1 October 2025 - Camila Castañeda Quintero, Senior Officer – Impact and Sustainability at Finance in Motion and student on the Postgraduate Diploma in Sustainable Business shares a day in the life of her workshop in Cambridge.
My day begins with…
Going for a run to the Grantchester meadows, enjoying the nice weather and nature around Cambridge. Once I’m back at Robinson’s college, I’m ready for a big breakfast at the Garden Café, where I meet other workshop participants and talk about the previous day impressions or today’s agenda. A few of us walk together to the West Hub, with a few minutes to spare to grab a coffee before the start of the first session.
The workshop starts with…
A student soundbite, which is a great opportunity to learn from other participants, who they are, what they are working on and their struggles in integrating sustainability into their work.
What follows is an introduction to the topic for the next two days: Policy and Governance. We end up having a lively discussion about property rights and are reminded that there are always trade-offs.
We finish the morning with a session on human rights and business. It’s a topic I’m already familiar with, so what grabs my attention are the examples and challenges shared by other participants, which strongly resonate with the issues we face when assessing potential human rights impacts linked to investments.
Between sessions we…
Grab tea and snacks to recharge and spend some time enjoying the sun and a good conversation. I meet a few friends who did the first part of the diploma with me, and we talk about the topics we’d like to focus on for the literature review. There are diploma students from other cohorts who joined us for the last three days, so I get to meet new people.
After lunch we…
Split into different groups to discuss the effectiveness of policy interventions on climate change, based on three academic papers we read beforehand. We have a good debate about the strengths and weaknesses of the research methodologies employed and the recommendations on policy mixes that work (or not) and in which contexts. The discussion is enriched by the diverse perspectives and experiences from participants. I enjoy these small group interactions, as they allow different voices to be heard.
We finish the day with a policy role play, where we put ourselves in the shoes of a food industry association providing recommendations to policy makers on an approach to tackle climate change. It’s interesting to see how different the proposals from each team are, and we also get some good laughs from some of the more creative ideas!
After sessions finish, I have the opportunity to…
Relax for half an hour after a full day and quickly review the next day’s schedule to check if there is something I need to prepare. I then meet with friends, we walk to Cambridge, grab dinner and then head to a pub for a couple of beers.
After a day of learning, I feel…
Exhausted, but in a good way! I’m an introvert, so a full day of interactions takes a toll on me, but I also feel excited about any new insights and ideas I got from the sessions and participants. I gather what’s left of my energy to fill in the feedback survey about the day, to provide my reflections on the sessions as well as recommendations for improvement.
I am inspired to…
Share and apply what I learned about sustainable finance at work. I review my notes and highlight key messages and personal reflections on the content and think about the best way to share this with my colleagues. At the end of the workshop, I feel sad about saying goodbye to Cambridge and look forward to the next workshop, as a new opportunity to reconnect with friends from all over the world and make new ones.
