---
id: "pisquared:interview/lyontom"
type: "Pi-Squared interview"
title: "Anita McGahan in conversation with Tom Lyon"
url: "https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/lyontom"
date: "2026-07-05"
people: ["Anita McGahan","Tom Lyon"]
summary: "Professor Tom Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, with appointments in the Ross School of Business and the School of..."
recording: "https://vimeo.com/1211546591"
source: "Pi-Squared (pisquared.theburnescenter.org), The Burnes Center for Social Change"
licence: "none stated"
---

# Anita McGahan in conversation with Tom Lyon

Tom Lyon, Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, University of Michigan · 5 July 2026

## About the guest

Professor Tom Lyon holds the Dow Chair of Sustainable Science, Technology and Commerce, with appointments in the Ross School of Business and the School of Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), both at the University of Michigan. He is a leader in using economic analysis to understand corporate environmental strategy and how it is shaped by emerging government regulations, non-governmental organizations, and consumer demands. His book Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy, is the first rigorous economic analysis of this topic. Tom holds a bachelor’s degree from Princeton and a doctorate from Stanford. In addition to his academic appointments, he was a Gilbert White Fellow at Resources for the Future in Washington DC and a visiting economist in the antitrust division of the U.S. Department of Justice. His current research focuses on corporate environmental information disclosure, greenwash, the causes and consequences of renewable energy policy, and voluntary programs for environmental improvement.

## Reflections from the interview

**Professor Tom Lyon **has been studying corporate environmentalism for decades, and he thinks that, unambiguously, we’re going backwards.   The blast of greenwashing over the past five to seven years was the result of the tremendous incentives and pressures on companies to respond to ESG investing.  Now that the world has awakened to the fact that very few companies are pure-play environmentalist, what’s now vividly clear is that we need better regulations and public policy to resolve market failures in pollution, R&D, and experimentation.   The biggest issue is that the barriers to accomplishing this require political reform particularly in the US, particularly around the role of money in elections and lobbying.

## Related resources

- [Tom’s website at the University of Michigan](https://michiganross.umich.edu/faculty-research/faculty/tom-lyon)
- [Corporate Environmentalism and Public Policy](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/corporate-environmentalism-and-public-policy/2C00525759BB261B38840EB042EEC591)
- [Google Scholar on Tom](https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=JwLkuSIAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao)
- [Tom’s 2025 paper with John Maxwell on political polarization and nonmarket strategy](https://pubsonline.informs.org/doi/abs/10.1287/mnsc.2025.00819?)
- [Tom’s 2011 paper with John Maxwell on Greenwashing](https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/j.1530-9134.2010.00282.x)

## Recording

Video: https://vimeo.com/1211546591

## Category

[Where Do We Go From Here?](https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/category/where-next)

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Original page: https://pisquared.theburnescenter.org/interviews/lyontom · Licence: none stated