Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge

The Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge harnesses the power of capital markets and student creativity to create positive impact in a world of perpetual resource scarcity and continued population growth. A pitch competition for graduate students, the Challenge focuses on developing institutional-quality investment vehicles that seek positive environmental or social impact and competitive financial returns.

The Challenge was launched in 2011 and was the first graduate competition focused on sustainable investing. In 14 years, the Challenge has seen over 2000 student participants from over 100 different home countries and representing over 150 different universities. All together students have generated hundreds of proposals representing ideas that reflect and predict the most innovative ideas in sustainable finance.

Past proposals have ranged from working capital loans to help beekeepers scale operations and expand practices that drive biodiversity conservation, an exchange-traded fund to help improve the economic integration of refugees, and a loan fund to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by increasing organic farming, among many others. Many proposals have been turned into real world funds or ventures.

What it Means to Compete

There are many competitions that focus on social entrepreneurship or early-stage investments. The Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge is different in that it focuses on scalable solutions created by finance.

Active students in any graduate program at any accredited university in the world can compete in teams of up to 4 students. There is no entry fee. The Challenge kicks off in November and concludes in an in-person pitch at one of Morgan Stanley’s global headquarters. Past finals locations have included New York, Hong Kong, and London.

Full participation details and key dates for the coming challenge can be found on the dedicated Challenge website.

The Challenge is not just the refinement and pitching of an idea. Challenge participants are assigned a mentor with expertise and experience in sustainable investing, are eligible to attend a master class lecture series taught by leading professors of sustainable finance from the best schools across the world and are invited to a half day career trek that features professional panels and small group networking sessions.

All finalist teams receive complementary flights and hotels to pitch in the finals and are eligible for $10,000, $5,000, and $2,500 prizes.

Past winners have represented schools including Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah; the Agricultural School at Gulu University; Judge Business School at Cambridge University; Saïd Business School, Smith School of Enterprise, and the Environment and Medical Research Council Brain Network Dynamics Unit at University of Oxford; Stern School of Business, and Wagner School of Public Service at New York University; Lee Kong Chian School of Business at Singapore Management University; Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley; School of International Policy Studies at Stanford University; and Kellogg.