Students Attend Peter Fusaro's Green Trading Summit on Wall Street
Devon Treece, MBA / MS '09
Back to Front Page

Given our expressed interest in learning more about environmental markets, Peter Fusaro, Erb Institute External Advisory Board member and Chairman of Global Change Associates, invited Erb students to attend the Wall Street Green Trading Summit (WSGTS) which he has organized for the past eight years.  Peter is well networked in this space, and a quick browse through the program revealed a Who's Who of people active in environmental markets. We knew this would be a conference like no other.
 
Before Bharath Iyengar (MS/MBA 2011) joined us at the summit, Nic Wetzler (MS/MBA 2011) and I attended a pre-summit seminar that packed a semester's worth of material into eight hours. We learned about everything from the politics of creating environmental markets to the mechanics of trading environmental products, and at the end of the day, we were able to apply our knowledge in a team simulation -- we acted as coal fired power plant operators and pursued the least cost method of complying with SO2 emission regulations.
 
The next two days of the summit proved to be as rich with information as the pre-summit seminar had been.  We sat with over 300 other attendees through a constant rotation of 12-minute speakers.  The breadth of topics ranged from species biodiversity credits to cleantech investments and the climate legislation proposed by Representatives Waxman and Markey at the beginning of the week for which the timing couldn't have been better.  Peter had assigned each speaker a topic, and it was clear his orchestration assured that every attendee would leave with a deep understanding of the basket of opportunities created by environmental markets.

The speakers’ contributions were just one aspect of our summit experience.  Like any other conference, some of the best knowledge sharing and network building happened in the hallways. Everyone we met was eager to share their career experiences and advice, and we all left with a much clearer picture of what a career in this space would look like and a handful of new contacts willing to guide us in the future. Altogether, this summit brought together a diverse group of influential people in the field, and initiated engrossing conversations.  We could not have asked for a better conference on these topics and highly recommend that Erbers interested in environmental markets attend WSGTS 2010!           

Student Advisory Board Update
SAB 2009
Back to top

Pictured from left to right: Annie Barton, Katie Appel, and Siobhan Doherty.
Every January, a new Erb Student Advisory Board (SAB) is elected by students and tasked with leading student initiatives and facilitating information exchange between students, faculty and staff.  Based on student feedback and discussions with Erb leadership, the SAB identified several priorities for 2009: 

• Meaningfully contribute to the Erb Institute’s 5-year Strategic Plan
• Introduce more structure to the Erb student career development process, including reevaluating and improving the peer coaching and mentoring program
• Further develop relationships with the larger SNRE and Ross communities
• Facilitate knowledge sharing within the community  through the developmentof an online knowledge portal and resource groups based on areas of student interest

In addition to these priorities, the SAB is also committed to continuously improving ongoing initiatives such as the speaker series, recruiting efforts, the first-year orientation process, and the Erb newsletter.  The year started off with a series of Erb student town halls to discuss the key challenges facing the community. In February, the Communications Committee helped organize the annual winter EAB meeting. This past month has been a busy time for the Recruiting Committee - introducing prospective students to the Erb program and integrating Erb into SNRE Visit Day and Ross GBR. Interest in Erb’s dual degree program continues to increase!