Insegnamento a.a. 2025-2026

• Principles of sustainable finance

• Measuring sustainability: ESG data and its challenges

• Investor engagement and activism

• Measuring ESG performance and pricing of risks: Can investors do well by doing good?

• Investor demand for sustainability and the many facets of sustainable finance in public and private markets

Understand and explain core investment and financing techniques concepts; understand and explain the foundations of sustainable finance

Apply the key concepts of sustainable finance and critically assess the incentives and actions of firms, investors, and other stakeholders regarding ESG, as well as their outcomes.

• Lectures
• Guest speaker's talks (in class or in distance)
• Practical Exercises
• Individual works / Assignments
• Collaborative Works / Assignments
• Interaction/Gamification

• Guest speakers: The course will feature guest speakers that are experts in sustainable finance.
• Exercises: Students will work on numerical exercises and data exercises 
• Case studies: Students will work on their favorite case studies, assigned in a competitive bidding process; the cases are assigned to give a sense of solving allegedly real problems facing a firm
• Individual assignments: Students work through individual assignments (quizzes) throughout the course, helping students to synthesize the material.
• Group assignments: Students will work on both case studies and self-chosen team projects in groups, with the latter assigned in a competitive bidding process.
• Interactive class activities: The course will include a keystone online simulation, role playing during case discussions, and live polling during classes.

Course assessment is identical for attending and non-attending students.

Your course grade will reflect your performance, with weights determined as follows:

Participation (10% of grade)

Quizzes (10% of grade)               

Team work (30% of grade)  

Final exam (50% of grade)

Participation: Measured by how much you contribute to the learning of others in the course.
 

Quizzes: They are aimed at helping synthesize the course material and assessing one’s ability to apply analytical tools and institutional knowledge. Each student hands in all the quizzes. You are allowed, and encouraged, to work on the quizzes with other class members, this significantly increases learning. You are not allowed to use answers obtained from outside the class, for example from online sources—this is cheating, it is unethical, and it violates the Bocconi Honor Code.
 

Teamwork: Include case writeups and a presentation.

• Writeups: They are designed to give students a sense of solving allegedly real problems facing a manager. Each team hands in write-ups of 2 of the cases that we cover, cases are allocated in a bidding process in the first session (2 cases: 10% each).
• Projects: Teams will prepare an investment committee proposal (in PPT) based on 1 of the special cases provided (randomly assigned). The proposal should assess the investment case, impact case, and the risks to achieving financial returns and impact. The proposal should also specify measurable targets for expected impact. The presentation should not have more than 10 slides in total (including Title slide and Conclusion slide). Each team presents 1 of the special cases chosen to be presented in dedicated sessions (1 presentation: 10%).
   

Final exam: The final exam covers all course material. We will discuss the precise format during the course.

• Course note packet (on Blackboard): The online course pack contains video materials, syllabus, class lecture notes, technical documents, journal articles, and data files.
• Cases (on Blackboard): a set of cases we work through in class.
• FAQ (on Blackboard): an up-to-date guide to Frequently Asked Questions about the course.
• Textbook: There is no textbook for the course.
• Pre-readings (on Blackboard): See the course notes for pre-reading to be done before the course formally begins.