Prize-winning study looks at crowdfunding renewable energy

Researchers from Imperial College Business School have received an accolade in the 2015 EFMD Case Writing Competition.

The study by Dr Charles Donovan, Principal Teaching Fellow, and Christopher Corbishley, Research Postgraduate titled ‘Crowdfunding Renewable Energy Solutions: Abundance Generation’, took first prize in the ‘Integrating the Innovation Pipelines’ category of the Europe wide awards.

Based on renewable energy crowd funding organisation Abundance Generation, which was co-founded by Business School MBA alumnus Karl Harder, the study investigates the potential of crowdfunding as an alternative source of capital for making scalable investments in renewable energy infrastructure.

“We are thrilled to gain this recognition.  Research on innovative companies like Abundance is an important part of our efforts at the Business School to understand how companies are capitalizing upon the fast-growing climate change investment industry,” said Dr Donovan. “There are trillions of dollars that will flow into clean energy over the next decade and Imperial College is positioning itself as a leading source of insight about the new climate economy.”

“The Abundance Generation case shows that crowdfunding has benefits to developers, consumers, investors and society,” said Nelson Phillips, Associate Dean of Faculty and Research. “It is exciting to think that there is potential in leveraging this sort of innovation to help mitigate climate change – something that students and academics across Imperial look to make a reality.”

With a wide selection of categories that focus on specific issues and regions of the world, the aim of the EFMD case competition is to encourage and support the writing and creation of new and innovative case material. Dr Donovan and Corbishley’s study has been used in the Full-Time MBA programme content and will also form part of the curriculum studied by the first cohort of students on the new MSc Climate Change, Management & Finance later this year.

You can read the teaching case study here.

To find out more about the MSc Climate Change, Management & Finance programme, click here.