Welcome to Climate Money Work, a weekly newsletter that connects revenue generation with sustainable business solutions. Discover how companies worldwide are showcasing innovative practices, creating value from sustainability, increasing revenue, and improving customer experiences. Send questions, feedback, and pitches to [email protected], or just hit reply. Meantime, enjoy our special Student News Edition.

Rising Borrowing Costs Add to College Applicants' Challenges

College applicants face a challenging year with delays in financial aid offers and rising borrowing costs for the next school year. The interest rate on new federal student loans will increase significantly, with undergraduate loans rising to 6.53% and PLUS loans for parents and graduate students reaching 9.08%. Experts advise borrowing only what is necessary and considering more affordable education options, while also highlighting the benefits of federal repayment plans and 529 savings accounts.

Sources:

• https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/24/your-money/federal-student-loans-interest-rates.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare&sgrp=c-cb

Behind the Numbers

NCAA and Power Conferences to Pay Players in Historic $2.7 Billion Settlement

The NCAA and its five power conferences have agreed to allow schools to directly pay players for the first time in history and will settle three antitrust cases for $2.7 billion. This settlement includes a revenue-sharing plan where schools can share about $20 million per year with athletes, beginning in fall 2025 if approved by Judge Claudia Wilken. Despite this agreement, athletes and their advocates continue to push for employee status and other collective bargaining rights, which could further transform college sports.

Source:

• https://www.espn.com/college-sports/story/_/id/40206364/ncaa-power-conferences-agree-allow-schools-pay-players

Leading the Way: How Rwanda and Africa are Adopting AI in Education

The potential of AI in transforming education, particularly in Africa, is a key topic. At the 2024 Mobile World Congress, experts highlighted that AI can facilitate personalized learning and efficient data analysis, which are crucial for the continent’s educational progress. Additionally, the African Union is developing strategies, like the Continental Strategy on AI, to integrate AI into education and address policy gaps. Countries like Rwanda are leading the way with AI policies to enhance education, promote inclusion, and equip students with necessary future skills. With Africa’s workforce expected to reach a billion people by 2030, this work could provide a practical use case for many other countries.

“AI is ready for some subjects including coding and some mathematical equations. This will reduce the workload for teachers, especially those trained on how to use it responsibly. It will also bring inclusion and equity to learners with various impairments since Africa lacks enough schools for children with special needs,”  according to Carnegie Mellon University’s Christine Niyizamwiyitira, who is a Scholar in Residence.

Source:

• THE ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN EDUCATION - CNBC Africa

For Graduates Considering Careers, This CRO Chronicles is For You!

CRO Chronicles : Melissa Winkler 

This month’s edition of “CRO Chronicles” features Melissa Winkler, Head of Commercials at Crosswalk Labs. Crosswalk Labs is a science and technology company delivering the most complete inventory of greenhouse gas emissions across the United States. With high spatial resolution and verified emissions measurements against the atmosphere, Crosswalk Labs provides industry and governments a unique tool to measure, manage and reduce emissions. 

Climate Money Work: How did you move into the Head of Commercials title, and what does the Head of Commercials do? 

Melissa Winkler: Crosswalk Labs is an early stage company, so ‘commercial’ over ‘revenue,’ made more sense as it is broader in scope.  My role is to strategize and execute on broadening the reach of Crosswalk’s accurate emissions data in the financial markets. My background is in capital markets, mostly investment banking and commercializing early-stage companies within climate finance. The majority of my 20 years in finance were spent in the public sector packaging bond transactions for school districts and sewer projects. Originating infrastructure projects for the public sector was a natural progression into climate finance for me. It was during the transition I had the opportunity to meet Crosswalk’s CEO and Co-Founder, which further solidified my interest in the sector. Many core skills of an investment banker translate into leading commercial efforts for an organization.

CMW: Take us through some use cases and share how you approach commercial structure based on those use cases? 

MW: For the first use case, let’s consider  a service industry example. It's a one-time fee, and it's not that scalable. In that case, I’d assign a fixed cost.  

Let’s look at a product use case for both pioneers and followers. If we’re producing a product, and we are not first to market with the product, I’d likely have to develop a pricing strategy based on what was already available in market.  Because you’re not first to market, your commercials have to be in line with what’s being utilized already.  If you have first mover advantage, you will have more strategies to evaluate and will need to decide your primary objective. Is it market share or maximizing revenues, for example?

CMW: How do you as Head of Commercials make sense of external factors, and help others make sense of headwinds and tailwinds that impact the fixed income market and your offerings? 

MW: Listen and read. The first thing I do is try to understand what our clients and prospects are experiencing in their roles.  This helps me read signals in the market to know where the greatest impact might be. Education is also important; sharing knowledge and providing information on the differences between financial materiality of physical and transition climate risk versus thematic or  impact investing and the context around different approaches, which can all largely be captured under sustainable finance, is critical. Incorporating new metrics, such as climate in financial analysis and ledgers, can be abstract for some market actors. Broadly speaking, both industry and governments need to better understand their emissions footprint to develop and execute on their transition plans and determine the relationship between economic indicators and emissions that affects their business and stakeholders. The sector continues to evolve and is becoming more integrated and sophisticated. 

Also, sharing externally where the market is today and what it could be in the future. There's a lot of product development and datasets already out in the market [in climate and sustainable finance]. The industry is working to develop better ways to apply the datasets.

We are also experiencing a backlash around marketing. Some firms saw trouble from false marketing and were hit with ‘greenwashing’ claims. That said, it seems that the industry is experiencing a second wave of innovation and looking for better ground truthing in the climate related products and datasets. 

Given this year is an election year, it also feels like everybody's just waiting. The market is waiting. I think over the next two or three years there will be lots of focus on how you can start to commercialize and understand the transition. 

CMW: What advice would you have for someone transitioning into a Chief Commercial Officer or Chief Revenue Officer role? 

MW: Understanding the macro environment, the trends and the themes within that environment is critical, which incorporates a fundamental understanding of the dynamics in your sector, and my sector is finance. For finance, I need to understand the macro economy, the geopolitics, and the regulation in the sector.  

I think information is currency, that's what you and I are doing here. Talk to people to get their insights. Then go research. Be a lifetime student and never stop learning.

CMW: Finally, what is the biggest lesson you’ve learned in your role? 

MW: So many lessons, Keesa. This might sound simple, but I would say, if your clients aren’t making money, they’re not spending money. How you develop or iterate commercials many times might have to do with timing, what’s happening with your client, and in the market. You might have to change the pricing model, depending on your clients and the market cycle. It is more about how to change pricing versus how much to change pricing.

Thanks for joining us this week. Please send questions, feedback, and pitches to [email protected] or just hit reply to this email.

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