Project Title: Exploring Economic Incentives to Combat Climate Change
BASIS Advisor: Ms. Forde
Internship Location: ING Bank
Onsite Mentor: Daniel Shurey
We need to reinforce our commitment to reducing the rate of climate change now. The urgency of our situation cannot be understated. And while the significance of climate change on its own should be reason enough for people to act in ways that combat it, it’s known that people are less likely to support combating what they see as an abstract and far-away problem if it hurts the economy in the short term. And thus, the purpose of this project is to promote solutions to climate change in a pragmatic way. In other words, to promote the idea that fighting climate change can and will bolster the economy. To make fighting it a win for everyone.
My Posts
Final Blog Post
Jun 23, 2021
Originally, I thought my project would focus exclusively on how the government can implement policy that would promote economic growth and fight climate change. Quickly, I realized that I was more interested in the private sector, and in the specific green technologies that were being implemented and created by them. Mostly through my internship, I […]
Week 10: Creating Tangible
Jun 05, 2021
I spent the first part of this week sorting through 180 green bond/sustainability bond frameworks’ use of proceeds sections. This was done to find six frameworks that both represented the kinds of common technologies being implemented and presented some unique innovations. I settled on the following frameworks: one to represent banks (which made up nearly […]
Week 9: Broad Analysis of Compiled Data
May 31, 2021
Earlier this week, I sent in my questions to my on-site advisor relating to why companies have become involved in green financing projects and a few follow-up questions relating to how we can shift the US SEC climate disclosure system and move towards a few globally standardized methods for disclosure. I’m waiting on answers for […]
Week 8: Motivations
May 24, 2021
This week I began developing questions to ask members of ING’s sustainable finance division. The questions center on companies’ motivations to become involved in issuing green/social/sustainable bonds, the reasons for investors to care about these issuances and other green practices, and current problems in relevant ESG disclosure systems both in the United States and internationally. […]
Week 7: Happy Coincidence
May 17, 2021
This week I completed my work filling out a database containing green, social, and sustainability bond frameworks. There were 275 entries into this database, although a good chunk of them were duplicates or based on the same framework, and a few hadn’t published a framework. All told, there is credible information on over 200 different […]
Week 6: Everything is Gone…
May 11, 2021
Preface: I wrote this post on Friday, May 7th I’ve had a pretty tough week to be honest. The spreadsheet I had been working on for over a week disappeared from my files. I had spent around 20 hours on it, done around 180 separate frameworks put forward by various companies, all gone on Wednesday […]
Week 5: Frameworks and More Frameworks
May 03, 2021
This past week I looked at several dozen Green and Sustainable finance frameworks put forward by various companies. As I think I mentioned in a previous post, companies issue bonds and loans in order to fund specific projects that promote a positive environmental or social goal. The frameworks describe the criteria for the projects that […]
Week 4: Breakthrough Bias
Apr 26, 2021
This week I continued reading Sustainable Innovation: Build Your Company’s Capacity to Change the World, and gained valuable insight into other aspects of the economics surrounding sustainable investment. One distinction made was between Brownfield vs Greenfield markets, basically the difference between creating a new market and expanding on an old one. A good example is […]
Week 3: Frameworks and Sustainable Innovation
Apr 16, 2021
This week I looked more closely at various Green Bond/Sustainability Frameworks put forward by a number of larger companies. Essentially, because many modern investors care about ESG (environmental, social, and governance) risks, companies want to reassure them by showing that they are investing in technologies and company practices that reflect a commitment to reducing their […]
Week 2: An Altered Outlook
Apr 09, 2021
Last week I said I would focus on finding specific companies that match the criteria of my research question. However, in the course of doing some of the work for my internship, my priorities have somewhat changed. First, in my proposal, I (perhaps somewhat naively) wanted to avoid practices that used government tax credits/regulations/required emission […]
Week 1: Challenges/Insight and The Coming Weeks
Apr 02, 2021
Challenges/Insight A good chunk of this week for me was devoted to figuring out my role in my “on-site” placement. The department of sustainable finance has recently been quite swamped. Its members are beginning to form a new subsidiary company under ING devoted to promoting sustainable investments to large clients. One interesting disparity did […]
Week 0: Intro
Mar 29, 2021
Hello, and welcome to my Senior Project Blog! My project is going to focus on the intersection of two problems that I care about quite a bit: economic downturn and climate change. Essentially, I’m going to look at various new sustainable markets/business practices/technologies/etc to determine their efficacy as an investment, their ability to create jobs […]