The Sustainable Financial Analytics programme retains a practical and applied approach, and the student will be equipped with a deeper and more fundamental understanding of the dilemmas that arise where financial analyses meet sustainability.
As a student you will explore methods and skills that enable you to include ESG in well-founded financial analyses. The benefits are many, particularly as this is a field where the need for essential ESG-information faces many challenges due to a general lack of standards and the very speed with which this field has developed.
The industry professionals come from a wide variety of asset managers, investors, corporations, banks and auditors from Norway and abroad. Their contributions are fully integrated with the lecturers and professors from NHH. You will become part of a network of highly professional and experienced students and lecturers, where peer-learning and chared knowledge and experiences are essential tools.
Who is the programme for?
The Sustainable Financial Analytics programme is designed for professionals with an interest in how to integrate sustainability in financial assessments.
Relevant professional backgrounds include
- analysts, portfolio managers, CFOs, accountants, investors, rating analysts, bankers as well as advisors, consultants, journalists, lawyers and regulators
Applicants are required to have at least three years of relevant work experience as well as a basic knowledge of sustainable finance.
What you learn
The Sustainable Financial Analytics Programme is organised in three parts. The first part focuses on current challenges and sustainable business models, materiality analysis and reporting.
Part two integrates sustainability in financial valuation using traditional valuation models as a starting point.
The third part focuses on how to best include sustainability in Portfolio Management; both on a more general level, and for the most important asset classes.
The group based assignment, which will be discussed in full in the final session, integrates the knowledge and information from the earlier parts, and is an essential component of the programme.
The first session:
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- Sustainable business models, materiality and reporting
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- Integrated valuation using ESG metrics
The programme’s starting point will be topics related to the nature and characteristics of more sustainable business models We will discuss the opportunities and challenges of sustainability reporting, and discuss the identification, prioritization, measurement and reporting of ESG factors, as well as EU Taxonomy and other key international standards.
The second part of this session offers an integrated perspective on valuation that incorporates externalities that can cause sudden shocks to a company’s cash flows, lead to stranded assets, and force losses in the company’s productive value. . The goal of this part of the course is to explore ways of internalizing the inherent uncertainty about environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues into a company’s valuation.
The second session
Based on an understanding of fundamental sustainability concepts and criteria, as well as how these are measured and included in valuation models, the second session covers how to apply this in a portfolio management context.
Understanding how sustainability could be integrated in portfolio management includes a recap of the core portfolio theory models, based on the trade-off between risk and return, with topics like the CAPM, factor models and market efficiency, proceeding to discussing how to create portfolios according to different investment styles, and how to evaluate their performance. We will look into different ESG strategies used by portfolio managers.
We will cover how sustainability could enter the analysis and investment into other asset classes, e.g. fixed income/credit, real estate, private equity, and impact investments, as well as performance measurement and implementation challenges.
The final part of this session prepares the students for the group projects that will be discussed in the final session.
The third and final session
The last session will focus on discussing the group assignments. Sustainable finance is a complex field with a particular need for well-founded and balanced discussions. Each assignment will be presented and discussed by students, lecturers and invited experts and contributors in the field.
After completing the programme, candidates are expected to have achieved the following
overall learning outcomes defined in terms of knowledge, skills and general competence:
Knowledge
The candidate has in-depth knowledge of:
- the main sustainability issues and their relevance to financial analysis and decision making
- the principles and main references for reporting and documenting sustainability issues
at company, investment and portfolio levels - sustainability risks and opportunities which are relevant for financial analysis in
general, and in particular in a portfolio management context
Skills
The candidate is capable of:
- extracting and applying the significant and material information about sustainability
for financial analysis conveyed by a company or other relevant sources regarding
sustainability to do advanced valuation of companies, financial instruments and other
assets that fully reflect the relevant sustainability risks and opportunities - specifying and analysing, as well as applying the principles for implementation of
optimal investment portfolio management reflecting the relevant and material
sustainability issues.
General competence
The candidate is capable of:
- communicating at an advanced level with specialists in both academia and practice
about complex issues on understanding and recognizing material sustainability topics
when conducting financial analysis.
Aksel Mjøs, Head of the Finance Department, NHH, is Programme Director
| José Albuquerque de Sousa | Assistant Professor of Finance |
| Annie Bersagel | Portfolio Manager ESG, Folketrygdfondet |
| Melanie Brooks | Portfolio Manager and Head of ESG, Fondsfinans Asset Management |
| Ulf G. Erlandsson | Founder/Chief executive, Anthropocene Fixed Income Institute |
| Guilain Decrop | Head of Continental Europe, NBIM |
| Kirsten Margrethe Hovi | ESG Advisor to the CFO, Norsk Hydro |
| Are Jansrud | Chief Compliance Officer, Sparebank 1 Østlandet |
| Hanne Sælemyr Johansen | Partner, PwC Trust Solutions |
| Sveinung Jørgensen | Associate Professor in Sustainable Business |
| Michael Kurz | Fund Manager, MN |
| Liv Annike Kverneland | Partner, PwC |
| Aksel Mjøs | Programme Director and Head of the Department of Finance, NHH |
| Ibrahim Pelja | Head of ESG and Sustainability, Gabler AS and PhD, NHH |
| Lars Jacob Tynes Pedersen | Professor and Co-Head of the Centre for Sustainable Business |
| Martin Skancke | Founder, Skancke Consulting |
| Laurens Swinkels | Executive Director at Robeco, Associate Professor at Erasmus University Rotterdam |
| Isabelle Juillard Thompsen | CEO, Hvitsten AS |
| Einar Aaser | Globale Head of Industrials, DNB Corporate Banking |
The list of lecturers is not complete
The programme includes eight full days of learning, organised in two weekends of three full days , and a two day final session where students present, defend and discuss their group reports.
The Sustainable Financial Analytics programme is demanding, and completing the programme requires significant effort through self-study and participation in groups.
An essential part of the programme is establishing a network of student and lecturers. All three sessions invite all students to take part in an integrated experience of lectures, panel debates, discussions, dinner, case work and so on. Consequently, we encourage all students to opt for full-board accomodation.
The assessment method is a group based written assignment where the aim is to integrate knowledge and information from lectures, presentations and discussions throughout the programme, and apply this to a valuation of a company or a financial instrument, a portfolio construction, portfolio analysis, or other topics that include sustainability in valuation, or assessment of portfolios.
The assignments will be presented and discussed in a separate two-day session at the end of the programme (March 2025).
Grading: Pass/Fail 7,5 ECTS Credits
The applicant must have a University degree or vocational education with a scope of at least three years.
Relevant professional backgrounds include analysts, portfolio managers, CFOs, accountants, investors, rating analysts, bankers as well as advisors, consultants, journalists, lawyers and regulators.
The programme is targeted towards experienced Norwegian and primarily Nordic students with a professional interest in how to better understand the sustainability dimensions when approaching financial tasks Applicants from outside Scandinavia are welcome to apply.
Applicants are required to have at least three years of relevant work experience.
Admission to the Sustainable Financial Analytics programme is handled by NHH Executive. You will find everything about the application, documentation and other relevant information HERE.
Application deadline is 2 September 2024.
The programme consists of three sessions, in the period of October 2024 to March 2025:
- Session 1: 24 – 26 October 2024
- Session 2: 14 – 16 November 2024
- Session 3: 20 – 21 March 2025
The assignment must be uploaded to the online assessment platform, Wiseflow, by 14 February 2025.
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I participated in the sustainable financial analysics programme by FFN and NHH. It was both interesting and educational and I would highly recommend the programme for those who want to have a deeper insight into sustainability perspectives, particularly in corporate analyses and valuation. The programme is also an excellent arena to meet peers from the industry with and interest in sustainability.
Kristine K. Timberlid, Director Denmark, Innovation Norway The course I took at NHH in Sustainable Financial Analysics gave me a unique insight into the risks and the opportunities when dealing with ESG in finance. What I appreciated the most was still the many interesting discussions we had during the program over the many dilemmas sustainable finance touches upon.