The course won the 2021 Teaching Recognition Award for Excellence in Sustainable Finance Education from the Financial Times.

Career Focus

This is an investing/finance course, designed to build on skills introduced in the RC finance course, but with an emphasis on how investors should incorporate what have traditionally been considered “non-financial” criteria in their decisions: for example, climate risk, environmental sustainability, minority representation on boards, and even the potential to create social good. Covering both public and private markets, the course will present the unprecedented opportunities that have arisen due to energy transition and other trends through rigorous approaches to business model assessment, valuation, transaction structuring and exits, as well as equity selection and portfolio construction. The course also explores incentives, decision-making, and the crucial problems and opportunities within the industry itself.

This course is geared toward students interested in working in the investment industry - whether directly, as an asset manager/investor, advisor or private individual, or indirectly as an entrepreneur or operator receiving investment capital. The course will also provide important learnings for students looking to work in the development and non-profit sectors where collaboration between the public and private sectors is important. We will emphasize practical skills, including pitching stocks, performing diligence, measuring impact, and evaluating portfolio performance.

This course will be differentiated from other excellent offerings at HBS by focusing on the intersection of investing/finance and key global challenges, guided for example by the UN Sustainable Development Goals, including climate, gender equality, and poverty reduction. Emphasis will be placed on the analytical tools needed to understand the financial perspective and make investing decisions; however, students will also be learn to rigorously assess investments in the context of non-financial objectives. Investing – Sustainable Investing is a finance course, which could be taken on a stand-alone basis or as a complement to Private Equity Finance, VC/PE, and Entrepreneurial Finance, Investment Management or Investment Strategies.

Course Content and Objectives

An increasing share of assets globally are subject to a non-traditional (environmental, social, and governance [“ESG”] and impact screens), including over 30% of all professionally managed assets worldwide (ca. $30 trillion). Most large asset managers (e.g., Morgan Stanley, Bain Capital, TPG, Blackrock, State Street) are establishing sustainability investment practices, and developing products to meet the demands of capital owners, including pension funds, endowments, and family offices.

The promises are seductive: better long-term risk management, “doing well by doing good”, and new sources of alpha such as investment in energy transition which is viewed as a “once in a generation” investment opportunity. Skeptics argue a focus on non-traditional criteria may distract from and reduce returns, or, on the other extreme, shift funding away from worthy philanthropic causes. Using tools from both the asset pricing and corporate finance toolkits, this course examines these questions in detail: What does it mean in practice to incorporate non-traditional preferences and criteria? How do such activities affect risk and return? Do these new practices actually alter company behavior, or create social value? How is and how should social value be defined and measured?

In public markets, we evaluate the costs and benefits of negative screens, ESG integration, and activist investing. Private market cases cover venture capital in Asia and Africa, private equity in the US renewables market, as well as instruments involving the public sector, such as social impact bonds.

Cases critically examine the logical and market case for a wide range of models, ranging from those that seek (and obtain) above market returns, to those designed to use the power of financial contracting to unlock innovation and help transform the social sector. Cases will require rigorous financial and investment analysis, building on and extending skills acquired in the RC finance courses.

The landscape is changing quickly; nearly every case was written or updated for this course in the past twenty-four months; most classes will feature protagonists as guests. Recent cases include TPG Rise Climate, Blackrock Circular Economy Fund, Generation investment Management, CPPIB, Carbon Credit Investing, and British International Investments among others.

Course Organization

The first module provides an overview of the industry, an introduction to key challenges, and the existing evidence base. The second module investigates private market activity with a focus on how firms make investment decisions given both traditional and non-traditional objectives. The third module examines the challenges related to defining, measuring and managing “impact” or non-traditional goals and objectives. The fourth module explores objectives and implementation in the public market context including negative and positive screens, engagement and activism and ESG integration. The fifth module looks at the frontiers of this practice including robo-investing and the evolution of large-scale financial institutions.

Class Sessions: The course has approximately 14 cases, some of which include simulations or group exercises. Class participation and other activities will account for 60% of the grade.

Paper/Project: The Paper/Project will account for 40% of the grade.

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