Schulich MBA Students Pitch Indigenous Sustainability Fund on World Stage
This past month, a team of Schulich MBA students advanced to the finals of the Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge. The Challenge invites graduate students from around the world to devise innovative financial solutions to social and environmental problems. As finalists from a pool of 51 schools from 35 countries, Schulich is the only remaining school from Canada and now stand shoulder-to-shoulder against the world’s best – the likes of Yale, Oxford University, UC Berkley, Chicago-Booth and others.
The Schulich team pitched an Indigenous Sustainability Fund, which would replace Indigenous Services Canada’s existing diesel subsidies.
“Indigenous people on-reserve are living with a $30 billion infrastructure gap across Canada,” said Schulich team member Brendon Grant, a proud Indigenous grad student from the Haisla Nation in British Columbia. “We’re focusing on improving the diesel subsidy because it saves substantial amounts of money… while taking action on achieving Canada’s net zero goals by replacing diesel generation with affordable renewable energy in 120 remote, off-the-grid Indigenous communities.”
All four members of the Schulich team were enrolled in the new FINE 6880 Sustainable Finance and Impact Investing course, taught by Professor Lilian Ng, Scotiabank Chair in International Finance. Professor Ng couldn’t be prouder of her students’ achievement.
“This is an opportunity to let the York community know that our students are up there among the best from around the world,” said Professor Ng. “In my opinion, this is worthy of front-page news.”