Strategizing The Energy Transition From Disclosure Standards to Firm Valuation

Imagine you are leading the effort in your company's climate and sustainability disclosure and strategy. This hands-on course uses the innovative raw-case methods and offers you the knowledge, skills and a social learning environment as if you are completing the job with a capable and supportive team of experts, mentors and other co-learners. The course is organized in 8 modules and takes 2 months to complete. Pedagogically required small cohort size. Register early to begin in January 2022.

Sandra Dow, Ph.D.

Lead Instructor

Sandra Dow has a distinguished career as professor of Finance at the Middlebury Institute and the University of Quebec in Montreal. Professor Dow has published extensively and presented her work at numerous scholarly and practitioner venues. Her teaching interests include corporate governance; corporate finance; and environmental, social, and governance (ESG) risk management. As chair of the MBA program at Middlebury from 2013 to 2017, Professor Dow and her colleagues completely redesigned the curriculum to pivot the program toward impact management, along with developing and instituting the signature “raw case” pedagogy. In 2017 Professor Dow and her colleague Dr. Yuwei Shi were recognized for their pedagogical innovation by the Academy of Management where their article promoting raw cases received the Best Paper Award. Together they have coached many MBA teams to podium finishes in international case competitions, including the Economist Case Competitions and the Corporate Knights Business for a Better World Case Competition.

Course curriculum

1

Set up
- Insights from the 2020 ExxonMobil Sustainability Report and Engine No. 1 letter to the board
- From insights to strategy: How will you write the 2021 Sustainability Report?
- Complex problem solving: Perspectives and processes
- The game plan
- An initial data dump
- Sketch a road map
2

Introduction to climate change
- Scenario development
- Climate risks
- Climate opportunities
3

Disclosure and materiality
- Global regulatory environment
- Identifying materiality
- Evaluate the strength of MOX climate disclosure
4

Corporate governance
- Overview of global corporate governance
- Sustainability governance
- Evaluate the MOX governance
5

Mitigation and adaptation strategies
- Capex and R&D in fossil fuel industry
- Adaptation vs. mitigation
- Evaluate MOX investment strategies
6

Cost of capital
- A refresher on WACC
- Climate change and market risk premium
- Social discount rate
- What are appropriate discount rates for MOX?
7

Fundamental firm valuation
- A refresher on fundamental firm valuation
- Carbon shadow pricing
- Stranded assets
- Recommended investment strategies
- The range of MOX firm value
- What shall shareholders bear?
8

Synthesis
- Topics, perspectives and tools
- Insights from the mock experience
- Prospects and applications

FAQ

Are there prerequisites?
This course is designed as an advanced corporate finance and strategy course, suited to professional managers with a strong background in finance (e.g. CFA or CAIA designation or MBA specializing in finance). References to foundational knowledge in strategy and finance are provided throughout the course but are not a part of the lecture.
What is the main pedagogy of the course?
This is a hybrid online course consisting of both self-paced learning and live classes to provide maximal learning and flexibility. Multiple forms are used including presentations, pre-recorded video lectures, readings, weekly assignments, guest speaking, Q&A sessions, workshops, and group projects.
What is the course project?
The custom built MOX case will be studied throughout the course for participants to gain hands-on experience in climate disclosure and related strategic development, in an industry that is under increasing regulatory pressure, public scrutiny, and investor skepticism. The group project requires development of strategic recommendations to optimize firm and stakeholder value in the long run for the real and fictitious large energy company with a dominantly fossil fuel portfolio, as well as reporting and communication strategies.
What are some of the assignments?
The partial list of weekly assignments include ranking the ESG performance within the fossil fuel industry using publicly available information; evaluating the sustainability disclosure using both quantitative and qualitative metrics; understanding climate financial risks through scenario analysis; evaluating capex and R&D expenditures at both firm and industry levels in relation to global climate goals; and linking specific disclosure framework (e.g. TCFD or SASB) to strategic development.

Why you?

Your job is to study the risks and opportunities and assess their material financial impact with appropriate reporting framework and strategic planning and risk management tools. A job well done will not only produce the substantive information required for sustainability disclosure , but help shape the company's climate transition strategy. You are the one who makes the connection between disclosure and strategy, because your firm cannot do one without the other.

Limited Seats Available

The course pedagogy requires a small cohort size.

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