Chapter 1TOWARDS A GREEN, RESPONSIBLE AND SUSTAINABLE CORPORATE FINANCE
Trailer for a changing world…
The primary role of the financial manager is to ensure that their company has a sufficient supply of capital.
The financial manager or CFO (chief financial officer) is at the crossroads of the real economy, with its industries and services, and the world of finance, with its various financial markets and structures.
They also have two other roles: that of a controller of the risks and commitments made by the company, thereby ensuring its sustainability; and that of a strategist, which can make them invaluable to the executive.
The financial manager operates in an environment that is undergoing irreversible change due to growing environmental, social and governance concerns within the company. This change is naturally and durably affecting corporate finance, strongly since 2017–2018, and at a speed that has accelerated considerably in 2020–2021.
We believe that this development in corporate finance is so important that we will discuss it in the first three sections of this introductory chapter, before returning to the functions of the CFO, who has a part to play in the area of energy and social transition.
Section 1.1 AN UNPRECEDENTED CHANGE UNDERWAY
The years between 2015 and 2020 saw an irreversible upswing in concern for the environment, social responsibility and sustainability in finance, and in particular in corporate finance, to such an extent that we predict, in a ...
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