I will teach you how to bring your life stories to essays faster with F1GMAT's essay guides. Download below or subscribe to F1GMAT's Service and work with me - Atul Jose, Author/Editor/Founding Consultant, F1GMAT(16 Years of helping applicants gain admissions to M7 and Top 30 schools) First, let me define Climate Change before going in-depth into the strategies for shortlisting examples of addressing climate change in MBA Essays.
Any policy, production, energy, consumption, employment, and resource utilization interventions that you have been part of or led to address the 1.1°C increase in global surface temperature between 1970-20 compared to 1850-1900 is considered an initiative to address climate change.
Now that we know the assumptions of ‘What Climate Change’ is, let us look at the 3 Themes in Climate Change MBA Essays that work in M7 and T20 MBA Application.
3 Climate Change Themes for PE, VC, IB, Policy, and Technology MBA Applicants
1) Policy Narratives
This is the most common theme that I have read as an editor.
While creating narratives, you should be aware of your competition.
If you are applying to a full-time MBA program with a long-term goal of addressing Climate change through consulting, finance, FinTech, Marketing, or Technology intervention, you should have demonstrable experience to persuade the admissions team.
These experiences need not be full-time.
Volunteering experience in the role is sufficient to demonstrate motivation for the goal.
Admissions Consultant’s Tip
An earnest motivation with no experience to support the post-MBA goal is the #1 reason for MBA application rejection. It is better to choose a different goal than follow a trend where you had minimal experience (1 project with limited exposure or less than 3 months) or impact (less than 5 beneficiaries).
When Short-Term Engagement in MBA Essays are Believable?
The exception where short engagement demonstrated motivation, and it worked in MBA essays, is when the selection process for the role is competitive. Several UN agencies and international non-profits have a selection process. A last-minute volunteer wouldn’t persist through the onboarding process. Schools understand this factor.
MBA Dual Degree – Policy, Environment, and International Studies Candidates
When you are applying to Stanford (MS Environment and Resources (E-IPER)/MBA Joint Degree and MPP/MBA Joint Degree) or Wharton (MBA/MA Lauder Joint Degree in International Studies, Environmental MBA with Wharton and Penn SAS or Dual degree Wharton MBA and Social Work) with MBA Dual Degree programs, or worked directly with clients in Climate change, you must add more scope to the MBA Climate Change Essay narrative.
2) Technology
Technology intervention with the support of AI is likely to be the flavor for this year.
From facilitating sustainable supply chain management to AI-driven reporting on ESG to niche domain-specific AI assistants, the interventions are many.
Broadly, technology intervention works on Resource utilization (land, water, and agriculture). These interventions are often quoted by applicants with master’s in engineering degree or Technologists working with the government. Interestingly, they are the most relatable as it impacts all stakeholders.
The second intervention on Climate Technology are around waste management – reducing waste or recycling or awareness of recycling/reducing consumption/efficiently managing consumption – all of which again are relatable as it affects most stakeholders.
The third intervention on preventing floods/wildfire/landslides, managing infrastructure with innovative sourcing strategy aided by technology, changing building codes to facilitate sustainable energy usage with the help of smart sensors, standardization of manufacturing process with intelligent reporting to tweaks in manufacturing processes again with technology interventions are also popular among Oil & Gas and Manufacturing applicants.
Standing out in such narratives requires capturing the scale of the solution or convincing the admissions team that your thinking went beyond the technology and captured multiple aspects of the problem (policy, process, and people).
The least relatable narratives are solutions that affect an abstract entity.
Causes like conserving fresh water and reducing the impact on ecosystems – land and water, have the least impact in an MBA Climate Change essay as the impact is intergenerational. Unless they were in the popular news media – like the crisis in Fiji that I have captured in Haas’ what makes you feel Alive essay, quoting examples of extinction and generational change need carefully setting up the background information. With most schools limiting the word limit to 300 words, it is a challenge. With the help of an editor, you can traverse the process of capturing background information, sharing why the cause is important and sharing a few details of the intervention.
Another niche narrative is a functional intervention within the technology industry to reduce emissions. These are too small in scale to be quoted in an Essay if your post-MBA goal is to transition into sustainability.
Editor’s Tip
The narratives that requires the most edits are the ones where the focus is on the solution and not the problem the solution is trying to solve.
3) Finance
Regardless of the niche Finance function you are in – PE, IB or VC, or Consulting in an Accounting function, the core of a Climate Change narrative are around reporting.
ESG vs. Climate Risk
From gaming ESG scores with uneven disclosure or categorization that are flawed, institutional investors have now introduced ‘climate risk’ into investment decisions. This was an abstract concept a few years ago where the focus was on ESG standardization. Since there are no unified accounting standards, as emerging economies don’t want to risk their growth to align with developed economies’ initiatives to introduce penalties to investment that has high emissions, ‘climate risk’ in your narrative would have a more receptive read.
Sustainable Investments vs Climate Risks
Then there is the confusion on sustainability vs climate risks in the narrative for MBA Essay as sustainability includes a broader definition of considering all the key stakeholders in the ecosystem and not just harm to nature.
Private Equity MBA Narrative
Several of our edits on PE candidates were around applicants, who were deeply aware of how their decision to optimize an investment could have a detrimental impact on communities with job loss or lead those who lost job to pursuing careers in industries with high emissions.
Such deep thinking is unique as the applicant demonstrated long-term thinking that is unlike many of the routine narratives.
Realist – Sustainable Financing
Then there are applicants who are realist about the current state of Climate related or Sustainable financing. They cite branding as a key part of changing behavior in the investor communities.
Fundamentally, shareholder value maximization is the foundation of all Business.
Private Climate Change reports are now disclosing the risks of certain investments by region, city, industry and demographic – all with Climate Risk and Sustainability as key parameters. Sharing such internal frameworks from a business perspective will have more impact than an idealistic perspective that has low consensus.
Catch-22
Also, the generation that are pro-active in bringing climate change into the conversation are also heavily invested in publicly traded companies. Short-term shareholder value maximization often involves making compromises that would slow down green energy adoption.
Activist-Style Intervention & Believability in MBA Essays
The catch-22 prevents activist-style intervention in investments. That is one reason why narratives on changing the structure of the investment have low believability. But if you have truly been part of such an innovative product or framework, offer context in essays and request your supervisor to add additional context in the recommendation letter. Our guideline documents could play a critical role in explaining the need for such a narrative.
But there is a type of investment decision that is interesting to read – Pro-Active investment decisions.
Adaptation vs. Pro-Active
Narratives in Finance, Technology, and Policy predominantly are on Adaptation. Proactive planning is rarely a narrative in Climate Change MBA Essays.
Editor’s Tip
One way to stand-out in MBA Essay is to cite examples where your company, team or you could bring a pro-active intervention to climate change. It could be in policy, branding, marketing, reporting, investment framework or other technology interventions that increased the awareness of climate risk in each decision.
Any evolving framework or policy or technology need care while capturing in an MBA Essay. If you want ideas on building authentic narratives, start a conversation with me.
