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.
Donor Name: Climate Investment Challenge
Country: Global
Type of Grant: Challenge
Deadline: 03/03/2023
Size of the Grant: £10,000
Details:
Why?
The planet has a carbon budget of approximately 420 gigatons (GT) – this is the amount of carbon emissions they can emit while having a chance to limit global temperature rise to 1.5C. Unfortunately with the current rate of carbon emissions, they will exhaust their carbon budget in the next 6 years. Mitigating climate change involves rapidly scaling up investment in climate mitigating and adaption projects. Bloomberg New Energy Finance (BNEF) estimates average investment requirements to be between $3.1 trillion and $5.8 trillion per year until 2050.
The Competition
The Climate Investment Challenge goes through three stages:
- In Stage 1, your team will submit a Concept Note of your idea. If your team’s submission is selected, you’ll move on to the next stage.
- In Stage 2 (the Semi-Finals), your team will be invited to develop a detailed slide-pack of your idea. If your team’s presentation is selected, you’ll be moved on to the final stage.
- In Stage 3 (the Finals), your team will pitch your idea in front of a top-tier panel of judges from investment banking, private equity, and impact investing.
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 utilise 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 utilise 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.
Eligibility Criteria
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.
For more information, visit Climate Investment Challenge.
