Truly sustainable development, i.e. development that is economically and financially sustainable over time, must combine economic growth, environmental quality and social cohesiveness. This implies fully integrating into financial operations the risks weighing on societies’ sustainable development.

The Finance and Sustainable Development Chair was created in 2006 by Crédit Agricole CIB in partnership with the University of Paris-Dauphine and EDF. Its purpose is to contribute to developing the knowledge and methods needed to assess, quantify and manage these risks. Its resources include the crossing of quantitative finance with various areas of the economy, in particular environmental economics and the economics of energy commodities. The Chair is part of Crédit Agricole CIB’s determined effort to create a balance combining the economy, the environment and social challenges.

Under the aegis of the Institut Europlace de Finance, the Chair aims at bringing together leading international specialists in mathematics and quantitative finance on the one hand and those in sustainable development and the environment on the other. It has received the approval of the William J. Clinton Foundation within the framework of the Clinton Global Initiative.

The objectives set by the Scientific Board, chaired by Pierre-Louis Lions, have been drawn up as a detailed action plan based on five areas of research:

• medium-term challenges,
• ecological considerations and climate risk economics,
• energy market financing and CO₂ markets,
• biodiversity, agriculture and exhaustible resources,
• long-term risks and quantitative methods.

Since the creation of the Chair in 2006, scientific work and the related research initiatives have been developed, intensified and diversified at a sustained pace.

The Chair’s efforts are widely circulated and promoted via conferences, educational seminars and publications. In particular, careful attention is paid to their broad and timely circulation. The scientific work is made available in both hardcopy and electronic form as a series of pre-publication notebooks.

The Chair’s research feeds in-house reflections at Crédit Agricole CIB seeking to define the financial instruments that are best suited to taking into account the sustainable development challenges faced by its clients. For example, through ecological interest rates it has developed a new method for dealing with the central question of the discount rates to be used for long-term projects that include a sustainable development dimension. They thus help to more effectively introduce sustainable development considerations into Crédit Agricole CIB’s businesses.