In February 2024, I completed the Principles of Sustainable Finance course from Erasmus University Rotterdam. For anyone passionate about sustainability, and especially for those like me transitioning into this field from a different professional background, this course offers not just knowledge, but perspective.
When I began exploring sustainability more deeply, one recurring question kept surfacing:
How can we align financial systems with sustainable development?
This course helped me answer that, in ways both practical and thought-provoking.
A New Perspective on Finance
The course begins with a bold but necessary statement: the current financial system is not equipped to handle the environmental and social challenges of our time. Traditional finance focuses on short-term shareholder returns, often at the cost of long-term environmental health and social equity. The course challenges this mindset and introduces the idea of finance as a tool for long-term value creation , not just for investors, but for all stakeholders.
We learned to assess financial systems through the lens of sustainability, exploring how risk, return, and impact intersect. For instance, climate-related risks (like extreme weather or regulation) are no longer future concerns, they’re real and measurable today. Understanding how to model and price those risks is crucial for investors and companies alike.
Key Themes and Topics Covered
Some of the core areas we explored include:
ESG Integration: How environmental, social, and governance factors are increasingly being integrated into financial decisions, and why it matters.
Materiality: Understanding how different sustainability issues affect financial performance, and how investors assess what's financially material vs. societally important.
Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs): How global goals can guide corporate strategy and investment priorities, and how to track real progress beyond superficial reporting.
Impact Measurement: How to evaluate not just the financial return, but also the positive (or negative) social and environmental outcomes of investments.
The Role of Regulation: How new European frameworks, like the EU Taxonomy and Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation (SFDR), are shaping investor behavior and corporate accountability.
Theory Meets Practice
What made this course particularly valuable was the balance between academic depth and real-world application. We didn’t just learn what sustainable finance is, but also how to apply it in practice. Through case studies, modeling exercises, and reflections on current events, we examined how companies are responding to sustainability trends, and where they’re falling short.
We explored examples from sectors like energy, agriculture, and finance itself. We asked hard questions:
Is a company truly reducing emissions, or just shifting them?
Are sustainability-linked loans and green bonds meaningful, or just marketing tools?
These discussions helped me develop a more critical and informed view of how sustainability is used, and sometimes misused, in financial communication.
Why This Matters to Me
Coming from a background in recruitment and human development, I’ve always believed that people are the heart of any system, including the financial one. But I also recognize that systems need structure and incentives to change. This course taught me that sustainable finance is one of the most powerful levers we have to transform markets, organizations, and societies.
It gave me the tools to understand complex concepts like ESG metrics, risk-return tradeoffs, and sustainable investment strategies, but also reaffirmed something deeply personal: that sustainability is not just an ethical imperative, but a strategic one.
Skills Gained
Assessing financial risk and impact through ESG and sustainability metrics
Understanding regulatory frameworks and market expectations around sustainable finance
Applying SDG-aligned thinking to corporate and investment strategies
Interpreting real-world finance tools like green bonds, impact investing, and climate risk disclosures
Bridging the gap between financial goals and social/environmental responsibility
This course deepened my commitment to working at the intersection of people, planet, and business. And it reminded me that we don’t need to choose between profitability and responsibility; we need to redesign systems where they support one another.
If you’re curious about sustainable finance or thinking of taking this course, feel free to reach out, I’d be happy to share more.
— Morena
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