Organized jointly with the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance
WHY AN ESG ENGAGEMENT CHALLENGE ?
ESG engagement can have a large impact. For example, research suggests that persuading firms to cut carbon
emissions in line with best practice could limit global warming to 2°C.[1] Moreover, successful ESG engagement can
boost investment returns by 4 to 5%.[2] By contrast, funding ethical or green firms (the more traditional ESG
strategy) has limited real-world impact.[3]
By persuading firms to change, MBA students can deliver tremendous impact –while unlocking financial value.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
Teams will use Arvella Investment’s award-winning Engagement Maximizer. It allows selecting a firm and
identifying one key ESG issue whose improvement could deliver outsized impact while unlocking financial value.
Teams will build a full case for implementing change. They will suggest actionable solutions, learning from
competitors’ best practices (something the Engagement Maximizer can help identify). They will explain how their
suggested solution would boost profits.
Extra points will be awarded for teams that engage companies and try to persuade them to act.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE?
Any MBA, Master (MSc, MiM, MA) or PhD student. They must be currently enrolled full- or part-time. Each team will consist of up to five members.
WHAT IS THE PRIZE?
The winning team will choose to donate $5,000 to the CDP or the Empowerment & Opportunity Fund of Gates Philanthropy Partners. Both charities have a proven track record of making a significant positive difference in the world. CDP is a not-for-profit charity that runs the global disclosure system for investors, companies, cities, states and regions to manage their environmental impacts. The Empowerment & Opportunity Fund of Gates Philanthropy Partners aims to give an equal chance to girls and women to learn, lead, earn and thrive.
2024 EDITION IN NUMBERS
140+ Participating MBA students
35 Case studies submitted
27 MBA programs
11 Countries worldwide
5 Esteemed jury members
5000$ to be donated
Cambridge vs. Yale: watch our ESG Engagement MBA Challenge Final live!
Founder and Former President of Inclusive Capital Partners
Ms. Zlotnicka is a Founder and the former President of Inclusive Capital Partners, a San Francisco-based investment firm which partners with companies that enable solutions to address environmental and social problems. Just prior to founding Inclusive Capital Partners, she was a Founder and Managing Director of the ValueAct Spring Fund and Head of Stewardship at ValueAct Capital. Previously, Ms. Zlotnicka spent more than 10 years on the sell side. Most recently, she was US lead Sustainability and Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) equity research analyst at Morgan Stanley. Ms. Zlotnicka is a director of Unifi, Inc., Arcadia, and Enviva Inc.. She was previously a director of Hawaiian Electric Industries. Ms. Zlotnicka also serves as a member of the Investor Advisory Group for the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board (SASB) and is a member of the Advisory Board of the Institute for Corporate Governance and Finance at NYU Law. In her personal capacity, Ms. Zlotnicka co-founded Women Investing for a Sustainable Economy (WISE), a global professional community, and is a board member of the Sustainable Ocean Alliance (SOA) and Aircela. She has two B.S.c. degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, including one from the Wharton School, and an M.B.A and a Master of Environmental Science degree from Yale University.
Anne-Sophie d’Andlau
Co-Founder & Managing Partner, CIAM
Ms. D’Andlau co-founded CIAM in 2010. She is responsible for the fund’s strategy and development, as well as for ESG.
Ms. D’Andlau has 26 years of experience in corporate finance and the event driven sphere. Prior to founding CIAM, Ms. D’Andlau worked at Systeia Capital Management (acquired by Amundi) from 2001 to 2008, first as Head of Research for the Event Driven and M&A strategies, then taking on a portfolio management role from 2003 to 2008.
She joined Systeia Capital Management from PriceWaterhouse Coopers where she acquired a solid corporate finance experience between 1995 and 2001, initially within the audit and due-diligence department, then as an M&A advisor.
Ms. D’Andlau graduated from Rouen Business School (NEOMA) in 1995.
Benoît Mercereau, PhD
Founder & CIO, Arvella Investments
Benoît is a former Managing Director at Goldman Sachs International in London. A senior member of the Investment Strategy Group, he headed the tactical asset allocation team in EMEA for eight years. Benoît started his career in 2002 at the International Monetary Fund in Washington, D.C. He later led investment research for emerging markets fixed income and global FX at HSBC Quantitative Asset Management. Benoît received a PhD in Economics from Yale under Nobel Laureate Chris Sims and a BSc in Engineering from Ecole Polytechnique. Benoît is a member of the Board of the Yale Graduate School Alumni Association. He is a Knight of Burgundy’s Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin.
Howard Covington
Chair of the Board of Trustees & Development Board Chair, ClientEarth
Howard is a graduate of St John’s College, Cambridge. He has a double first in theoretical physics and a distinction in post-graduate maths. His first career was in the City as an investment banker and asset manager. He became a director of SG Warburg and then European chief executive of Wasserstein Perella, a US investment bank. He co-founded New Star Asset Management and was its chief executive until it was sold to Henderson in 2009. In 2014 he cofounded Greenrock Homes, a property developer. His second career is in promoting mathematical sciences and action to reduce climate change. He has been a trustee of the Science Museum, is chair of the Isaac Newton Institute for Mathematical Sciences, the UK’s national maths research institute at Cambridge, and is the inaugural chair of The Alan Turing Institute. He is vice-chair of ClientEarth, an environmental law firm, and an adviser to Preventable Surprises, a think-tank. He has written on the response of the investment industry to climate change for the Wall Street Journal, the Financial Times and Nature.
Dr Todd Cort
Faculty Co-Director for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) and the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (YISF)
Dr. Cort works at the intersection of sustainability and investor value. Over the course of 20 years, in consulting and academia, he has applied a scientific and economic lens to corporate social and environmental responsibility (or sustainability) in order to identify the tools, mechanisms, metrics and indicators that create the greatest value for investors, businesses and society. Todd has worked extensively with companies and investors across industrial sectors. His experience ranges from ‘on the ground’ implementation of sustainability programs to corporate level communication and investor strategy development. He has also worked extensively on integrated programs to meet regulatory requirements while promoting awareness and understanding of sustainability priorities through communications and engagement with communities, regulators, policy makers and internal stakeholders. Todd has a courtesy appointment at the Yale School of the Environment. He serves as Faculty Co-Director for the Yale Center for Business and the Environment (CBEY) and the Yale Initiative on Sustainable Finance (YISF). He serves on a variety of advisory boards including the JUST Capital Scientific Advisory Board and the PRIME Coalition Academic Advisory Committee and Merck Sustainability Advisory Committee. He is also currently Board Chair for Save the Sound, a regional environmental non-profit serving communities around Long Island Sound.
Bran Pathmanāban
Head of ESG, IP Group
Bran is passionate about helping portfolio companies utilise ESG, to unlock value for society and shareholders, and demonstrating their positive impact, using a measurable and transparent approach. Bran heads the IP Group’s approach to ESG, having previously worked as a management consultant focussing on sustainability and ESG, first at KPMG’s Wealth and Asset Management practice, and then at the asset management research division of Cutter Associates (part of Nomura Research Institute) where he was the ESG lead. As a consultant he led and advised on ESG integration, decarbonisation strategies, ESG reporting, regulations and data, for various asset managers, asset owners and private markets clients. Bran has worked in financial services for more than 15 years across the buy and sell side including at Credit Suisse, ABRDN and Aegon Asset Management in various operational and strategy roles. Bran holds a Global Executive MBA from IE Business School in Madrid and an MSc in Technology Management from Manchester Business School.
Certificates of Participation will be granted upon request.
Unfortunately, we cannot help you find team members. We accept teams of one
No. There is no registration fee. In addition, the finalist presentations will be held via videoconference call.
Yes. You can leverage any resources available to your team.
No.
Yes, we can sign an NDA if required by your target company.
We will not conduct training sessions on how to use the Engagement Maximizer tool. You should refer to the Technical Appendix and “How to use the Engagement Maximizer” sections at the bottom of the website page dedicated to the Engagement Maximizer.
Once we receive the registration form (to be sent at mbachallenge@arvella.com), the team lead will receive a confirmation email, along with the rules of the challenge (also available on the website). In a separate email, the team lead will receive login credentials. You will receive only one login per team. Once logged in, students will find some instructions on how to use the tool on the website itself. Please note that the platform is quite user-friendly, and we do not conduct training sessions.
Only the team lead will receive login credentials by email. Please check your spam. If you are still unable to find the email, please contact us at: mbachallenge@arvella.com.
Materials to be submitted for Round 1 (‘Case Study’):
You must submit a PowerPoint presentation. Please send the presentation in both PowerPoint and PDF format.
There is no slides limit. Yet, you may keep in mind that if selected for Round 2, you are expected to present your content in about 25 mins.
Selection of the target company, ESG variable and peers:
You should pick a company that is available on the Engagement Maximizer.
Our dataset covers 2546 firms from the MSCI All Country World Index (MSCI ACWI) and the STOXX Europe 600 (STOXX 600). The dataset does not include companies classified in the financials sector.
You should select a variable for which the potential increase in shareholder value associated with adopting peers’ best practices is elevated.
Please note that ESG issues are sector specific. Hence, some ESG variables are only relevant in a few sectors. For example, water usage is only relevant for the energy and materials sectors. Health & Safety is only relevant for consumer stapples, consumer discretionary, industrials, materials, utilities, and real estate. When an ESG variable is not relevant for a specific company (because of its sector classification), a 0% will appear on the graph.
Our Carbon Emissions variable only covers scope 1 and scope 2 emissions. Hence, you should not work on this variable if you select a company operating in an industry where scope 3 emissions account for the majority of emissions (e.g., energy, utilities, etc.). A company’s Scope 3 carbon emissions include everything beyond its direct operations and electricity use, including supply-chain operations and end-product usage by customers.
No. You should pick one of the 13 ESG variables available on the Engagement Maximizer.
Yes. Companies might have started to address specific ESG issues. Yet, they might still be lagging their peers and might not have implemented all the appropriate solutions.
Some companies do not report data on certain variables. Rather than displaying missing data, we use a proxy. The proxy is flagged by an asterisk. The proxy corresponds to the average gain across peers. We define “Peers” as firms in the same sector (GICS level 1) and region; or in the same industry (GICS level 2) globally.
Our tool allows identifying peers with best practices. Analyzing these peers can point companies to actionable solutions. To identify peers, select underneath the graph the ESG variable you are interested in assessing and click on your preferred scope: sector & region or industry globally.
Some “peers” will be more relevant than others for each firm. Investors should therefore use the “peers” list as a menu to select from. In other words, qualitative analysis should be used to select the most relevant peers for your target company. Best peers will operate in the same industry and have similar business activities: they will compete with your target company with similar product/services categories.
Yes. The Engagement Maximizer helps you identify peers that have better practices than your target company. Yet, not all the peers suggested by the tool would be truly comparable to your target company. Hence, using qualitative analysis is essential. You can select a peer that is outside the scope of the database if you deem that it is a relevant peer and that it has better ESG practices than your target company.
Engagement with the target company:
We are conscious that a successful engagement with a company is extremely difficult to achieve. It takes time and the right contacts within the organization.
Hence, we will award extra points for teams who tried to engage. We will value the originality of their engagement, the materials (if any) they have provided to the company, and any possible outcomes (responses from the firm, calls set up, etc.).
[1] Mercereau, Neveux, Sertã, Marechal and Tonolo “Fighting climate change as a global equity investor”, The Journal of Asset Management, February 2020.
[2] Dimson, Elroy, Oğuzhan Karakaş, and Xi Li. 2015. “Active Ownership.”; Dimson, Elroy and Karakaş, Oğuzhan and Li, Xi. 2019. “Coordinated Engagements”.
[3] Berk and van Binsbergen, “The Impact of Impact Investing,” mimeo, Stanford U. and U. of Pennsylvania, June 2022.
*The winning team will choose to donate money to one of the following organizations: CDP or Gates Philanthropy Partners (Empowerment & Opportunity fund).
