Avenir Commun Durable , true to its original mission, supports the Collège de France in its research activities. In 2024, following a call for proposals, the initiative decided to support three ambitious projects. One of them is titled “Green Innovation and Energy Transition: The Role of Economic and Social Actors.”
Climate change is one of the most urgent challenges facing the world today. Currently, there is a general consensus that human economic activities that emit greenhouse gases such as CO₂ contribute to climate change. Based on this, some argue that the best policy to combat climate change would be a reduction in production and consumption. However, a policy of negative growth implies a decline in living standards and an increase in poverty, particularly in the least developed countries. In fact, economic growth is necessary both to improve our quality of life and to enable the least developed countries to catch up with the most advanced ones. But how can we strike a balance between the imperative of economic growth and the urgency of combating climate change?
The research program is based on the idea that, through innovation, it is possible to reconcile the goal of prosperity with that of addressing climate change. It therefore aims to understand the role of economic and social actors in the energy transition toward clean technologies, and how this process is affected by technological revolutions, particularly that of artificial intelligence. It also seeks to determine how businesses, the government, and civil society can create conditions that encourage companies to reorient their production and innovation toward clean technologies, including nuclear power. The ultimate goal is to identify the optimal way to coordinate various policy tools—education and vocational training, career management, carbon pricing, carbon border adjustments, subsidies for green innovation and green industrial policy, energy use, and the social responsibility of consumers and shareholders—to foster greener production and consumption methods for more environmentally friendly products.
The project is led by Philippe Aghion and Pierre-Michel Menger , both professors at the Collège de France.
The Avenir Commun Durable initiative is supported by the Collège de France Foundation , its patrons FORVIA and Saint-Gobain , and its major patrons, the Covéa Foundation and TotalEnergies .
