The Sustainable Investing Research Consulting Project is a unique course that offers the opportunity to work on practical problems with real clients and diverse team members. While it is important to learn theoretical concepts about sustainable investing, working with clients enables the development of practical skills needed in the field. Our engagement has been particularly interesting to me to learn more about private sector’s actions in tackling climate change. Our analysis focuses on large companies with global activities around the world. Due to their global presence, these companies cannot diversify their exposure to climate change risks. We are conducting case studies on different companies' strategic actions towards sustainability, specifically assessing their strategies from the perspective of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Surprisingly, we found that most companies are taking actions to mitigate climate change by reducing their carbon emissions rather than adapting to climate change, which turned out to be more challenging and costly. I believe this is very important to realize that adapting to climate change in the future could be more difficult and costly than preventing it in the present.
One of the most enjoyable aspects of our project was interacting with our committed client, who was always available to answer our questions and share his ideas during weekly calls. This provided a great learning experience from a professional in the field. Moving forward, we plan to summarize our analysis and provide quantitative implications of different companies' actions, including analyzing their financial projections. I am excited to see what we will discover in the next steps of our project. Overall, this course has provided a valuable opportunity to apply theoretical knowledge to real-world problems and to work collaboratively with diverse team members and clients.