Occupational activity: Astrophysicist and space engineer
Preferred fields of action: Raising awareness of global warming and biodiversity loss in primary and secondary schools.
What drives me to act: We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors; we borrow it from our children. (Saint Exupéry)
LinkedIn Profile
Our sponsors and academic and scientific support
Our sponsors
Valérie Masson-Delmotte
Valérie Masson-Delmotte is a French paleoclimatologist and a graduate of the Ecole Centrale de Paris. Specialised in the study of past and present climates, she is head of research at the French Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission (CEA), where she works in the Laboratory of Climate and Environmental Sciences. She has authored several works aiming to clarify existing scientific knowledge of climate evolution and its impacts for a wider audience of all ages.
She is currently a member of the High Council on Climate (HCC) et Co-Chair of Working Group I at the IPCC.
Yann Arthus-Bertrand
In 1992, Yann shot Earth From Above – a project on the state of the world and of its inhabitants. Taking his commitment to environmental causes a step further, Yann then created the GoodPlanet Foundation, which aims to plant the seeds of environmental awareness and humanism in our collective consciousness and encourage people to take concrete action. He was, as a result, awarded the title of Goodwill Ambassador for the UN Environment Programme.
Since then, he has shot several documentaries on humanism and the environment, including Woman, a challenging project he undertook with co-director, Anastasia Mikova. This film, which is entirely dedicated to the women of the world, necessitated 3 years of shooting across 60 countries and thousands of interviews. He is currently working on two new projects: France, a love story and Legacy.
“Our planet will remain habitable for ourselves and our children if and only if we all take large-scale, concrete action to limit climate change and environmental imbalances.
In the face of this emergency, I support the Alumni for the Planet initiative, which has been set in motion to rally French graduates to protect the climate and the environment. These alumni are in a position to act the world over, and their actions can have a significant impact.
I encourage all graduates to join the Alumni for the Planet movement and to do all they can at work, in their communities and in their personal lives to make our world a fairer, more sustainable place with a greater respect for its inhabitants.”
Pascal Demurger
Pascal Demurger joined the MAIF as CEO after leaving his position as head of budget at the French Ministry of Finance. Elected director of the GEMA (French association of mutual insurers), he has also been working to build the French Insurance Federation (FFA) and became the first director of the Association of Mutual Insurers (AAM), also founded in 2016.
A leader with a conscience, he believes that companies must take a holistic approach to their responsibilities and remain vigilant as to their environmental impact. In June 2019, he published a book, The Business of the 21st Century Will Be Political or Not at All, in which he shared this belief, as well as his experience in building an original business model at the MAIF over the last 10 years.
Support from IESF and associations of deans and directors
CGE
Laurent Champaney, Director of the Conférence des Grandes Ecoles (CGE)
« The CGE has supported this initiative since its launch.
Alumni For The Planet has an innovative positioning that is complementary to the actions of the Grandes Écoles towards young graduates and targets them a few years later, through numerous initiatives aimed at transforming companies from the inside, by relying on alumni associations. The Grandes Écoles are the training ground for those who will transform companies into more efficient and environmentally friendly entities. »
France Universités
Manuel Tunon de Lara, Director of France Universités
“Today, the University’s mission is to democratize access to knowledge, convey knowledge and skills to the entire population, produce new knowledge and communicate with civil society. Since its launch, we have supported the Alumni for the Planet network, which engages former graduates in their careers to help train a generation of responsible managers. It is essential that managers give meaning to their missions through a commitment to the ecological and societal transition.”
CDEFI
Jacques Fayolle, Conference of Deans of French Schools of Engineering (CDEFI)
“The Conference of Deans of French Schools of Engineering, as representative body of all institutions delivering the title of engineer, wishes to salute and declare its support for Alumni for the Planet.
Indeed, as the engineer of the future will be a pivotal actor in energy, ecological, and even social transitions, sustainable development must be a long-term concern for engineering schools.
As such, our schools are rapidly changing to become veritable testing grounds for social change on a systemic scale, built for and by future generations with localised support from current actors and institutions.
It is with this view to expand innovative action geared towards preserving our environment to a macro level that the CDEFI supports Alumni for the Planet’s project.”
IESF
Marc Ventre, Director of Engineers and Scientists of France (IESF)
“The preservation of the environment is spurring engineers from all over the world into action to find solutions for a more sustainable world. IESF federates alumni associations of French engineering schools and represents them, both on a national level and within international engineering organisations. IESF is already very active in the field thanks to its environmental committee, which published a manifesto in 2018, and its participation in the environmental committee of the World Federation of Engineering Organisations under the auspices of UNESCO. Our wish is to ensure that engineers and scientists continue to be heard by actively participating in the ‘Alumni for the Planet’ initiative.”
Our Scientific Advisory Committee
Philippe Bihouix
Philippe Bihouix has been active in various industrial fields, such as energy, chemistry, or telecommunications and developed an early interest in questions of resource use and the environmental impact of human activity.
He has published several works on non-renewable resources and resulting technological issues, in particular ‘The Age of Low Tech – Towards a Technologically Sustainable Civilization’ (Seuil, 2014), ‘Happiness Was for Tomorrow’ and ‘The Musings of a Solitary Engineer’ (Seuil, 2019). Fascinated by resilience at different levels, especially that of local councils and urban centres, he wishes to contribute, through his professional and personal practices, to an environmentally and socially just transformation of our society.
Antoine Cady
Christian de Perthuis
Christian de Perthuis is a professor of Economics at Paris Dauphine University (PSL). He led the ‘Mission Climat’ of the French Deposits and Consignments Fund, before founding the Climate Economics Chair at Paris Dauphine University. His work has led him to study international climate negotiations and the various economic mechanisms states and organisations have at their disposal to limit climate change. As a result, he presided the Committee for Green Taxation, the proposals of which led to a climate and energy contribution being introduced in the French tax system.
Philippe Drobinski
Philippe Drobinski’s research deals with regional climate trends and variability in Europe and the Mediterranean, with a particular focus on water and energy resources. He has coordinated many national and international programmes and is the founding director of the interdisciplinary Energy4Climate Center, which aims to address the systemic complexity of the energy transition. He has authored over 160 book chapters and articles published in international peer-reviewed journals and coordinated the Energy chapter of the MedECC’s first assessment report on climate and environmental change in the Mediterranean region. He teaches Masters-level classes on climate change and renewable energy at the Ecole Polytechnique and runs an executive training programme on the environment and energy management.
Thibaud Griessinger
Thibaud Griessinger is an independent researcher who focusses on the human and social aspects of the energy transition. He founded ACTE Lab, a collective of researchers in the field of cognitive science who wish to use their knowledge to facilitate the transformation of lifestyles, organisations, and territories.
He is working to integrate behavioural science (both social and cognitive) into ecological transition strategies and contributes to the development of action plans that are better adapted to targeted populations and areas. He is also conducting action-oriented research projects with the aim of better understanding the transformation dynamics that will allow us to mitigate, respond and adapt to challenges linked to the climate and the environment.
Céline Guivarch
Céline Guivarch is an economist working within the CIRED (Centre international de recherche sur l’environnement et le développement) and Research Director at the Ecole des Ponts ParisTech. She is one of the authors of the 6th IPCC assessment report and is a member of the High Council on Climate. Her research deals with climate change, a topic that she investigates through the lens of economics and through other multidisciplinary approaches – using climate and carbon cycle models, applied mathematics or environmental science, for example. Her research relies on numerical models to explore the interactions between economic trends, the evolution of technical systems and lifestyles, and climate change.
Armand Hatchuel
Armand Hatchuel is a professor and researcher in management science and design theory. He is a member of the Académie des Technologies.
A pioneer in the study of cognitive dynamics in innovative companies, he spearheaded several theoretical developments on creative rationality and its links with organisation and group dynamics. His work has contributed to a new theory of the firm that was applied in the French government’s recent Action Plan for Business Growth and Transformation (PACTE law), particularly the introduction of ‘mission-driven companies’.
Bruno Parmentier
Bruno Parmentier worked in NGOs, cooperatives, the press, and the editing world before becoming the director of the Ecole Supérieure d’Agriculture in Angers.
He has published five books on agriculture, food, hunger, global warming, and ageing. According to him, so-called modern agriculture “based entirely on chemicals and oil” is showing strain: yields are stagnating, biodiversity is crumbling, soil fertility is decreasing, groundwater reserves are shrinking, the social acceptability of pesticides is all but gone, and global warming is having a significant impact on all agricultural systems.
He believes that the world’s oldest profession is on the brink of a major new revolution – transitioning from chemically intensive to ecologically intensive practices to produce “more and better with less” all while limiting climate change.
Olivier Plantevin
Olivier Plantevin is specialised in condensed matter physics and spectroscopy applied to materials science. He has a particular interest in new semiconductors such as hybrid perovskites, which are undergoing rapid development in the field of photovoltaics. He is the Associate Head of the Physics department at Université Paris-Saclay and currently coordinates a Masters-level course on ‘Energy Conversion’. He is interested in how democratic mechanisms may allow us to overcome the environmental crisis: degrowth, self-management, and social environmentalism are all prospective path for human progress in our societies. “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” – Albert Einstein
Cécile Renouard
Since 2006, Cécile Renouard has been working on evaluating and measuring how businesses contribute to the quality of the social and environmental fabric in various countries such as Nigeria, India, Indonesia, Mexico, and France. Most notably, she has designed a Relational Capability Index (RCI) along with Gaël Giraud and other researchers. Her current work also deals with ethical and spiritual resources, both individual and collective, that would facilitate fair management of the commons.
She is a member of the Nicholas Hulot Foundation’s scientific advisory committee.
She trains students and professionals to embrace economic models and lifestyles that are coherent with local environmental and social transitions, especially within the Campus de la transition, of which she has been the director since 2018.
