Ethical Investing and Sustainable Finance: Arguments, Norms, and Regulation

Seminar organised by the Christian Walter and Émmanuel Picavet Chair of Ethics and Finance, with Boudewijn de Bruin (University of Groningen) who will give a lecture entitled: “Ethical Investing and Sustainable Finance. Arguments, Norms, and Regulation”.

Summary of the intervention:

In this talk, I consider key arguments that have been given in favour of ethical investing/sustainable finance, and evaluate their plausibility. I examine arguments based on religion (going back as far as to Methodist views from the 1750s) as well as on public goods, and point to a number defects from which these arguments suffer. I propose a philosophically more rigorous approach to ethical investing, focusing among other things on the underlying normative framework as well as a number of measurement issues that have to be addressed first. I conclude by linking these ideas to regulation, the Sustainable Finance Action Plan of the European Commission in particular.

Contact and registration:

Christian Walter: christian.Walter@msh-paris.fr
Émmanuel Picavet: emmanuel.Picavet@univ-paris1.fr