Sustainable finance track and courses at Maastricht University SBE

SUSTAINABLE FINANCE TRACK

Find out more about the courses of Msc. IB/Sustainable Finance

Sustainable Finance is a specialization within the Msc. Programme International Business at Maastricht University. It enables you to learn about the connections between finance and sustainability through all major finance concepts and applications at the Master's level.

- The track comprises five core courses, an elective, and a Master's thesis trajectory (including skills training).

- Download the official flyer from Maastricht University for details on study hours, enrollment, and other fast facts.

- Check webinar dates for live Q&A sessions.

Institutional Investors

Sustainable & Responsible Investing

Sustainable Finance, Management & Strategy

Financial Research Methods

The mainstream business community is in urgent need of ways to transform sustainability challenges into competitive advantages. Achieving that goal requires business professionals with an early understanding of how sustainability issues run as a common thread through strategy, management and control, sustainability reporting, finance, and marketing.

We provide you with the skills and tools that are needed to conduct sound academic and business research involving Sustainable Finance and finance in general. We also equip you with the methodological know-how that is needed for your Master’s thesis, and make you familiar with financial databases that are widely used in practice.

Financial institutions have a fiduciary duty to act in the interest of their clients, but they are also expected to promote sustainable development. Yet, they face potential conflicts of interest and operate in a capital market that is short-term focused. This course tells you how institutional investors are designed and operate in order to accomplish financial goals and sustainability goals, covering themes such as asset-liability management, asset allocation, pension fund governance, corporate governance, and shareholder activism.

Real Estate Finance

Sustainable Finance Master's Thesis

You will learn how environmental, social and governance (ESG) scores of companies can be used in the optimization of investment portfolios in traditional asset classes, such as equity and fixed-income. You will subsequently learn about sustainability in banking (lending) and sustainable investments geared to maximizing impact in developing countries, such as “impact investments” and “microfinance”. On top of that, you will learn how analyzing the financial and social preferences of prospective clients helps to develop and successfully market sustainable financial products.

Real estate comprises the largest asset market we have. You will learn about property market behavior, valuation and diversification, direct and indirect investments, and performance measurement. Moreover, the sector has an enormous impact on sustainability. We show how the efficient use of resources by the sector reduces the environmental footprint, and explain how managers and investors can benchmark the sustainability performance of real-estate and property investments in order to save costs, manage risks, and achieve better financial performance.

Dr. Jeroen Derwall - Track coordinator

Dr. Rachel Pownall

Prof. Dr. Rob Bauer

Prof. Dr. Piet Eichholtz

We encourage you to translate your own thought-provoking ideas on Sustainable Finance into a research report - the Master's thesis - that makes significant contributions to both the academic academic community and the industry. You will receive supervision and critical feedback on your work by one of our experts, who will act as designated supervisor. After succesfully completing the thesis, you are ready to join the new generation of finance professionals!

Dr. Nils Kok - thesis coordinator

Elective course for further advancing on a topic of interest

Sustainable Finance provides you in addition to mandatory courses the ability to follow an elective course that belongs to the Msc. Programme in International Business. The elective course enables you to further develop your knowledge in a specific area you may find particularly interesting. For a list of electives, please visit the Master programmes website of Maastricht University. Note that the availability of electives depends on your date of enrollment (September / February).

Course setup in brief

The sequence of courses that you will attend depends on the date of enrollent. Participants can enroll either in September or in February. The course sequence for enrollment in September looks as follows.

Term 1 - Block 1 starts in the first week of September 2014. Please visit the website of Maastricht University, School of Business and Economics for admission criteria and procedures.