Interning under Professor Gernot Wagner for the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise's Climate Knowledge Initiative (CKI), I worked on building a “background deck” that highlights decarbonization technologies applicable to the global steel sector. Many publicly traded companies globally have committed to a net zero goal, but also cite lack of awareness of and access to low-carbon technologies as large barriers to their decarbonization efforts. CKI's mission is to fill this knowledge gap by focusing sector by sector. As the steel sector is a major emitter (responsible for ~seven percent of global emissions), steel is the first sector deep dive to be pursued. My work in this background deck (a 35-page report) illustrates the scale of growing emissions from the sector sans intervention attributable to conventional steelmaking processes. It also discusses key deep decarbonization (near zero carbon) technologies that are commercialized or in development, and touches on transitional technologies that can help steel producers decarbonize in the meantime. To close the report, my work discusses how the mix of steel production routes must shift over the next three decades, and emphasizes the importance of strong public policy to effect change.

In my MBA, I learned of climate policy instruments vital to curbing emissions and changing producer and consumer behavior through Climate Policy, and had many opportunities to practice data analysis and visualization skills through courses like the Business Analytics series. Additionally, as many courses required a presentation component, through them I was also able to hone my storytelling skills. Within this summer's internship, I leveraged these skills to compile research and present them in a report format that was easy to follow and digest for readers with varying levels of familiarity with steel and decarbonization. To complement the facts and research presented, I also gathered data from multiple sources and visualized the data in forms of various graphs and schematics that would allow the reader to better understand the material presented, and to emphasize the negative effects stemming from lack of action, as well as the positive effects of promising technologies being unveiled today.

During the internship, I faced two key challenges: navigating the project with few blueprints and sourcing desired data. As CKI is a newly minted initiative, with my colleagues having started work on the initiative a month prior, there are understandably few blueprints to follow when it comes to producing a “background knowledge” deliverable. I expected the lack of initial structure surrounding a deliverable given the initiative's newness, and navigating this lack of structure was made possible by frequent and open communication with Professor Wagner and my colleague Max de Boer to continuously brainstorm and provide feedback throughout the duration of the internship. For me, it took remaining open-minded and flexible to changes, as the report structure and content went through numerous changes as it was reviewed over time. In terms of sourcing data, oftentimes I wanted to obtain data that was able to be segmented in different ways. To be able to do so, data is not usually found through a single source or a few sources (like large intergovernmental or governmental agencies), but can require much broader research of scientific journals or smaller nonprofits to allow triangulation from multiple sources.

I had a great experience researching steel decarbonization and helping CKI with this first sectoral deep dive. My personal goal was to learn something new in the decarbonization space (focusing on a technology or sector), and I felt that was definitely achieved as I had plenty of time to perform research in a sector I am interested in. It was a helpful experience in that I was able to work in a more unstructured environment for a change, and I learned a lot about how to counter my nature of having a predictable deliverable path, and instead allow myself to continually adapt as visions for the final deliverable change. Finally, I enjoyed how much agency I had in working at my own pace. I felt meetings were to the point and productive, so meeting times did not take away from the time I had to work on my project.