It is a real privilege to work in any nascent, emerging field, but to contribute to filling a gap in finance where nature and its social benefits are undervalued or disregarded is truly an incredible opportunity. Professor Flammer’s Sustainable Investing Research Consulting course has already opened doors that I didn’t even foresee being so influential on my career outlook. We are just a few weeks into the course and I am already applying to jobs relevant to my experience with my client project. As soon as I started working on this project, I started to connect the dots and see the themes everywhere: business has a substantial adverse impact on nature and the risks of nature loss to business are simply overlooked. Measuring and reporting on this will be a monumental task, but the next generation of SIPA students, especially those in this course, will be ready to tackle.
Entering the world of finance has been an interest of mine for years, despite it being out of my comfort zone. I am starting to realize that my background in environmental science is more worthy in this field than I previously thought. Today, investors, companies, and financial institutions are starting to develop triple bottom lines to their missions besides profitability, such as “people and planet.” While I haven’t had much experience in the profitability component, I feel more equipped to contribute to the work on how these entities integrate concerns for people and the planet.
During the recent UN biodiversity conference in Montreal (CBD COP15), the Global Biodiversity Framework was negotiated, but many companies are still lost in terms of reporting on biodiversity disclosures of their operations and supply chains. For years, the private sector has faced difficulties in measuring carbon footprint, climate risks, and social impact, but biodiversity is a whole other ballpark in terms of measuring impact and monitoring. The amazing skills of my team and the strong engagement of our client are incredibly necessary to take on such an important topic in such little time. As I work with my team and client to dive deep into this project, I am starting to realize that finance is one of the most important vehicles for enacting transformative change, as long as corporations make positive impact a top priority and follow guidelines that help them identify where they can make a difference.