Sow4Future Climate Investing Challenge
A student-run investment competition for High School students with any range of experience. Participants work individually to choose a stock in line with Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) values that shows great financial promise for a medium-term investment (5-10 years).
Congrats To The 2025 Winners!!
1st Place, Hannah Lee, $1000 prize
2nd Place, Archit Lamba, $600 prize
3rd Place, Saumya Bhatt, $400 prize
4th Place, Momen Qahwaji, $200 prize
5th Place, Alexia Purkanto, $150 prize
Thank you to our hundreds of competitors across the globe for competing in our competition! All of your reports were considered thoroughly by our judges and are greatly appreciated.
Look out for our upcoming competition, even bigger, even greater!
Testimonials
“I was impressed with the quality of the submissions which reflect that the students have clearly put a lot of time and effort into this important topic of climate investing. Seeing the younger generation proposing meaningful solutions to solving the climate crisis through such initiative gives a lot of hope for positive changes to come.“
Sylvain Richer de Forges
Director of Sustainability,
Bank of Singapore
“It was a pleasure to judge the Sow4Future entries. I was impressed by the diverse range of investment ideas put forward by various students, and their analysis around their recommendations was financially sound and robust. I wish the team great success in future competitions”.
Suvir Varma
Senior Advisor,
Bain & Company
Sponsors
We are deeply thankful to our following sponsors for their generous support:
Rules
- Students must be in High School or on a gap year before University.
- Students must work independently. Only individual submissions will be accepted.
- Students may not use generative AI or copy sources without crediting them.
- Students must register for the competition before their submission will be acknowledged.
- Students can be from any country. However, students from countries not supported by international banking platforms may not receive their prize money. These students can choose which charity to donate their prize money to instead.
- Company chosen must already be publicly listed on a stock exchange.
- Investment return should be viewed from a medium term perspective of 5 years and based on valuation analysis.
Submission Requirements
Format
- Times New Roman; font 12
- Double-spaced
- 1-inch margins
- You may use tables, charts, and/or statistics, but please provide MLA citations and acknowledge ownership of all images and other media.
Page 0: Title Page
- Participant Name, School, Grade
- Company Chosen
Page 1: Overview
- Provide the company’s ticker symbol, the stock exchange it is listed on, and a share price chart for the past 5 years.
Page 2: Macroeconomic View
- Based upon which stock exchange the Company is listed on, describe how the country in which the Company is listed on is doing. If the Company is listed on multiple stock exchanges in different countries, choose a country to focus on.
Page 3: Industry View
- Identify what industry the Company is in. Describe the Company’s business/revenue model.
- Describe the current state of the industry.
Page 4: ESG Impact
- Identify at least one key UN SDG goals impacted by your Company
- Identify how your Company is unique within its industry in at least two of the three ESG metrics (environment, social, governance)
Page 5 to 6: Financial Analysis
- Cite financial statistics in relation to other companies in the same industry
- Conduct qualitative analysis via SWOT analysis, etc
Page 7: Noting Risks
- What could the Company improve on with regards to both its finances and ESG?
- What could go wrong in the future?
Page 8 to 9: Return Expectations
- How do you expect the revenue and earnings of the Company to grow over the next 5 years? Why?
- What is the current share price and what is your projected share price in 5 years? Why?
- What would be the internal rate of return (IRR)?
When trying to predict the future share price, it is up to you to decide how complex you want to make it. Consider how the P/E ratio would change by this change in earnings. Think about the industry’s direction over the next few years. Evaluate the potential effect from your SWOT analysis findings. Anything goes, as long as you can back it up.
Additional pages: Bibliography & appendices
Please keep these additional pages to a reasonable amount. Contact admin@sow4future.com for any clarifications.
Rubric
Your report will be evaluated based on the following criteria:
- Presents a strong claim for positive ESG impact
- Provides a convincing and strong investment case for the Company, demonstrating a correct understanding and application of financial concepts on the macroeconomic, industry, and company (quantitative, qualitative) level
- Uses a highly creative method to determine return expectations
- Is clear, concise, and visually-appealing