CANDRIAM ("Conviction and Responsibility in Asset Management") is a recognised European benchmark in asset management, drawing on strong values and management expertise developed over more than 20 years. It is a pioneer in Socially Responsible Investment (SRI) and in taking ESG criteria into account when analysing investment opportunities and risks.
"The main consequence of the regulatory agenda imposed on investors is to generate biases and behaviours in their portfolios - often counter-intuitive - that are still difficult to understand.
This lack of knowledge provides an exceptional opportunity for academic research to demonstrate its added value - in particular KEDGE Business School, which is one of the few institutions to have anticipated the ESG trend.
The KEDGE-CANDRIAM partnership is a meeting of minds between a pioneer in ESG research and a pioneer in responsible investment.
Above all, it is a shared conviction that finance must be used as a lever to create a sustainable future and that research has a crucial role to play in accelerating this transformation."
Vincent Compiègne, Head of ESG Investments & Research
The objectives of the Finance reconsidered chair: Addressing Sustainable Economic Development
The aim of the Chair will be to understand how sustainability and responsibility issues can create additional value and impact for companies as well as society. There are several objectives:
- Understand how sustainability issues contribute to better economic development in the service of society.
- Understand the real impact of integrating sustainability criteria into financial decisions and how this can be effectively integrated into management methodologies (with the aim of achieving double materiality).
- Promote a link between research and teaching by carrying out specific actions in connection with KEDGE Business School's programmes (internships, workshops, conferences, dissertation projects, case studies, etc.) and the academic world in general.
THE CHAIR WILL FOCUS ON 4 KEY AREAS
- Area 1: Research on "Financialization of ESG data and impact indicators": This multidisciplinary research project involving researchers in finance, sustainability and sociology aims to carry out a comprehensive review of current practices in terms of the evaluation and integration of ESG information (on the part of ESG data providers and investors) and to understand how ESG data providers construct their information (i.e. to understand the life cycle of ESG data, from its conception to its use and integration into a model, in order to identify possible levers for de-embedding). The project also seeks to assess the technical and institutional barriers that currently prevent the re-embedding of ESG ratings, and to study the institutional processes at work in the adoption of ESG criteria by investment communities in their asset allocation processes. Finally, it also seeks to identify techniques for assessing the real impacts of companies on ecosystems.
- Area 2: Research into "the challenges of responsible and sustainable finance with a view to transforming financial models": The research included in this area corresponds to the subjects developed by KEDGE Business School's research teams on the challenges of green and sustainable finance:
- ESG, Impact Investing
- Teaching and educational models in finance and sustainability
- ESG & Asset Pricing
- Ecological Macroeconomics
- New models of governance
- Territorial resilience and alternative models (microfinance, solidarity finance, alternative currencies, etc.)
- Epistemology of financial modelling and risk models
- Area 3: Training and education: Organisation of educational activities in connection with KEDGE Business School programmes (definition of dissertation topics, internship proposals, organisation of events and conferences) and the academic world in general (Impact Investment Challenge).
- Area 4: Raising awareness, media: Raising awareness among the general public, the scientific community and companies on the challenges of sustainable finance, in particular by writing articles, speaking in the general and specialist media, organising conferences and other events, and organising an annual conference of the Chair, bringing together researchers and practitioners.
