22 July 2025

In June, five students on the MSc Climate Change Finance & Investment programme won the Main Competition Prize at the 2025 Climate Investment Challenge, hosted by Imperial College London.
Four out of the five students from the MSc Climate Change Finance and Investment programme stand together, proudly holding a certificate awarded for their victory in the Main Competition Prize at the 2025 Climate Investment Challenge, hosted by Imperial College London.

The Climate Investment Challenge is a global competition which calls on postgraduate students to develop financial solutions and innovations to address climate change. The Main Prize tasks students with creating financial structures or instruments that enhance the bankability of climate investments or utilize existing tools (eg. loans, derivatives, REITs, bonds) to explore untapped climate finance opportunities.

The Business School team, comprising Cyro Duarte, Max Mayer, Kirsten Dupuy, Darya Jalali and Kassana Nirunrungruang, proposed a first-of-its-kind resilience credit market designed to mobilise public and private capital for climate adaptation in the Philippines.

Darya joined the prizegiving ceremony virtually to celebrate the win alongside her teammates.

Asked about the experience, Cyro said: "As someone who is a newcomer into the world of climate finance, the challenge was one of the best ways to exercise the knowledge from my Masters programme and seeing the idea getting fleshed out as the challenge went on was a really exciting part of the process. Each person in the team contributed their expertise to ensure we came up with an idea that wasn’t only innovative but also feasible, and it was inspiring to meet other competitors with a similar drive to explore climate solutions."

Kassana added: "Our team tried to address the long-standing challenge of scaling and accelerating climate finance by deploying digital measurement tools, introducing resilience credits to mobilise private capital, and mitigating risks through the rollout of low-impact development (LID) infrastructure. Taking part in this competition has been one of the highlights of our Master’s degree, demonstrating how academic knowledge and professional experience can come together to solve some of the most pressing global challenges."

Kirsten concluded: "This experience has been a personal and professional highlight from this past year, and it wouldn’t have been possible without the CCFI programme. It gave us the foundation to truly understand the problem, but more importantly, it brought together a team with diverse backgrounds and perspectives. That’s where the real innovation happened: seeing our unique experiences come together and evolve into something genuinely innovative and impactful."

Our congratulations to all involved in this event.