Erb students lead ClimateCAP and Climate Week events

In February, more than 400 MBA students from around the world converged at the Ross School of Business for the 2024 ClimateCAP MBA Summit—the largest one to date.

The ClimateCAP Initiative is a global partnership of more than 40 business schools, and the yearly MBA Summit brings students, business leaders and experts from a range of industries together. At the summit, participants assess the implications of climate change for business and investment, and students deepen their understanding of how climate change shapes industries, where the biggest financial and operational risks lie, and what opportunities are emerging. Sessions ranged from corporate political responsibility to climate and AI.

The four student cochairs included two Erb dual-degree students: Nick Rojas, MBA/MS 2024, and Alex Reid, MBA/MS 2024. Rojas had attended two previous ClimateCAP summits, at the Kellogg and McCombs business schools, where he was inspired by the work of those organizing teams. “They generously shared a lot of lessons that helped us build our foundation for the event,” Rojas says. The team focused on providing meaningful opportunities for students to connect with one another, including structured networking based on specific climate topics. “Our hope was that no matter what you were passionate about, you would find others also interested in it and start building a community of support,” he says. 

The ClimateCAP cochairs also put together a deans panel, “focused on discussing the role business schools have in preparing MBAs to enter a world affected by climate change and begin to push back on the shareholder-first mentality that has dominated business for the last few decades.”

“The summit was a huge success because of the strength of the Erb community,” Rojas says. And thanks to that success, “we’ve established a new support fund for Ross students to attend future ClimateCAP summits for the next decade. If any Erb Community member is interested in supporting this initiative, please let staff know.” 

Rojas was a member of the inaugural class of ClimateCAP Fellows in 2023. The ClimateCAP Fellowship is an immersive experience that empowers MBA students to become the next generation of climate leaders and changemakers. For a year, a cohort of 12 fellows learn from guest experts and academic advisors, build community with each other, and work on an applied climate-related project. The Erb Institute’s Jenna Weinstein, MS/MBA 2025, is a ClimateCAP 2024 Fellow.

Climate Week

In 2023, Erb Institute students created Climate Week, held during Earth Month, to share insights on climate issues. The week included six sessions where Ross students, as well as other graduate and undergraduate students, learned from peers, professors and industry practitioners on topics that core business school courses don’t usually cover. The sessions included climate change, GHG accounting, risk and disclosure, climate economics and financing, sustainable and equitable product innovation, and pathways for decarbonization. 

The event was intended to help upskill students on the fundamentals of climate science and how to apply those skills to business scenarios. More than 400 students attended.

Six Erb students organized this year’s event: Supreya Kesavan, Jillian Brown, Annie Kartheiser, Jenna Weinstein, Rena Lahn, Kelly Donahoe and Victoria Jenkins.

Kesavan, MBA/MS 2024, was part of the planning team for the inaugural event as well as for Climate Week 2024. “Regardless of major, year, experience, etc., there is so much interest in this work. Students are eager for the connection to the broader world and information related to the climate. I walked away feeling quite hopeful,” Kesavan says.

Kesavan was also chosen as one of the 2024 GreenBiz Emerging Leaders, a program designed to elevate, cultivate and support the next generation of Black, Indigenous and people of color (BIPOC) leaders in the climate community. The Emerging Leaders Program aims to foster a community of sustainability professionals that is diverse and representative of the world we live in.

Events that bring people together like this are important. “We have an incredibly challenging and important period of time that we are entering into that could determine what the world looks like for decades to come,” Rojas says. “While it can feel overwhelming at times, events like this help me remember that there is a strong, passionate community of future business leaders who want to do something about it. We need to continue building and strengthening communities of business folks who won’t stand for the status quo and want to create a more sustainable, equitable future.”