AllianceBernstein LP and Columbia University's Earth Institute, New York, are developing a curriculum to train investment professionals at the $580.8 billion money manager about climate change and its impact on investment performance.
About 75 AB investment professionals will attend interactive educational sessions, which start in October and run through January, said J. Gerard Paul, AB's chief investment officer for North American value equities.
"We want all of the investment teams to go through this training because we want them to understand how climate change will evolve and influence investment returns and risks across all asset classes," Mr. Paul said in an interview.
For the collaboration, AB has been working with Columbia's Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, an earth and climate science research center that is a part of the Earth Institute, and Arthur L. Lerner-Lam, who is deputy director of the research center, said Paul DeNoon, a senior vice president and fixed-income portfolio manager at AB.
Satyajit Bose, associate director and associate professor of practice at Columbia's sustainability management graduate program, said ESG metrics affect financial results in the long run, "so that often means you need to know something about climate science," as an investment professional.
The training sessions are in person. "It's very engaged, because these are portfolio managers and investment analysts, so they will be asking a lot of questions. We will be doing case studies; they'll have homework. It's going to be very relevant to their day jobs," Mr. Bose said.
