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arboRise: a case study for the IMD

What a pleasure to celebrate with Natascha, Thaís, Tiago and Faisal the presentation of their “When Forests Meet Finance” case study to the Executive MBA (IMD EMBA) management of the ‘Institut for Management Development in Lausanne! All four of them are following this very demanding management course and have become passionate about arboRise’s activities in recent months.

Karl Schmedders, Professor of Finance at IMD, was interested in the situation of arboRise, which is fascinating from an economic point of view. How can an NGO active in reforestation be made profitable? What are the stakes in the carbon markets? How to reconcile the interests of investors and those of the Guinean families who make their land available for reforestation?

Convinced of the pedagogical potential of this case study, Karl proposed to our four students to make it the subject of their Strategic Consulting Project. This is an in-depth analysis of the context of a client – arboRise – to recommend one or more strategic options to ensure its future success.

The exchange with Natascha, Thaís, Tiago and Faisal was fascinating. None of them knew anything about reforestation, the rules of the carbon markets, let alone the situation of Guinean farmers. They learned a lot and applied IMD’s methods to modelize arboRise economic situation. From arboRise’s point of view, their questions and suggestions also contributed greatly to our understanding of the subject.

In the end, their recommendations are in line with our intention to finance our reforestation efforts on the carbon markets, either by offering carbon credits directly to companies or through a reseller. We also agree that these revenues should mainly benefit Guinean families who decide to reforest some of their plots.

It seems that this analysis even has the potential to become a real case study, taught at IMD.

Thanks to Natascha, Thaís, Tiago and Faisal for their great commitment and our friendly exchange (and good luck with their IMD EMBA!) and thanks to Karl Schmedders and IMD for this great opportunity to make the challenges of arboRise visible!

IMD EMBA