Kellogg-led gathering unites sustainable finance faculty from 40+ countries

The dynamics of carbon and the natural capital markets. 

Greenwashing among asset managers. 

Unintended consequences of climate regulation. 

These were just a few examples of topics covered at the eighth annual convening of the Impact & Sustainable Finance Faculty Consortium at Kellogg, which took place from June 26 to 28 in Singapore. Kellogg and Singapore Management University co-hosted the conference, the first one held outside the Kellogg campus, at Singapore Management University itself, with support from the Singapore Green Finance Centre. More than 100 consortium members and speakers from all over the world attended. 

Megan Kashner, Kellogg director of social impact and sustainability, emceed the conference and led a session on sustainable finance. “It’s always amazing to share and learn together and from outside speakers, and this time it was in a completely new context,” says Kashner, who is a member of the consortium’s steering committee.  

Attendees included faculty who teach courses on impact and sustainable finance — a robust mix of academic researchers and teachers who are also practitioners in the field. The full consortium, the premier global group for impact finance education, has well over 400 members representing 220+ universities in 40+ countries.

Consortium members teach at different levels — undergraduate through doctoral — and are experts in subjects spanning finance, law and beyond. But they all share a passion for promoting and positioning teaching effectively within the current financial, global, regulatory, reporting and data environments. To that end, the Consortium forges connections between members to improve teaching approaches and the translation of research and industry innovation into academic practice — through the sharing of expertise, research, syllabi, cases and instruction material.  

“It’s all about teachers teaching teachers, so we can train the next generation of investment professionals in this space,” says Consortium member Dave Chen, Kellogg faculty lead of impact investing.  

This year’s conference featured an especially global perspective, given its location. “Singapore’s government has more public license to enact forward-thinking sustainable-finance policies than might be the case in other countries,” Kashner says. “That’s true for everything from their public housing strategy to how they’re fortifying their oceanfront to how people will live and sustain in retirement. Then you had our Latin American faculty looking at Singapore’s approach and comparing that to what sustainable finance looks like in Colombia and Mexico.”  

That global view was present in every session and panel, including the opening session on challenges, solutions and impacts related to sustainable finance in Asia, featuring speakers representing family offices, banks and private equity firms. Another session went deep into research-driven insights related to carbon and the natural capital markets.  

A high-point of the conference was a symposium on greenwashing by asset managers, moderated by Kellogg Visiting Scholar Lloyd Kurtz and featuring panelist Aaron Yoon, Kellogg assistant professor of accounting and information management, whose research explores the dynamics and impacts of ESG investing. Yoon says, “We shared our respective findings on UN PRI funds’ ESG follow-through. The coherent message was that we are in the very beginning stages of ESG incorporation and that even clearer communication of implementation and follow-through can ensure proper ESG integration." 

In a separate event, Chen moderated a session on “The Intended and Unintended Consequences of Sustainability in Climate Reporting Standards and Regulations.” Panelists included representatives of both regulated firms and regulators, such as United Overseas Bank’s chief sustainability officer and the Monetary Authority of Singapore. “The session and the entire conference enabled us to think about sustainability with a sensitivity towards transition processes” in multiple industries, Chen says.  

Still another session covered how to teach cases related to sustainable finance. In advance of that session, organizers had compiled a searchable database featuring nearly 2,000 teaching cases related to the topic. The group also created a searchable library of members’ syllabi, Kashner noted. Attendees even took a field trip to Singapore’s Housing Development Board to understand that agency’s policies and impact.  

All in all, the consortium proved a hit with attendees and is poised to make long-lasting impacts. As one noted, “The convening has ended, but the conversation will continue.” Kashner says, “What we heard over and over was that people had never seen this mix of practitioners, researchers and instructors focused on making sure we’re providing educational fodder to help our students go out and lead in this evolving space. It’s such a novel convening of colleagues at a novel annual event.” 

Read next: How Kellogg is cultivating a more sustainable future