“I was mostly interested in the policy side of  how we can take advantage of regulations that are up and coming. Mainly in the European Union is where we found like the most robust set of regulations. But, I didn’t realize how extensive even the American government’s resources for corporate strategy related to decarbonization actually can be. A big thing was setting greenhouse gas emission baselines through the EPA’s inventory management plan that they have. I found that really fascinating and I got to take some time to really like sit with that  information and policy proposals had actually been enacted to set standards for companies to use, which I found really fascinating.”

“You hear about all of these lofty goals about decarbonization and we need to shift away from fossil fuels, but this experience allowed us to actually see how feasible these goals can be, the technologies that we need to implement them, and what needs to happen. I think I’m interested in going into policy to see what policies we need to implement in order to help a company like KN’s accomplish this goal. I think this experience has been super invaluable.”

“I spent a lot of time in high school like delving along into the nuances involving energy technologies and things like that. And here, I just study economics. I think it was refreshing to be able to dive into that whole world again.” 

“I’m really happy that the competition issue is climate change because we can really apply that towards solving a really important and pressing issue of our time. I also really appreciate the chance to speak to people in the industry and also in the college during the process, like our booth mentor Alastair Nojek, who was really instrumental for advising us with the entire process. We also met with several consultants in the industry that helped us with our sustainability metrics and models. I really appreciate the chance to interact with a lot of people, and also to use a lot of the skills that we’ve learned in school.”

“I think the biggest takeaway that I’ve gotten from this experience is that everybody’s just working with the tools that they’re given. Nobody has an answer. I’m not nearly as qualified as a specialist and yet I’m working on the same task as a specialist who is a part of the industry, you know, so we’re all just kind of blindly trying to figure out how do this lofty task of getting to net neutrality by 2040.”

“I thought that this challenge was incredibly fun because it challenges you to take a granular approach to climate sustainability which is not something that I can normally do in typical classes. So it also forced me to think of the potential challenges that come up with my proposed solutions. I think that’s definitely a fun exercise to be able to complete.”

“One thing I thought was really interesting was the technological aspect of our project because we looked at all sorts of fuel types; we explored conventional diesel that’s in gasoline that’s being used right now, as well as biofuel, synthetic fuel, battery electric fuel, etc. I thought it was really interesting researching into every single one, figuring out the pros and cons and  of each one, what’s the best short-term solution, and what’s best long-term. I thought it was really interesting how there’s so many technologies out there, but our recommendation had to be pretty narrow in scope to figure out the best fit for our case.” 

“In my daily life, I’ve often heard people throw around the word net zero. I never really understood the sort of implications behind such claims. For this project, we had to read over 70-page long sustainability reports by these companies. It demonstrated to me the amount of effort, analysis, and careful consideration that has to go into making any sort of sustainability plans. The attempt to balance economic gains as well as like caring for our environment is something really important and something that is a really fascinating industry.”

“I’m the only data scientist in our group, so I think this experience is extremely extraordinary just because of that. I was able to enter a completely new space in the consulting realm. I was able to use data science with real world data and gain some really cool experience. This competition was great.”

“I haven’t really found a way to connect my studies (business economics and environment, geography and urbanization), until this case. I really was surprised at just how much I actually enjoyed spending the hours working on this case and getting that real world application of these big questions of how are we going to decarbonize our world. We explored not just the philosophical way that we speak about in classes, but actually connecting it to real financial analysis that I’m learning about as well. So I thought that was very valuable.”

“One thing I learned was the breadth of how quantitative methods can apply to broad consulting problems. When faced with the prompt, I really didn’t think that machine learning was something that could be applied to this problem. But  other members of my team showed me that that you can really reveal aspects of the problem that you had no idea about, and it can drastically change your calculations. So getting more experience with applying quantitative methods that I know to interesting sustainable sustainability related problems I really appreciated, and my team.”

“I think that working through the challenges in the data science was really interesting because we face a lot of challenges of the effect of COVID, outliers in the data, knowing what data to use, and what data we had access to versus was like behind a paywall, for example. So working through those challenges and being creative in ways that we could build a model that would actually be beneficial to our company while still overcoming those challenges was definitely a unique experience.”

“One of the best things to come out of this project besides meeting my two teammates was that I got a few interviews with a startup called Aspen Power to learn more about solar power.  I don’t think I really would have looked down this avenue as a career path had I not started this project, it helped me realize that I’m very interested in this space.”

“It seemed pretty impossible to bring all emissions of a company down to zero. I think the way we went about this project which really helped was to talk to our mentor. She gave a bit of color on what strategies are currently used by companies, but also what strategies we could use to focus on specific emission sources as well as devise more creative strategies to bring emissions down. I learned a lot from this and am really happy with my team.”

“I think when we first saw the problem, we were a little overwhelmed. There were a lot of directions that we wanted to take it and we attacked all of them at once. It very helpful to have everyone at EPIC, PSI, ECC and all the other teams give us good feedback on our solutions.”

“Something I really enjoyed about the project is learning how one solution for decarbonizing transportation can apply to a lot of different industries. One thing that we focused on in our project was a thing called methane pyrolysis. This is a technology that helps create hydrogen fuel. But at the same time, it can help take away emissions from things like the agriculture industry. It was really lovely to see how one solution can really touch and affect a lot of different industries.”

“I really enjoyed the prompt because it allowed us to bring what we learned in the classroom like machine learning, and apply it to something that’s a real life scenario and can be used by people instead of just learning about it through assignments or synthetic scenarios.”

“One aspect of this project I really enjoyed was how interdisciplinary in nature it was. It tied together a lot of areas both in policy and law, but also with more finance-oriented stuff. I really enjoyed getting to explore all of those areas within the scope of this one project because it harkens back to the idea that you have to balance economic gains with environmental benefits.”

“I came into this competition with experience on transport and logistics companies and investing in those things. I thought it was really interesting to look at these industries from a new perspective, which was not whether the value of the company is great or not. But rather, is it feasible for this transport and logistics company to become more renewable and reduce their emissions? I’ve never looked at emissions before or analyzed the feasibility of the cost side of that. That was really interesting, and felt like a whole new world.”

“This is my first time doing a case competition oriented around business and consulting. I don’t have much economics background, but I think I was really able to apply my background in energy policy and familiarity with certain energy technologies and systems like energy management systems and micro grid infrastructure into this project. Discovering the applications of different energy technologies to all sorts of industries both in private and public sectors really just goes to show how complex and nuanced sustainability and energy are. They really need solutions from all fields, from all disciplines. There’s so many really interesting ways that you can find synergies between those different solutions and systems.” 

“I think one thing I really appreciated obviously was my team, but I think also just the timeline of this project. It was spaced out over a month, which I appreciated because between our first rendition of the deck to our final rendition, a lot of things have changed. A lot of specific detail, strategies, things you never thought about have changed. I think given how big the problem was, the time was really essential because without it, I don’t think this would have been like a very successful competition in that sense.”

“Some of my family members have worked in the shipping industry their whole life. Being able to analyze it from a different view was pretty fulfilling for me. In my studies, I’m very focused on economics and business. Seeing how factors like environmental policy and other goals that are more than just increasing bottom line profit impact businesses was really interesting to see.”