The Sustainable Investment Professional Certificate

I am considering taking this certificate program, and the webinar I participated in last week was very helpful. Who are they looking for? The recipe they offered is 'one part capitalist, one part idealist. Stir well.'

The David O'Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise of the John Molson School of Business, Concordia University, in cooperation with the Finance and Sustainability Initiative Montreal (FSI) has created the Sustainable Investment Certification Program. The program will offer basic sustainability training to investment and corporate professionals culminating in the Sustainable Investment Professional Certificate (SIPC). It is a self study program modeled on other professional certifications.

There are 6 modules, each with learning material and reading. That's expected to be about 80 hours of work. In addition, at the end of each module there is a case study type assignment, which should add about 20 -30 hours to the total time expected of you. The SIPC instructional approach is based on the fundamental values of practicality and applicability. The idea is not to test overall knowledge through traditional examination but rather to evaluate the student's ability to apply the knowledge learned from the modules in a practical setting. Research skills, critical thinking, creativity and decision making are the most important objectives throughout the evaluation.

At this point the material is in English only, although you may submit your assignments in English or French. They are working on having the program be fully bilingual by next year.

The modules are:

• sustainability overview


• governance


• ethics


• social sustainability


• environmental sustainability


• sustainable investing

The SIPC program was developed with the help of the Finance and Sustainability Initiative (FSI). The FSI is a Montreal based not for profit organization that encourages and promotes sustainabilty as a best practice in the financial sector.

The SIPC program's curriculum was developed by faculty at the John Molson School of Business and the program is guided by a Business Advisory Council consisting of practitioners in the fields of sustainability and finance. The program is led by Dr. Paul Shrivastava, currently the David O'Brien Distinguished Professor and Director of the David O"Brien Centre for Sustainable Enterprise. He also serves on the Steering Committee of the Finance and Sustainability Initiative and as Senior Advisor on Sustainabilty at Bucknell University and the IIM-Shillong, India, and leads the International Chair for Arts and Sustainabile Enterprise at ICN Business School, Nancy France.

For more information on the SIPC, register for upcoming webinars on Thursday August 11th, Thursday August 18th and Thursday August 25th.