Business schools should prioritize hands-on, sustainable investing education: Opinion

Given the climate crisis and ongoing inequality, business schools should provide formal instruction on sustainable investing, argue Lorin Busaan (University of Victoria) and Basma Majerbi (UVic) in an op-ed. The authors assert that sustainable investing requires serious attention in Canada’s business school finance programs and that skills in this area are best developed through hands-on practice. Busaan and Majerbi underline that Student-Managed Investment Funds (SMIFs) present an ideal opportunity to provide students with this type of experiential learning, but that few Canadian SMIFs currently integrate environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations. They conclude that training students on the importance of ESG through the hands-on management of SMIFs could aid in more effectively training future financial professionals.