Combatting climate change: shifting perspectives and increased partnerships
By Kaci
Green finance is just one piece of the puzzle; all the organizations our class was able to work with help to fill in other pieces. I wonder what would happen if these organizations worked together to leverage their collective power.
The work to combat climate change involves shifting perspectives and increased partnership. As my group began our work with our client, I realized how powerful the world of finance and investing is. This is not my field, and I am not familiar with investment funds or the green finance space. I realized there is a lot of potential for climate goals to shift with financial tools. As we moved further into our project, however, it became clear that green finance alone will not solve catastrophic climate change, nor will any one industry or organization be able to accomplish this shift on their own.
Combatting climate change will require shifting how we view returns. Returns are often seen in quarters, months, or annually. Affecting climate change will require expanding this view to include multiple years, perhaps decades. It is difficult to make decisions now that you might not see change from until 10 years from now, but this is the perspective shift that needs to occur in order to see real changes. In my team’s project, we saw this with how investors are holding green investments for longer because the returns are not just financial, but also environmental. Including these environmental effects in the returns of the bonds necessitates that we shift our timeframes for how we evaluate investments and decisions.
Combatting climate change will also require shifting who we work with and how we understand partnerships. While I had never researched green finance opportunities and understood the potential impact green finance could have on climate change, I also recognize that green finance alone cannot solve this problem. There are many different organizations working to combat climate change and they are all needed. As we view their work collectively, we can see each organization’s work is having a local, and necessary, impact. If these organizations were to work together, sharing insights, capital, access, and methodologies, the impact they could have would be increased exponentially. In our current system, non-profit organizations are trying to survive in a world that continues to create the very problems they are trying to solve. Through partnerships, they may be able to shift the systems just enough to stop the problems at their source. Green finance is just one piece of the puzzle; all the organizations our class was able to work with help to fill in other pieces. I wonder what would happen if these organizations worked together to leverage their collective power.