[9] Marakon Associates was founded in 1978 and pioneered value-based management (VBM) in the mid-1980s based on the academic work of Dr. Bill Alberts.

[13][14] Under this principle, senior executives should set performance targets in terms of delivering shareholder returns (stock price and dividends payments) and managing to achieve them.

[23] CRA's work forecasting the impact on employment of the 2003 Climate Stewardship Act was criticized by the Natural Resources Defense Council in 2005 for using unrealistic economic assumptions and producing directionally incorrect estimates.

[24] According to a 2021 study, flawed economic forecasting reports written by four economists at Charles River Associates between 1991 and 2009, and paid for by fossil fuel interests, overestimated predicted costs and ignored potential policy benefits.

The study argues that the reports written by CRA "played a key role in weakening, delaying, or defeating a wide range of climate policies".