Empowering the Next Generation of Climate Leaders: Inside the ClimateCAP Fellowship
The climate crisis demands bold action and innovative solutions from the business leaders of tomorrow. That's where the ClimateCAP Fellowship comes in—a transformational program designed to equip MBA students with the skills, networks, and real-world experience they need to become effective climate changemakers.
What is the ClimateCAP Fellowship?
The ClimateCAP Fellowship is a 12-month, cohort-based experience that brings together talented and motivated MBA students from across the country to deepen their expertise on the business of climate. Selected Fellows participate in an immersive program that combines learning, community-building, and hands-on project work to further their academic experience.
Running from January through December each year, the Fellowship creates a supportive environment where future climate leaders can explore their passions, experiment with new ideas, and develop the skills they need to drive meaningful change in their careers.
A Three-Pillar Approach
The Fellowship is built on three core components that work together to create a comprehensive learning experience:
Learning & Development: Fellows participate in workshops and intimate dialogues with thought leaders and guest experts across a wide range of climate topics—from clean energy and carbon markets to climate justice, circular economy, regenerative agriculture, and ocean conservation, and more. These sessions expose Fellows to today’s most pressing climate topics and help them build a more holistic understanding of the business opportunities and challenges in climate action.
Community-Building: Over the course of 12 months, Fellows develop a network of like-minded peers who share their commitment to climate solutions. This community supports one another through ideation, problem-solving, and networking that extends well beyond the Fellowship year.
Climate-Action Project Experience: To build expertise and credibility on their topic of choice, the Fellows have the opportunity to design and execute their own climate-action project over the course of the year. With guidance from advisors and support from the cohort, Fellows turn their ideas into reality, producing publishable results that contribute to the broader climate conversation.
Real-World Impact: Past Fellow Projects
The diversity and ambition of Fellow projects demonstrate the program's ability to catalyze meaningful climate action. Past Fellows have tackled an impressive range of challenges, such as:
Blue Economy Innovation: One Fellow conducted an in-depth analysis of blue bonds and their potential to boost investment in ocean conservation, contributing important research to this emerging field of climate finance.
Healthcare Sustainability: Another Fellow designed and implemented a hospital waste reduction pilot project, addressing the significant environmental footprint of the healthcare sector while demonstrating practical solutions that can be scaled across the industry.
Regenerative Agriculture Investment: A Fellow explored the investment potential of regenerative agriculture technologies, helping to bridge the gap between sustainable farming practices and financial markets.
Climate Entrepreneurship: Several Fellows have used the program as a launchpad for climate-focused startups, including Neta and Sabana, which emerged directly from a Fellow's project work.
Just Energy Transition Partnerships: A Fellow developed a comprehensive analysis of coal phase-out strategies in emerging economies, creating the Just Energy Transition Partnership (JETP) Coal Plant Tracker to identify critical gaps in funding, implementation, and just transition support while providing actionable recommendations for the $50 billion in JETP commitments.
Direct Air Capture Deployment: A Fellow conducted research on accelerating Direct Air Capture (DAC) technology through joint ventures, identifying key systemic barriers and offering strategic guidance for aligning tech providers, energy firms, and investors to bridge the massive gap between current DAC capacity and demand.
A Growing Movement
The Fellowship is more than just an educational program—it's part of a broader movement to embed climate expertise at the heart of business education. Fellows serve as ambassadors of climate action on their campuses and beyond, helping to spread awareness and inspire others to engage with climate solutions.
With financial support from the Hearst Foundations and programmatic support from a network of ClimateCAP Partner School institutions, the ClimateCAP Fellowship represents a collaborative effort to build the leadership capacity needed to address the climate crisis.
Looking Ahead
As we face increasingly urgent climate challenges, the need for business leaders who understand both the risks and opportunities of the low-carbon transition has never been greater. The ClimateCAP Fellowship is helping to ensure that the next generation of climate changemakers enters the workforce equipped not just with traditional business skills, but with the specialized knowledge, networks, and confidence to drive climate solutions at scale.
For MBA students passionate about climate and ready to turn that passion into action, the ClimateCAP Fellowship offers a rare opportunity to invest a year in developing the expertise and experience that will define their climate careers.
Applications for the 2026 cohort open November 5 through December 3, 2025. Learn more at www.climatecap.org/mba-fellowship.