The inaugural summit of the Future of Sustainable Investing Conference, hosted March 6, centered on the role of investing in “shaping the future of our planet and society,” according to the conference website. The day-long, student-organized conference exposed students and professionals to panels, working sessions and two keynote speeches about sustainable and responsible investing.
According to Sarang Mani ’21, one of the event’s organizers, FSIcon has two main purposes: educating people about “sustainable and responsible investing” and showcasing “what sustainable investing and finance look like in the real world.”
Arianna Markel ’20, co-president of FSIcon, stated that the event was also intended to be “accessible to people regardless of their background.”
The event organizers hoped to bring a “Brown perspective to investing,” said Devyn Collado ’20, the other co-president of FSIcon. Collado also hopes that the event can reveal that “investing is not something that you do just to make money;” rather, it “is one of the best ways to catalyze the necessary change we need to do in this century.”
According to Collado, the University is “at the forefront of thinking about sustainable investing.” He believes that this enabled the FSIcon team to organize an event “of this caliber.”
The conference kicked off with a keynote speech, “Thinking Bigly,” by Ben Yeoh, a senior portfolio manager at RBC Global Asset Management.
Yeoh said that the world needs cultural changes to address the “wicked problem” of climate change. But he added that tackling climate change must be completed with caution in order to avoid unintended consequences. Incremental changes are not significant enough to generate “real world impact” on climate change, he said. Yeoh encouraged individuals to narrow their focus on specific actions and lifestyle choices that will help prompt the cultural changes necessary for environmental sustainability.
Connie E, a research associate at Preqin and a panelist at the event, said that Yeoh’s keynote was interactive, and enjoyed how it “incorporated big issues in a way that was comical and satirical.”
Later during the conference, four professionals experienced in different aspects of sustainable investing gathered for a panel titled, “Climate Change and Environmental Sustainability.” Throughout the panel, the speakers discussed the role of consumers, investors and government in driving sustainability.
Consumers can “vote with their dollars” to pressure companies to integrate sustainability into the mission of their business, said Holly Moynahan, senior consultant at EY Climate Change and Sustainability Services and a member of the panel. Moynahan added that the competitive aspect of capitalism could drive corporations to be more sustainable.
Kayalin Akens-Irby, senior associate at Malk Partners and another member of the panel, argued that government action on climate change can be effective, but the free market and investors can often provide a more rapid response to climate change by pressuring companies to make changes themselves.
Moynahan said she appreciated that the panel was all female, and said that “each panelist had an interesting perspective to bring to the conversation.” Moynahan hopes her panel helped in “understanding the intricacies of the climate change conversation” as multiple groups “drive change and impact.”
Paurav Barot, an attendee of the event and a graduate student at Babson College, appreciated learning that some corporations have “special sustainability plans.” Barot added that he is hoping to incorporate the ideas he learned at FSIcon into the investment groups that he is in at Babson.
In addition to hosting the conference annually, FSI hopes to develop other initiatives, including podcasts, Collado said, in order to increase the impact that financially sustainable investing has on campus.
