"This summer, I worked as a Research Assistant with Professors Geoff Heal and Bruce Usher as part of CBS’ research initiative “Tracking the Transition”. As the issue of climate change is changing how consumers, investors and employees interact with businesses, most companies are voluntarily announcing ambitious plans to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Columbia Business School launched “Tracking the Transition” to assess, monitor, and predict this shift by businesses to net-zero greenhouse gas emissions.

During the course of my internship, I worked on creating a database of all net-zero commitments made by S&P500 corporations. This database also elucidated the exact nature of the commitment. Being a Dual degree student at CBS and SIPA, I could leverage my training at the intersection of business of impact to conduct both qualitative and quantitative research for the project. In particular, classes like climate finance, business analytics and ESG investing were extremely useful in data collection and analysis. These classes were useful in providing context for the project and also for honing data analytics skills which were essential for the project. Further, I received continuous support and guidance from Professors Heal and Usher to best deliver on the tasks at hand.

My internship was mostly virtual but we had a few meetings with the Professors on campus which was useful in clarifying the goals at every step. We faced a few challenges as we worked on the database. The methodology adopted to build the database entailed secondary research through a variety of different sources. As there is no standardized reporting mechanism for these corporate pledges, it was challenging to collect data and interpret it in a way that it is comparable. To address this issue, we worked on creating a standard framework to draw useful insights on not only the nature of the net zero commitments but also the plans of the corporates to achieve it.

I believe that this research project has a large-scale impact to further climate action. The data and knowledge generated from this proposed research initiative will be widely shared with the business community via publications, press releases, public access data on a dedicated website, research papers and conferences. The data and analysis will be valuable to investors and company leaders seeking to optimize their strategies, and to policy makers in government seeking to understand the lowest-cost solutions to addressing climate change. For me, this project highlighted the importance of bringing together different stakeholders to address the issue of climate change and further reiterated my passion to work in the field of sustainable finance."