The Challenge
Background:
Following the tragic mega-fires of 2019-2020, extreme floods and ongoing degradation of the Great Barrier Reef, many Australians are calling for more action on climate change. The 2016 Paris Agreement committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions globally by the second half of this century in order to keep the rise in mean temperatures well below 20 Celsius above pre-industrial levels, and to limit global warming to 1.50. To date, progress has been worryingly slow. Research by S&P Global Sustainable1 shows that major companies are on track for >3°C warming, falling 72% short of the required emissions reductions needed at this stage¹. The recent explosion of net zero commitments from companies, financial institutions and countries provides welcome optimism, however.
But, is decarbonisation the decade of opportunity or a new set of financial risks?
Watch our 1-minute video for a quick introduction to the Hackathon.
The Question to Address:
Participants in the competition are asked to address the above question by taking a stance as to whether decarbonization poses opportunities or threats, and justified with a quality researched and modelled submission that fully leverages the rich data sets provided, and may include construction of a portfolio. (Note: a view that says it poses both opportunities and risks is acceptable.)
1State of Green Business 2021: Climate Risk”, GreenBiz Group and S&P Global, 2021, www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/research/state-of-green-business-2021.
Prizes & Competition Rules
Timeline:
- Submission Deadline: June 3, 2022
- Winners Notified: July (date to be confirmed)
- Winners Announced: August (date to be confirmed)
All submission components will be created and stored in S&P Global Marketplace Workbench. This web-based notebook environment allows users to create and share documents that contain live code, equations, visualizations and explanatory text.
Workbench will be locked down to prevent access by contestants by 11:59 pm on the submission deadline date of June 3, 2022.
Contestants will submit the URL to their submission components stored in Workbench to [email protected] by the above stated submission deadline date.
Prizes
The top three teams will walk away with attractive prizes.
1st $10,000
2nd $6,000
3rd $4,000
Winners to be formally announced at the Portfolio Construction Forum Strategies Conference in August. There may be an opportunity for winners to showcase their findings.
Winners will be selected based on overall value of the argument made, uniqueness of approach, and analytical rigor in leveraging the data sets to justify the case.
Judging Panel
A judging panel comprising of industry experts to assess a shortlist of submissions and award first, second and third prize winners. View our judges' biographies here.
Rules
To confirm eligibility and review the rules, please review the competition terms and conditions.
