Sustainability
1) Identify a sustainability problem. List area of sustainability as a category. Choose from: Energy, Water, Waste, Civic Engagement, Safety and Health.
2) Find and summarize with 3-5 bullet points an article that discusses an interesting technology that might address the problem. In the bullets please mention the name of the technology/brand if available. Include the article title, website name and link. List appropriate tags.
3) Identify organizational stakeholders that will need to use the technology found (i.e. Facilities management team)
4) Propose the first 3 steps in deploying this technology
5) Find another students post and using the comment feature, add a bullet describing the technology beyond what the post contains in Step 2 after reading their article
Another Student’s Blog post/article:
Topic: ESG investing made easy
1. With respect to civic engagement, there is both a lack of awareness and trust in the financial system to generate returns and a positive impact on the environment and other relevant social issues. The burden is currently on individuals to find and source mechanisms of positively engaging with the markets to generate a return while positively impacting areas of interest.
2. https://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/diyinvesting/article-8898823/Tickr-investing-app-good-does-work.html
This article is describing a company based out of the UK called Tickr which is focused on impact investing. The company utilizes two main mechanisms for enacting this sort of engagement with customers and investors. First is a focus on ESG linked ETFs (exchange traded funds) which are composites of companies pooled within a similar sector (in this case sustainability, renewable energy, impact, etc.). Second, is providing easy access to investing in carbon offsets. The company provides and directly demonstrates the impact an individuals investments have (the carbon reducing impact, the projects an individual is investing in, etc.).
3. The main stakeholder is the public, specifically the financially engaged public that are otherwise investing with more mainstream applications like Fidelity, Vanguard, and Robin Hood. The technology is only effective, both from a company POV and an impact POV, if there is a large scale adoption among the public.
4. In order to deploy the technology, the company needs to attract an engaged customer base interested in having their investments actively and visually demonstrate an environmental and social impact. Second, this impact needs to be visible and significant enough for individuals to sacrifice a possible higher return in favor of ESG-linked affect. Finally, the technology needs to be user-friendly and facilitate trading in as similar a mechanism and with the same ease as competitors. At the end of the day, consumers want a product that is easy to use and can achieve the same utility as competitors while generating an additional impact above and beyond the competitor space.
