Sustainable Finance

Introduction

Our society faces massive climatic- and environmental challenges - on a global scale. At the same time, we see recurrent violations of human rights and the practice of unethical business models. Standard finance and economic models ignore environmental and social concerns. Nature and its services are assumed freely available. However, the world’s current situation clearly demonstrate that ecological resources are limited.  Business, finance and economic models of the future must therefore incorporate social equity concerns and scarcity of environmental resources if they are to be useful tools to address sustainability issues.

How can companies internalize their impact on society? How can Corporate Governance accommodate this? How can long-term institutional owners contribute help companies reach their long-term sustainability goals? How will this affect companies’ choice of strategy and business models? How can integrated reporting facilitate the transparency of long-term goals, their status and progress?

These are some of the questions addressed in this course. In addition, you will learn how sustainability can be integrated in the different sectors of the financial industry such as the banking industry and the equity market and bond market.

Course content

1. The concept of sustainability – from the Brundtland commission to the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Planetary Boundaries.
2. The different aspects of sustainability:
   • Sustainable development,
   • Sustainable finance and
   • Sustainable business models.
3. The different levels of sustainable finance – from sustainable finance 1.0 to sustainable finance 3.0.
4. Externalities and internalization
5. Corporate governance and sustainability
6. The role of strategy and business models in the transition to sustainable business practices.
7. Investing and Long-term Value creation (LTVC)
8. ESG-integration into the valuation of stocks and bonds
9. Banking and new assessments of lending