Hamburg (2024)
How CSRD-ready are you, dear companies? This is one of the many research questions that Dr. Manuel Reppmann asked hundreds of companies in this year’s Sustainability Transformation Monitor. Manuel, a researcher at the University of Hamburg, focuses on sustainable business and transformation processes. In this episode, he takes stock: How far has the transformation of the German economy progressed? Where do we stand? What are the main drivers and obstacles? These are the key questions of the first part of the episode. In the second part, hosts Carolin Achilles and Florian Dietsche ask for practical recommendations — and Manuel delivers. Tune in to find out how your company compares to others, what next steps you can take, and how prepared German companies really are for the CSRD.
What Sustainability Managers Really Need (2024)
How satisfied are your sustainability managers — really? Spoiler: It’s not always about the salary. Recent surveys show that 65% of sustainability professionals see stagnation as the biggest challenge in their jobs. In our latest podcast episode, we dive into the everyday challenges of sustainability managers. Together with Dr. Manuel Reppmann, researcher at the University of Hamburg, and Alexander Krämer, co-founder of The Sustainability People Company, Henrik discusses what drives dissatisfaction in this field and how companies can better support their sustainability teams to achieve lasting impact. This episode is a must-listen for executives, HR professionals, and anyone serious about sustainable business leadership!
about
Dr. Manuel Reppmann is a postdoctoral researcher at the Professorship for Sustainable Business at the University of Hamburg, where he explores topics related to the sustainability transformation of companies. He completed his PhD at the University of Mannheim in 2022. His research focuses on stakeholder engagement as well as sustainability reporting and communication.
Many of his current and past research projects are characterized by close collaboration with companies and international research teams. Corporate partners have included the OTTO Group, Ernsting's family, Deutsche Telekom, and TSG Hoffenheim. He has conducted research stays at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the University of Oxford, and HEC Montréal. His research has been published in globally leading journals that are among the top 50 in the Financial Times Research Rankings. He received the Scientific Award from the EHI Foundation and GS1 Germany in the category of “Best Research Project.”
As the scientific director of the Sustainability Transformation Monitor study, Manuel Reppmann also conducts Germany's largest long-term study on sustainability in companies in the real economy and financial sector, supported by more than 30 associations and initiatives. He shares his knowledge as a trainer through customized company programs, including for ING Germany and Mast Jägermeister in 2023–2025, and as a lecturer for MBA programs at institutions such as Mannheim Business School.
Academic Education
09-12.2025 Sloan School of Management, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (US)
09.2024 Saïd Business School, University of Oxford (UK)
03.2024 HEC Montréal (Canada)
2023-today University of Hamburg (Germany)
2019-2023 University of Mannheim (Germany)
2016-2019 University of Muenster (Germany)
Talks & Keynotes
06/2025 – Federal Association of German Cooperative Banks (Bundesverband der Deutschen Volksbanken und Raiffeisenbanken, BVR) (digital)
06/2025 – Sustainable Finance Cluster & econsense (in person, Frankfurt)
05/2025 – Academic Roundtable, Ministry of Finance of Baden-Württemberg (in person)
05/2025 – DigitalMesse 360°, Genoverband (live broadcast, in person, Forsbach)
03/2025 – Annual Meeting of the German Association for Financial Analysis and Asset Management (Deutsche Vereinigung für Finanzanalyse und Asset Management, DVFA) (in person, Frankfurt)
03/2025 – German Savings Banks Association (Deutscher Sparkassen- und Giroverband, DSGV) (live broadcast, in person, Berlin)
01/2025 – Steering Meeting, KfW Group Sustainability (digital)
11/2024 – Corporate Engagement Summit (Zukunftstag Unternehmensengagement) Haus des Stiftens (in person, Munich)
09/2024 – Rethinking Performance Initiative, University of Oxford (in person, Oxford)
05/2024 – Institute for Accounting and Controlling, University of St. Gallen (in person, St. Gallen)
04/2024 – Roundtable (Parlamentarischer Abend) at the German Bundestag (in person, Berlin)
03/2024 – Marketing Research Department, HEC Montréal (in person, Montréal)
02/2024 – New Year’s Event, Green and Sustainable Finance Cluster (in person, Frankfurt)
10/2023 – Sustainable Economy Summit (in person, Berlin)
08/2023 – Sustainability Roundtable, University of Pittsburgh (in person, Pittsburgh)
08/2023 – Climate & Sustainability Consortium, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (in person, Cambridge)
10/2021 – Partner Association Meeting, University of Mannheim (in person, Mannheim)
Awards & Scholarships
2025 Add-on Fellowships for Interdisciplinary Science and Transfer, Joachim Herz Foundation
2025 Outstanding Reviewer Award, SIM Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Copenhagen
2025 Finalist Best Paper Award, ONE Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Copenhangen
2024 Best Paper Designation, ONE Division, Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago
2022 German Science Award from the EHI Foundation and GS1 Germany in the category “best research project”
2019 Scholarship Foundation of German Business
2016 Scholarship Konrad Adenauer Foundation
Practice & Engagement
2020-today Freelance Trainer for Corporate Programs and MBA Lecturer (Mannheim Business School)
2018-today Freelance Consultant and Manager (Accenture Strategy, Better Earth, green mine Audit Firm)