DECODED × HERIZON · LIVE STUDENT SESSION
Sustainable Finance and the Future of Climate Action
September 14, 2026 · Online · open to students
160+ students registered
This event has concluded
Thank you to everyone who joined. 160+ students registered, and it was a huge success. Read what students said below.
Decoded is teaming up with HERizon for a special student session on sustainable finance and the future of climate action.
HERizon is a student-led initiative working to make STEM more accessible and inclusive for young women. Through workshops, opportunities, and a growing learning community, it helps students explore fields across science, technology, engineering, and mathematics.
On September 14, our two communities come together around a question that sits at the intersection of STEM, economics, finance, and technology: how do we finance the transition towards a more sustainable economy?
What we covered
- The student team opened with the fundamentals: what ESG actually is (a lens for spotting hidden financial risk, not a strategy on its own), how sustainable investing differs from impact investing, and why ESG ratings from different agencies so often disagree.
- A look at global climate finance: roughly two trillion dollars flowed into clean energy last year, well ahead of oil, gas, and coal combined, driven mainly by falling costs rather than by treaties.
- Decarbonisation in practice: electrification, the shift towards solar, wind, hydro, and nuclear, and why financial capital ultimately decides which technologies scale.
- A conversation and live Q&A with Cary Krosinsky on whether the financial system can correct itself, his frameworks of the seven tribes of sustainable finance and the five levers of change, and why moral divestment has proved weaker than strategies that pair real returns with real-world impact.
- Closing threads: aligning financial timelines with planetary ones, rethinking GDP to count human and environmental costs, the energy footprint of AI, and practical career advice for students heading into climate, technology, and finance.
The speaker
Cary S. Krosinsky
Sustainable finance and climate strategy
Cary Krosinsky is a leading educator, author, and advisor on sustainable finance and climate strategy. He teaches courses at institutions including New York University, Brown, Harvard, and Yale University.
He is a Co-Founder and Director of the Sustainable Finance Institute, and has worked extensively across sustainable investment, climate finance, and decarbonisation, including initiatives involving the World Bank and UNEP.
What students said
“This was such an insightful session! Cary's perspective on sustainable finance and practical ways students can get involved in the space was really eye-opening. Loved the Q&A format, would love more sessions like this from Decoded x HERizon.”
“The session was very informative, and hearing the professor was a real pleasure. It was amazing, and I'm a big fan of Akshat and the professor as well.”
“Awesome! Never expected to be face to face with such a great professor at this point of my life.”
“The Q&A session was so insightful, I really enjoyed it. Would love to join more sessions like this in the future too. Thank you.”
“Some sessions you attend for the networking. Some unexpectedly make you want to sit down and learn more. Today I attended the Decoded × HERizon session with Cary Krosinsky on sustainable finance and the future of climate action, and honestly, this was one of those that stayed with me. What I enjoyed most was Cary's perspective, the way he connected technology, finance, economics, climate, policy and long-term thinking. Rather than simply giving me answers, the session left me with more questions I actually want to explore. I left with a new subject I genuinely want to understand, and that is probably the best kind of session to attend.”
Organised by
Decoded × HERizonTeam (on this episode): Akshat Bhaskar, Amaira Akbar, Vidyanshi, Aly Muhammad Dadwani, Akshara Durugkar, Kartik, Alisha.