Sustainability Finance

1.5 Credits · Level: Graduate

Sustainability & Finance is a 7 week course designed to provide students with a firm understanding of the financial, institutional and market-structure elements of Sustainable Finance (SF). It is a companion course to the 7 week Business & Sustainability course offered in the Spring of 2024. By examining the relationship between finance, business growth and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), students will gain a comprehensive understanding of the role finance can play in shaping a more sustainable future. The Sustainability & Finance course will consist of two parts. The first part, Introduction to the Sustainable Financing Landscape, will start with the building blocks of the financial sector, including an introduction/refresher on the key concepts in finance and how these concepts are relevant to SF. We will explore how companies and governments in the developing world are financed today via both public and private sector financial flows. We will also examine the key players in financial markets (lenders, investors, regulators, civil society actors, governments, advisors, etc) and how these various actors engage to create an ecosystem supporting financial flows to emerging markets. The second part of the course, Emerging Themes in Sustainable Finance, will present recent and emerging innovations in the financial sector designed to better address the challenges of sustainable development. We will analyze gaps in the current financial architecture related to the SDGs and examine how private investors and lenders are beginning to address those shortcomings. We will use a series of case studies to focus on sustainability-related innovations in finance, including in: (i) project finance for large scale investments (infrastructure, energy, agriculture, etc), (ii) corporate-level debt and equity financing (green bonds, social bonds, impact investing, etc) and (iii) emerging areas including SME financing, climate-related insurance products, carbon markets and debt-for-nature swaps. In each of these areas, we will look at real world examples of how new products and markets are being developed with the expressed purpose of supporting the SDGs, and how the various players in the market are responding.