Climate Investment Challenge

February 10, 2023

The Climate Investment Challenge calls on students to develop and describe creative financial solutions and innovations addressing the defining challenge of our time – climate change. This could include identifying untapped climate finance opportunities or developing innovative financial structures or instruments that improve the bankability of climate investments.

Eligibility:

Students enrolled in any degree at the time of the submission.
The challenge is open globally to students from all academic backgrounds.
Undergraduate students may participate as long as the leader of the group is enrolled in a postgraduate degree.
Students will have to form teams of 2 to 6 members.
Students must apply with their student emails.

The Prizes:

The Main Competition Prize is focused on financial tools that exist today (e.g., loans, derivatives, REITs, bonds) to address a specific climate problem that is currently underserved. The winning team will be awarded £10,000.
The Emerging Markets Prize is focused on financial tools that exist today (e.g., REITs, bonds) to address a specific Emerging Markets climate problem that is currently underserved. The winning team will be awarded £6,000.
The Financial Disruption Prize is for ideas that harness technology to disrupt the financial industry (e.g., banking, insurance etc.) and solve climate problems at scale. The winning entrepreneurial idea will be able to utilize the prize money to develop a Minimum Viable Product (MVP). The winning team will be awarded £6,000.
The Data Analytics Prize is looking for creative ways to utilize existing climate and environmental datasets to improve the adoption of climate finance. Such ideas may help to integrate transition or physical climate risk into financial decision-making or develop novel green financial instruments. This can include the use of weather data, climate models, geospatial and satellite data. The winning team will be awarded £5,000.