The SIRI practicum is an opportunity at Columbia to gain faculty-supported consulting experience in sustainable investment. In my case, this is in the scope of Fukuoka, a Japanese city confronted with modern challenges: an ageing and shrinking population, new businesses preferring to locate in the capital Tokyo and meeting its own net-zero climate targets. As a group of four SIPA students, we are going to support our SIRI client by identifying how the city can attract local and international start-ups and small businesses that will make the city future ready.
As an MPA candidate in Environmental Science and Policy with a background in mathematics, this project has had a steep learning curve for me. I have worked for the International Maritime Organisation before and taught in Kenya, where I got first-hand experience in how clever investment and policy can unlock sustainable solutions. However, I have not yet worked in the venture capital sector before and thus, many of the terms are new to me, even if their concepts are familiar. I would say this was a challenge, as I would have to often look up terms during meetings. Under the guidance of Sara Minard, however, I have gained a lot of confidence in our work: Both on how to handle a team of clever students in a mindful manner and meeting the challenging demands with appropriate research.
Key lessons
My key lesson so far has been to identify my own environmental sustainability bias. Initially, I was intrigued by this project because I wanted to support the achievement of SDG goals in Fukuoka. I had a vision in mind of developing creative ideas of how Fukuoka could become a green city and must admit that the key terms I had in mind were not 'stakeholder mapping', 'asset mapping' and 'capital flow', but much rather 'decarbonisation', urban greening' and 'renewable energy'. Therefore, our first meeting with the client was a surprise to me. However, I soon made two important realisations: First, the ideas for many environmental solutions are driven by small businesses and start-ups. They are innovative, unconventional and take risks - exactly what we need for a sustainable future. In Fukuoka, the majority of start-ups are ESG-related, thereby driving the sustainable transition. Second, not all sustainable development goals must be environment related. For policy makers, an ageing population and brain drain to Tokyo is just as much of a sustainability question as climate change and environmental damage. Realising this has shifted my perspective on sustainable development significantly and made me connect deeper with this project: I will learn more about the reality of politics, how finance & economic stability affects decision making and adapt my green lens to this.
Next steps
Over the remainder of this semester, we will engage with research papers, case studies around the world and interview local stakeholders to develop both a quantitative and qualitative analysis of the challenges and opportunities in Fukuoka. I am very excited to discover further biases of mine and engage with a world that was unknown to me before - not only culturally, but also academically and practically.