General Information
Promotional Video
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Description
This course prepares students for jobs where future leaders must apply their business and management training together with a deep understanding of sustainability issues. Examples of these jobs range from finance roles in asset management, where ESG/CSR and other sustainability issues (e.g. climate change, environmental degradation, social justice, indigenous rights, etc.) are fast becoming required currency, to roles inside large and small non-financial corporations and non-for-profit institutions where financial literacy and finance skills are required in the pursuit of goals related to sustainability. The market for these jobs is expanding and they range from opportunities in the traditional financial sector to the corporate sector to small fin-tech firms to the entrepreneurial start-up world. Risk management is another sector that worries about global, national, and local risks arising in fields associated with sustainability like climate change and income inequality.
This is a finance course, but it is not aimed specifically at students with high technical skills and career goals in finance. We expect students to have a wide range of proficiency in finance and diverse career goals often outside of finance. We similarly expect that students will have a wide range of interests in sustainability, from an individual desire to impact various areas of sustainability and development, to a more general desire to help corporations navigate a changing landscape where more and more responsibilities for natural and social sustainability enter into corporate strategy and reporting requirements. It will take solid business thinking and advanced business skills to encourage firms and organizations of all types to collaborate to overcome global sustainability challenges. We do expect students to be literate in basic finance concepts as learned in the core first year MBA courses. A background in sustainability is not required, but an interest is helpful. The course is case and lecture based, includes discussions and guest speakers, and involves hands-on projects.
Format
12 two-hour sessions
Course Mission and Scope
Students who complete this course will have the ability to:
- Apply financial tools and models to understanding and solving problems generally referred to as sustainability problems (the environment, climate change, poverty, income inequality, etc.)
- Measure and manage risk and opportunities associated with sustainability factors (ESG/CSR and other metrics) for financial institutions and other corporations.
- Evaluate the role of financial actors in generating sustainability problems and in solving these problems.
- Understand the role & impact of financial markets and instruments on sustainability problems and solutions.
- Discuss sustainability from the perspective of a financial trained and sustainability-sensitive decision maker who faces audiences that may or may not be trained well in either finance or sustainability.
- Critically examine government policies & regulations and their impact on sustainability goals using the tools and models of financial economics.
- Have a broad insight into the opportunities and challenges faced by real companies in the sustainability arena.
- Appreciate various career opportunities in the sustainable finance sector.
Evaluation and Grade Breakdown
| Component | Note | Weight |
|---|---|---|
| Class Participation* | Quality, not quantity of contributions. Comments that further class discussion | 20% |
| Quiz | In-class | 20% |
| Individual Paper | Reflection on a student selected sustainability finance topic – more information in course | 20% |
| Group Project | Groups of 5 students develop a “solution” to a sustainability challenge of their choice. This could be a business plan, a new/altered proposal for a government regulation or policy recommendation or taxation, a financial innovation, a new market function/technology, etc. Students submit a short draft proposal and eventually a slide deck and summary paper. Finally, students make a video presentation. This will receive peer comments from other students, but the instructor will grade it. | 40% |