It has been a fantastic four months since the MSCI Sustainability Institute launched with a mission to catalyze capital markets toward sustainability.
As we head into the new year, we’ve learned a lot about what collaborators expect from us. We’ve learned that they trust the Institute to curate data and analysis that help them think clearly about when and how sustainability creates value. Participants in our events have told us they embrace the unique opportunity the Institute offers to discuss critical questions with targeted audiences of practitioners and thought leaders.
In everything we do, we’ve heard from participants of the value the Institute can deliver by helping innovators in finance, academia, business, government and philanthropy work in concert to tackle the global threat of climate change and create sustainable value in our fast-changing world.
We will be growing and evolving in 2024 as we expand our engagement with leaders in every field through research, education and debate. Here are three questions that we’ll be examining and some initiatives we’ll be pursuing:
How will artificial intelligence change the way we approach sustainable investing?
Artificial intelligence is poised to change how we understand and practice sustainable finance. AI is already finding applications that are helping to improve the performance of climate models, lower the emissions intensity of manufacturing, enhance energy efficiency and monitor the environment.
We will be looking at AI from several angles in 2024 to probe its potential and limitations. We’ll be experimenting with how AI can help investors explore the investability of climate resilience in public equities as part of our work in support of an investor-led effort to define resilience as an investment theme. And we’ll be looking at ties between the application of AI in sustainable finance and the availability of high-quality data.
Can the clean-energy transition hit hyperdrive?
The COP28 climate conference produced agreement by countries to triple renewable energy capacity, to double the annual rate of improvement in energy efficiency, and to substantially reduce methane emissions — all this decade.
To advance these efforts that help society avert the worst effects of climate change, the Institute will continue to update decision-makers each quarter about the state of corporate climate progress through our Net-Zero Tracker, where we’ll be examining such topics as the use of carbon credits by companies to meet their climate targets. We will launch our Climate Data Knowledge Program, which will provide leading academic institutions access to investment-grade climate risk and impact data, with the aim of advancing independent research into sustainability-related challenges faced by investment practitioners. We also will inaugurate our Climate Scholars Program, which brings together the Institute, MSCI’s Climate Risk Center and five Swiss universities to seed master’s-level research into emerging areas in climate-related financial risk.
When does sustainability produce value?
Central to our mission is deepening insight into how sustainability can contribute to the creation of value over time. In 2024, at the urging of many participants, we will hold briefings for policymakers, central bankers and standard setters that aim to promote fluency across the wider ecosystem of capital markets about the evolving uses of sustainability data, metrics and models to inform financial decision-making.
We will expand our series of discussions with participants designed to spur dialogue and debate about the toughest issues in aligning capital with sustainable growth. We also will be expanding our popular Sustainability Research Portal, connecting investment practitioners with the latest independent research on how sustainability factors intersect the value of financial assets, risk and performance.
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Thank you to our colleagues, collaborators and advisers for helping us kick off the Institute. In time, we look forward to bringing our mission to drive sustainable growth to every corner of capital markets and the surrounding ecosystem.
Whether you are a prospective collaborator, a sustainability researcher or a member of the investment and financial communities, we are keen to hear from you. You can reach us (and sign up to receive the latest news and insights from the Institute in your inbox) here.
We’re interested in what you think. And we’re just getting started.
Linda-Eling Lee is founding director and head of the MSCI Sustainability Institute. Read more about our team here.
