Two current Cambridge MBA students at Cambridge Judge Business School, John Ambler and William Maxted, win the 2022 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.
Two current Cambridge MBA students at Cambridge Judge Business School won a prestigious global award for creating a new type of insurance to protect and restore mangrove forests affected by climate change. Coast Haven Brokerage, a platform-based brokerage that uses data capturing and parametric insurance, came top out of 77 teams to win this year’s Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.
Created by John Ambler of the US and William Maxted of the UK (both MBA 2021), the project connects those benefitting from the rich ecosystems of mangroves – such as tourism industries and governments – with insurers, investors, project developers and restoration experts. When winds reach specific speeds in at-risk areas, signalling an extreme weather event, insurers would immediately make fixed-rate payments to allow rapid regeneration, helping to ensure the protection of mangrove forests and their communities.
The Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge sees competitors addressing global environmental and social issues using innovative financial solutions. Run by the Morgan Stanley Institute for Sustainable Investing and Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University, the challenge is in its 12th year. More than 250 graduate students from 35 different countries pitched solutions, with 16 teams making it through to the finals on Friday 8 April. Other proposals included re-using and upcycling old wind turbine blades, and a fund to build green hydrogen facilities.
“This year’s teams showed us that the challenges we face today require urgent and fresh thinking,” says Audrey Choi, a Morgan Stanley senior adviser and CEO of the firm’s Institute for Sustainable Investing. “As the world struggles with intensifying extreme weather events and growing inequality, it’s clear that innovative financial solutions like this plan to protect and restore mangrove forests is an exemplary case of tomorrow’s business and finance leaders thinking outside the box.”