Meet the Future of Sustainable Finance: This Year’s Sustainable Investing Challenge Winners

Apr 28, 2025

Students from the University of Oxford won the 2025 Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge with their idea to provide affordable flood resilience financing in Bangladesh.

Key Takeaways

  • Graduate students from the University of Oxford won the 15th annual Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge.
  • Their proposal blends concessional loans and parametric insurance to provide affordable flood resilience financing for low-income households in Bangladesh.
  • Students from Northwestern University won second place with their pitch to address groundwater depletion in Punjab using a blended-capital model, and students from York University won third place with their proposal to promote sustainable construction using a sukuk-based financing structure.

After a day-long final in London, graduate students from the University of Oxford won the 15th annual Kellogg-Morgan Stanley Sustainable Investing Challenge for their proposal to blend concessional loans and parametric insurance to provide affordable flood resilience financing for low-income households in Bangladesh.

 

A team from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University placed second with their idea to address groundwater depletion in Punjab using a blended-capital model, and a team from the Schulich School of Business at York University won third place with their proposal to promote sustainable construction using a sukuk-based financing structure.

 

The Challenge, hosted by Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and Morgan Stanley’s Institute for Sustainable Investing, invites teams of graduate students from around the world to develop and pitch creative financial approaches that tackle pressing social and environmental challenges. The competition facilitates connections with leading industry professionals to identify, empower and inspire those who will make up the future of sustainable finance.

 

This year’s 12 finalist teams’ ideas ranged from building sustainable aviation infrastructure in New Zealand, to tackling urban heat and high energy costs in Harlem, to investing in Fiji’s youth and workforce education.

 

“The Sustainable Investing Challenge showcases the creativity and innovation of the next generation of sustainable finance leaders,” said Jessica Alsford, Morgan Stanley’s Chief Sustainability Officer and Chair of the Institute for Sustainable Investing. “We’re inspired by the bold ideas presented this year, which demonstrate the potential of financial solutions to drive real, lasting impact across industries and communities.”

 

BanglaShield Wins the 2025 Challenge

Harry Breidahl, Achyut Gautam, Sachi Jain and Phetogo Mogotsi of the BanglaShield team won the judges’ votes to secure the first-place prize of $10,000. With climate-related disasters disproportionately impacting low-income households in Bangladesh, the team from the University of Oxford developed an idea for a fund that blends concessional loans and parametric insurance to provide affordable flood resilience financing.

The Sustainable Agri-aqua Investment Fund team, including Debdeep Bhattacharjee, Karuna Chauhan, Apurva P and Shagun Sharma, won the runner-up prize of $5,000 with their plan to address groundwater depletion in Punjab. The students from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University proposed a blended-capital model that would align micro-irrigation financing with pooled carbon credits and government-backed repayments linked to energy savings. It would also improve crop diversification by helping small farmers transition to water-efficient practices. 

Sara Amin, Aayush Rathore and Sadanand Shenoy of the Pharaoh Brick Fund team won third place and $2,500 with their plan to repurpose Egypt’s waste from demolition and rice straw into low-carbon bricks. The Schulich School of Business students from York University proposed a fund that would reduce pollution and landfill waste while promoting sustainable construction using a sukuk-based financing structure with revenues from brick sales, carbon credits and government incentives.

 

Snapshot of the Global Competition

The Challenge this year saw 545 students from 65 countries submit proposals for projects that address challenges in 39 nations. The 12 finalists were selected by a group of sustainable investing professionals, who also participated as mentors to the teams. After traveling to Morgan Stanley's European headquarters in London to pitch their ideas to a panel of sustainable finance experts and senior practitioners across the industry, the top three teams were chosen.

“Each year, this competition reaffirms what we already know—the talent, drive and fresh thinking of today’s graduate students will be the key to tackling our most challenging global problems,” says Dave Chen, Professor of Finance at Kellogg Management School, CEO of Equilibrium Capital and the founder of the Sustainable Investing Challenge. “This year’s winners and finalists aren’t just developing solutions for tomorrow; they’re demonstrating what is possible today. We’re proud to support them as they develop the skills and insights to make a lasting impact."

 

The other nine finalists were:

 

Aotearoa Altitude Fund

  • Proposal: This proposed infrastructure equity fund is designed to accelerate sustainable aviation in New Zealand and beyond by investing in at-scale gasification of Sustainable Aviation Fuel (SAF) facilities.
  • Schools: New York University, Columbia University

 

Carbon-Backed Securities

  • Proposal: This proposal would aim to scale durable carbon removal by introducing a biochar-focused lending structure for the U.S. in which project loans would be repaid with carbon credits, offering developers affordable financing and enabling banks to acquire high-quality carbon offsets.
  • School: Yale University

 

Moroccan Desert Truffle Fund

  • Proposal: Designed to formalize and scale Morocco’s desert truffle industry, this blended capital fund would seek to retain producer value and create new revenue streams while eliminating exploitative middlemen and ensuring price stability.
  • School: Mohammed VI Polytechnic University, Columbia University

 

Fiji Future 

  • Proposal: This impact bond model, backed by tourism tax revenue and with a structured repayment mechanism to allow flexibility, would strengthen Fiji’s youth and workforce by investing in teacher training, student loans and digital learning tools in the country.
  • School: Western University, University of Toronto

 

Green Archipelago Fund (GAF)

  • Proposal: With Indonesia’s new capital city, Nusantara, committed to full renewable-powered energy in the region, GAF seeks to channel investments through a mix of sustainable debt instruments to develop a solar-powered ecosystem and coal phase-out.
  • School: Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto

 

Harlem Renaissance Bond

  • Proposal: Tackling urban heat and high energy costs in Harlem, this bond would finance solar green roofs to provide cooling, renewable power and health benefits, generating returns from carbon credits, tax incentives, and landlord energy-efficiency agreements, and health savings based on health insurance outcomes.
  • School: Columbia University 

 

Musharakah Fund for Solar-Powered Cold Storage

  • Proposal: This proposed fund would use blended finance to develop solar-powered modular cold-storage facilities for smallholder farmers to mitigate spoilage, stabilize farmer incomes and reduce Nigeria’s $4 billion annual post-harvest losses.
  • School: Lagos Business School

 

NewClear Energy Fund

  • Proposal: Focused on supporting India’s energy transition to nuclear, this proposed fund would finance Small Modular Reactors (SMRs) to provide low-carbon, reliable power leveraging private equity, concessional debt and government-backed first-loss capital.
  • School: University of Chicago Booth School of Business

 

Solar Irrigation Systems (SIS) Fund

  • Proposal: Supporting smallholder farmers across Sub-Saharan Africa, this financing proposal would expand access to solar-powered irrigation by replacing high upfront costs with pay-as-you-go structures and using Renewable Energy Certificates as an additional revenue stream​.
  • School: EPFL, UNIL & IMD, London School of Economics