Analysing and dissecting the climate transition plans of the CAC 40
Tuesday 9 April 2024, Grégory Schneider-Maunoury, member of the SFAF and associate professor at the Université Sorbonne Paris Nord, presented the approach and results of his study "Chow to analyze a climat-transition plan? Co-conducted with 4 students from the DEFIS Master's programme, who were also attending this presentation, this study already has a promising future, as it could be the subject of a conference in Greece and a future academic publication.
Grégory Schneider-Maunoury is also a member of the AMF's Sustainable Finance Commission, and has seen the development of the framework for analysing climate transition plans provided by the French financial regulator. But what about its application in practice? It is on the basis of this questioning and with the idea of overcoming regulatory difficulties that this study seeks to support the fundamental role of analysis in sustainable finance. The initial observation is clear: in its 2023 report, the IPCC warns and raises awareness of the consequences of climate change on the environment. The forecasts made between now and 2050 will be irreversible without real political will.
Attentive to the scientific message, European institutions are now coordinating the harmonisation of the legal framework for sustainable finance (CS3D, CSRD, SFDR, etc). However, when it comes to climate transition plans, the scientific approach is not yet unified. Today, there should be as many models for constructing climate transition plans as there are methods for measuring temperature rises. So, depending on the calculation method chosen by the company, its communication method will vary.
Choice of framework and analysis of scenarios
The study reviewed the various methods used to assess climate transition plans (CA100+, MSCI, ACT ADEME method, FIR2023, AMF Framework) and chose the AMF framework in order to analyse the transition plans of several CAC-40 companies such as Hermès and Michelin.
The framework is divided into 5 parts:
- Setting the objectives
- Decarbonisation strategy
- Exit from fossil fuels
- Transparency
- Governance
Based on the analysis framework proposed by the AMF, Grégory Schneider-Maunoury proposes to use Habermas' concept of authentic communication and its 4 conditions to go deeper into the analysis, beyond the "objective setting - investment plan - transparency and governance" segmentation, in order to answer the following 4 questions:
- Is the plan understandable by all stakeholders?
- Is the plan exhaustive?
- Is the plan credible and consistent?
- Can the plan be verified against standards and regulations?
The frameworks provide information on scenario analysis for measuring long-term performance. Combined with these 4 criteria, they make it possible to compensate for the absence of modelling, which will probably not be available for several years. The analysis could also be readapted to investment plans. Finally, in order to offer a follow-up to this study, it will be presented to the companies analyzed.
The presentation shown during the conference is available here, with an access restricted to SFAF members.