The fight against climate change central to the EDHEC-Coursera specialisation

EDHEC Business School launched the “Climate Change and Sustainable Investing” specialisation in September 2021 through its EDHEC Risk Institute finance research centre. Devised in partnership with Coursera – the world-leading provider of online courses – the curriculum is designed to give students the tools to understand the role finance can play in fighting climate change. As underlined by Riccardo Rebonato, Professor of Finance at EDHEC Business School and contributor to two of the specialisation’s MOOCs: “We want participants to develop a critical mind and to form their own opinion, for instance about the policies used to tackle climate change. We try to achieve this by providing them with the right information, and the analytical tools to process it.”

The innovative programme was created by EDHEC Risk Institute professors and researchers - Lionel Martellini, Gianfranco Gianfrate, Riccardo Rebonato, Emanuele Chini – who pooled their expertise to set up four Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs) open to all and culminating in a certificate. The courses provide a 360 holistic view of climate change by highlighting the inter-connection between science, economics and finance:

MOOC 1: Science and Engineering of Climate Change

This course offers an introduction to the science of climate change (scientific research conducted on the climate and the impact of greenhouse gases on the planet) and to the existing technological solutions found to mitigate carbon emissions and their atmospheric concentration.

MOOC 2: Economics and Policies of Climate Change

This second MOOC deals with the techniques envisaged by economists to stem climate change (analysis of net present value and integrated valuation models), as well as the different policy approaches applied to assist economies in reducing carbon emissions, particularly via cap-and-trade carbon markets.

MOOC 3: The Finance of Climate Change

This course focuses on the financial risks and opportunities of climate change and considers both the impact of the threat to financial intermediaries, as well as the instruments, investment funds and solutions that can be employed to finance clean technologies and energies.

MOOC 4: Climate Aware Investing

This final course explains the methodologies most widely used by asset managers to control the carbon exposure of their equity portfolios. As part of the course, participants can build a portfolio of low-carbon emission indices.

Lasting around four months, the programme seeks to enable banking or finance professionals and economics or finance graduates to forge insightful opinions, grounded in scientific facts and taking into account the feasibility and appropriateness of existing options for tackling climate change, so that on completion of the programme, they are capable of putting effective low-carbon investment strategies into practice.

Discover the specialisation : “Climate Change and Sustainable Investing”