As I write this blog post, my group remains in its final few days of wrapping up the deliverable for our client. From a personal perspective, I feel incredibly grateful to have had the opportunity to dive deep on a topic so new and that so directly aligns with where I would like my career to go. Exploring the relationship between corporate activity and biodiversity, under the strain of providing a specific deliverable, has forced me to take a targeted and focused approach to research, such that a value-adding deliverable can be delivered.
While I would not say that countless hours of combing through corporate sustainability reports was the most fascinating reading experience, I would say that I feel hopeful for where the direction of corporate accountability is headed. There is without a doubt corporate confusion regarding how to communicate impact, an unwillingness to invest in robust reporting solutions, and a general lack slowness when it comes to corporate interest in disclosing how reliant they are on the natural world around them. However, growing investor pressure and the coming-online of the Taskforce on Nature-Related Financial Disclosures (TNFD) is starting to shift a stance of slowness and disinterest towards urgency and transparency.
I found taking on an independent research project, especially as a group full of final semester graduate students, to be a complicated endeavor. Group dynamics are always a critically important element of any given project. The fact that our group was juggling traditional coursework, SIPA capstone work, job searching, part-time work outside of school, and then also meeting the workload needs of this research project made for what might have been predictable yet still incredibly challenging conflicts. We were lucky to have a client that was present, flexible, and understanding of our chaotic schedules. However, our group needed to take responsibility for at times falling behind. This was done by communicating directly and setting, as well as resetting, expectations. In the end, where we are now, is on a realigned path to submitting a a deliverable that is polished and that we feel will provide some genuine insights for our client.
The Sustainable Investment Research Consulting Project was overall a terrific experience. The subject matter was energizing. The support from our professor was perfectly complementary to our work. The insights from our classmates served as necessary guideposts. And the client took a thoughtful and professional approach to working with us.