Oikos and the Department of Banking and Finance at the University of Zurich will convene the 7^th oikos Young Scholars Finance Academy from September 4-6, 2017, in Zurich, Switzerland. The finance academy is a unique platform to support young researchers in finance and sustainability to advance their work and expand their international research and professional network. The deadline for applications is May 1, 2017.

Call for Applications
The oikos Young Scholar Finance Academy provides an intensive experience of learning and academic exchange on research topics around finance and sustainability. Participants will benefit from presenting and discussing their work with leading academics who will provide structured feedback and advice. The event will also include workshops by faculty members on the most recent developments of sustainable finance research, social activities as well as a roundtable with practitioners in the field.

Participants and Topics
The academy welcomes the submission of working papers addressing topics related to sustainability and finance. To allow for in-depth discussions, places are limited to 15 PhD and post-doctoral researchers from universities worldwide. The submission of studies adopting multidisciplinary approaches is strongly encouraged. Areas of interest include, but are not limited to:
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“Finance as a response to global environmental crises? Critical analysis of the ‘economicization’ of carbon emissions and biodiversity”

A conference hosted by the Centre for Globalisation and Governance, Universität Hamburg, Germany, 29 Nov-1 Dec 2017

Conveners: Eve Chiapello (EHESS Paris) and Anita Engels (Universität Hamburg)

In this conference we look at the ways finance is applied to convert capitalism from the source of global environmental crises into a provider of responses to these crises. Reaching a zero-carbon emission economy and maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem integrity are presented by international organizations and national policymakers as decisive goals for the future of humankind. While it is clear that such goals cannot be achieved without radical transformations in the established forms of social organization associated with the operation of the global economy, modes of production and consumption, and more generally dominant ways of life and value systems, they are also said to require the ‘enrolment’ of major economic actors to realize massive new investments in ‘green’ technologies and ‘sustainable’ infrastructures. The industrial and financial sectors have historically been part of the framing and making of the present situation. Also, since the 1970s, those sectors have played a growing role in the definition, government and management of environmental problems. This may explain why there are so many initiatives, tools and instruments, programs and projects that rely on economic and/or financial instruments, such as carbon trading schemes, green bonds, the carbon divestment movement, compensation finance and ecosystem services finance, REDD+ contracts, and venture capital for sustainability.

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