Global Sustainability Issues and Finance

Introduction

MSc in Sustainable Finance is put on hold from autumn 2026.

The course provides a broad introduction to the sustainability, climate change, and social equity issues the world faces. It surveys the facts, values and challenges of sustainable growth. The focus is on the trade-offs that society and humanity at large face, and the role of business, financial markets, governments and regulation in achieving the UN 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). The course provides a rigorous analysis of global sustainability-related issues, covering the relevant theories of climate change, externalities and public goods, and international cooperation mechanisms. The course’s central theme consists of the role of financial markets, financial institutions, and financial management in addressing ESG concerns, and how the different sectors of the financial markets (equity, fixed income, banking and insurance) are incorporating sustainability issues.

Standard finance and economic models ignore environmental and social concerns. Nature and its services are assumed to be freely available. However, the world’s current situation clearly demonstrates that ecological resources are limited. Business, finance and economic models of the future must therefore incorporate social equity concerns and scarcity of environmental resources if they are to be useful tools to address sustainability issues.

This introductory course gives students insight into how businesses can internalize their footprint in society and the environment. How can Corporate Governance be adapted to accommodate a more sustainable business practice? How can long-term institutional owners contribute to making businesses reach their long-term sustainable development goals? How does this impact the strategy and business model of a corporation? What is the role of the legislator in forcing companies in the right direction? These questions and more will be addressed.

Course content

• The history of our understanding of global sustainability.
• The challenges and different dimensions of sustainability
• How to internalize the externalities of public goods
• The role of finance, financial markets and coalitions in addressing sustainability challenges
• How do business models need to be adjusted to support a sustainable business?
• What is an Integrated Report and how does it provide a fuller picture of the company's performance?
• What legislative initiatives have been taken to move towards a sustainable future?
• Introduction to the EU sustainability regulatory framework and its disclosure and reporting requirements.
• ESG scores as private, decentralized measures of firm performance
• Long-Term Value Creation: the opportunities and challenges
• How particular financial institutions and markets are affected by sustainability risks, and how they can contribute to meeting sustainabiliy challenges
  • Insurance firms
  • Investment funds
  • Banks
  • Bond markets

Disclaimer

This is an excerpt from the complete course description for the course. If you are an active student at BI, you can find the complete course descriptions with information on eg. learning goals, learning process, curriculum and exam at portal.bi.no. We reserve the right to make changes to this description.