Florian Heeb
Goethe University Frankfurt
The Impact of Climate Engagement: A Field Experiment
Monday, March 17, 2025 –05:15 – 06:30 PM (CET)
This session will be held as a hybrid event. To join in person, you can come to room O 131 (i.e., room 131 on level 1 of the east wing of the castle). To join virtually, please register in advance using this link.
Seminar Abstract
We report results from a pre-registered field experiment about the impact of index provider engagement on corporate climate policy. A randomly chosen group of 300 out of 1227 international companies received a letter from an index provider, encouraging the company to commit to setting a science-based climate target to remain included in its climate transition benchmark indices. After one year, we observed a significant effect: 21.0% of treated companies have committed, vs. 15.7% in the control group. This suggests that engagement by financial institutions can affect corporate policies when a feasible request is combined with a credible threat of exit.
Speaker Bio
Florian Heeb is an Assistant Professor of Sustainable Finance at Leibniz Institute for Financial Research SAFE. He is also a Research Affiliate at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he worked as a Postdoctoral Associate before joining SAFE. In his research, Florian explores the real-world impact of sustainable investing and how investors integrate impact into their decision-making. His work has been published, among others, in the Review of Financial Studies, where it was selected as the Editor’s Choice. He received his PhD from the University of Zurich and holds an MSc in Environmental Science from ETH Zurich. He brings extensive experience in corporate sustainability and climate action from various management roles in the industry.
Admission information
The seminar is open to the public. To receive invitations for upcoming seminar talks, please sign up for the mailing list via this form.