Artificial Intelligence for Sustainable Finance: Why it May Help

Developments in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine learning have led to the creation of a new type of ESG data that do not necessarily rely on information provided by companies. The authors of this paper review the use of AI in the ESG field: textual analysis to measure firms’ environmental, social, and governance (ESG) incidents or verify the credibility of companies’ concrete commitments, satellite and sensor data to analyse companies’ environmental impact or estimate physical risk exposures, machine learning to fill missing corporate data (e.g. greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions). They then discuss potential challenges, in terms of transparency, manipulation risks and costs associated with these new data and tools.

Marie Brière is Head of Investor Research Center at Amundi, Affiliate Professor at Paris Dauphine University, Senior Associate Researcher at Université Libre de Bruxelles, and Member of the ECMI Academic Committee. Matthieu Keip is Head of Innovation at Amundi Technology. Tegwen Le Berthe is Head of ESG scoring and methodology at Amundi.