Social & Sustainable Finance Chair

Teaching

The objective of the chair is to train students and professionals in social and sustainable finance in order to become actors of environmental and social transition. With the existing specialization Master of Science Responsible Finance and courses in microfinance, ESG and SRI, in various teaching programs at Montpellier Business School, the chair will continue to develop new training programs via face-to-face and online sessions.

Research

Events

AREAS OF INTERVENTION

The Chair works in different areas to promote social and sustainable finance, through teaching, research, events, and partnerships with companies. To this end, our research focuses on the following topics

• Measuring the impacts of social finance;
• Analysis of the environmental, social and financial performance of companies, their tensions and synergies;
• Statistical modelling applied to extra-financial ESG (environmental, social and governance)
• The development of social and environmental scores;
• The study of business models of microfinance institutions in Europe;

The Chair also offers :

• The organisation of academic and corporate seminars on the themes of social and sustainable finance;
• The development of training modules, both face-to-face and online.

SPECIFICITIES OF THE CHAIR

The specificity of the Social & Sustainable Finance Chair lies in its proximity to its stakeholders. People are at the heart of our activities.

We are involved with our partner companies in various areas such as professional training, thematic seminars, conferences, regulatory/sectoral monitoring, interventions in our courses and the creation of pedagogical case studies. Our collaboration with partner companies also includes the recruitment of our students and graduates for internships, work-study contracts and positions of responsibility. We would like to thanks all our partners for their trust and commitment.

With the students and graduates of Montpellier Business School, the Chair created in March 2021 the “MBS Community in Social & Sustainable Finance” whose objective is to create a meeting place to develop and support student and graduate initiatives in social and sustainable finance. Within this community, we organise webinars, afterworks, as well as working and research groups.

Together with the professors of the Chair, we have created a friendly meeting space to present our academic research, and to collaborate in joint research projects and training modules. Seminars are organised to present and develop research and teaching projects.

People are at the heart of our activities and this is what makes us special.

MISSIONS AND VALUES

The first mission of the Chair is to promote social and sustainable finance through teaching, research, and events, with private and academic partners on two main themes

• Microfinance and social banking
• ESG and sustainable investments

Through teaching, the Chair’s ambition is to be an actor in the environmental, social and economic transition by training students and professionals in the challenges of social and sustainable finance. Through research, the Chair produces and disseminates knowledge, findings, avenues of reflection and new models so that finance aligns with the objectives of sustainable development by creating positive impacts and limiting negative impacts. Through events, the Chair creates a place for meetings and debates in order to advance social and sustainable finance in companies and with regulatory bodies. These events also help to raise public awareness of the environmental and social challenges of finance.

To carry out these missions, the Chair collaborates with private and academic partners to develop teaching and research projects that combine academic rigour with the needs of finance professionals in the field.

Thanks to our sponsors