Announcing the 2026 Research Grant Recipients
The Centre for Climate and Business Solutions is proud to support seven groundbreaking research projects aimed at tackling climate risks, promoting sustainable business practices, and leveraging behavioral insights to drive meaningful change. These projects will contribute valuable knowledge to help businesses and policymakers navigate the complexities of a changing climate.
This Year’s Research Focuses on Three Key Themes:
1. Technological and Infrastructure Challenges in Climate Mitigation
This theme examines how emerging technologies and large-scale infrastructure such as data centers, aviation routing systems, and corporate AI adoption create new climate challenges and opportunities.
- Data Centers as a New Industrial Shock: Local Resource Reallocation and Climate Implications - Driven by cloud computing and AI, the rapid expansion of data centers is reshaping local economies and imposing significant environmental pressures—making it critical to understand how their entry reallocates resources and affects economic and climate outcomes. (J. Frank Li, Accounting and Information Systems Division)
- Operational algorithms to decrease the impact of Condensation trails on Radiative Forcing - Contrails—cloud-like emissions from jet engines—are a major non-CO₂ contributor to global warming, responsible for 1.8–2% of radiative forcing. While only a small fraction of flights produce most contrail-related warming, predictive models and low-cost rerouting strategies show promise for mitigation, though widespread adoption remains limited due to policy and operational barriers. (Mahesh Nagarajan and Steven Schechter, Operations and Logistics Division)
- AI Adoption and Strategic Carbon Emissions Disclosure - This project investigates whether corporate adoption of AI drives strategic carbon reporting—such as exploiting Scope 2 accounting rules with low-cost renewable energy certificates—rather than achieving genuine decarbonization. (Han Yan, Accounting and Information Systems Division)
2. Corporate and Market Responses to Climate Challenges
This theme explores how firms, investors, and supply chains respond to climate pressures, highlighting the behavioral, financial, and regulatory mechanisms that shape corporate climate action.
- Motivating Retail Investors to Fund Capital-Intensive Decarbonization - Decarbonizing hard-to-abate sectors is critical yet highly capital-intensive, creating a massive climate finance gap that necessitates mobilizing private retail investors—this research tests targeted interventions to motivate individuals across political segments to invest in sustainable funds. (Dale Griffin and Shakti Sethi, Marketing and Behavioural Science)
- Carbon Regulation and Global Supply Chains: Evidence on Firm Relationships and Emissions Spillovers - This project examines how carbon pricing policies—such as taxes and emissions trading systems—affect global supply chain relationships and whether these fragmented regulations reduce overall emissions or simply shift carbon-intensive activities to less regulated jurisdictions. (Muskan Chawla, Accounting and Information Systems Division)
3. Behavioural Interventions for Sustainable Consumption
This theme investigates how insights from behavioral can be used to encourage more climate-friendly eating habits, focusing on strategies that reduce resistance to sustainable choices and tailor interventions to diverse consumer needs.
- Reducing Reactance Response to Climate Food Labels - This project investigates whether climate-friendly food labels shift consumers toward lower emission choices and how people's pushback against feeling pressured affects their responses. (Kate White, Jiaying Zhao, Yann Cornil, Shakti Sethi, Marketing and Behavioural Insights Division)
- Gender-Sensitive Meat Reduction Interventions: Evidence Synthesis and Pilot Testing - This project examines which meat-reduction work best for men, aiming to design and pilot a gender-sensitive approach that minimizes resistance and identify threat while promoting sustainable dietary shifts. (Yann Cornil, Rob Velzaboer, Marketing and Behavioural Insights Division)
Advancing Climate and Business Solutions
Together, these initiatives demonstrate the Centre’s role in catalyzing cutting-edge research at the intersection of climate and commerce. By investing in work that equips decision-makers with practical insights, we are helping shape the strategies that will define tomorrow’s sustainable business landscape.
