HBS Professor Mike Toffel; Jeremy Grantham (MBA 1966), cofounder and Chief Investment Strategist of GMO, LLC; Gina McCarthy, Director of C-CHANGE (Center for Climate, Health and the Global Environment) at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health; and David Perry (MBA 1997), president, CEO, and director of Indigo Agriculture at panel discussion held on the HBS campus entitled “Confronting Climate Change: Boston-Based Ideas that Can Change the World.”

“Inspiring” is how David Chan (MBA 2018) described the forum he attended in New York, “An Investor’s Guide to Climate Change: Disruption and Opportunity,” part of a global series of events organized by the HBS Business & Environment Initiative (BEI) and cosponsored by local HBS alumni clubs. The series launched in February 2018 in San Francisco, and has been presented subsequently in Miami; Washington, DC; New York; Boston; Los Angeles; and Chicago, engaging nearly 450 alumni and other business leaders as well as a number of the School’s faculty members.

The BEI’s goal in launching the panel discussions was to get people around the table talking about climate change, explains Jennifer Nash, who serves as director of the BEI, under the leadership of Faculty Chair Michael Toffel, the Senator John Heinz Professor of Environmental Management. These events are an example of the many ways in which HBS convenes leaders to discuss important issues facing society.

“When alumni put their heads together, magic can happen,” says Chan, cofounder and COO of FarmTogether, a startup connecting investors to farmland investment opportunities. “There is a strong coalition of alumni working in various roles and industries here in New York City who are committed to generating action toward climate mitigation and adaptation. I have no doubt these events will lead to meaningful discussions that eventually evolve into real-world impact.”

The event also gave Chan the opportunity to connect with panelist Michael Ellis, a managing director at Inherent Group, an ESG (environmental, social, and governance)-focused asset manager. “Hearing Michael’s views on how his team considers ESG investments, particularly in agriculture, helped shape FarmTogether’s investment process,” Chan explains.

Like Chan, Valerie Grant (MBA 1994), SVP and senior portfolio manager for AllianceBernstein LP, made a connection at the New York event. She spoke with Kyung-Ah Park (MBA 1998), managing director and head of Environmental Markets at Goldman Sachs, who will be meeting with members of the investment team at her company. Grant says the gathering “was useful in helping me to develop a framework for thinking about investing with a focus on addressing climate change, whether in companies that are mitigating its effects or preventing further damage.”

She sees the climate change series as a great way to connect and engage HBS alumni, faculty, and students working on innovative solutions to the crisis and hopes the reach can be expanded even further by connecting with faculty and alumni from other parts of Harvard. “The challenge of addressing climate change will require an interdisciplinary approach,” Grant observes.

At the San Francisco event, titled “The Role of Business Leaders in the Age of Climate Change,” Rick Needham (MBA 2002), partner and energy sector lead for The Rise Fund at TPG Global, saw interest from both younger alumni working in the field and senior alumni who have had successful careers and are looking for new opportunities to make a difference. “Climate change touches so many areas of business. Whether you work in finance, product, policy, or legal, there is a way to tackle part of this big problem,” he says.

Caroline Quazzo (MBA 2017), a founder within Exelorate Growth, the internal incubator of Exelon, the leading provider of zero-carbon energy in the US, attended the events in Chicago and San Francisco. She was interested to hear about the challenges other alumni are facing and about new technologies being used to combat the crisis. “It was inspiring to learn about different ways alums are thinking about solutions to help fight climate change,” she says. “These problems are incredibly frustrating, but there are really smart, talented people working to solve them, so work in this space is even more valuable and necessary.”

For the last year and a half, HBS alumni and faculty have dissected and discussed myriad related issues, from opportunities to invest in negative emissions and adaptation technologies in New York, to the importance of business leaders speaking out politically in Los Angeles, to the risks facing Midwest agribusiness in Chicago. The BEI will continue the series in 2020 and plans to extend it overseas by holding an event in London.

“Through these events and conversations, we have built a community of alumni interested in learning more and have gotten a much clearer sense of how they think about climate change and what it means to them in their professional roles,” explains Nash. “It’s incredibly rewarding to have these informed and meaningful conversations from such diverse perspectives.”

Since February 2018, the HBS Business & Environment Initiative has held a series of climate change events. Cosponsored by local HBS alumni clubs, the gatherings have taken place in San Francisco; Miami; Washington, DC; New York; Boston; Los Angeles; and Chicago, engaging nearly 450 alumni and other business leaders as well as a number of the School’s faculty members. More events are planned in the US and abroad.

Image credits: Evgenia Eliseeva; Susan Young; Regina Fleming; courtesy Kyung-Ah Park, Rick Needham, Caroline Quazzo

Post a Comment