HEC Initiative: Climat & Migrations
Ambition
Climate change is accelerating population movements on an unprecedented scale, often perceived as an inevitable humanitarian crisis.
HEC Paris aims to respond to this challenge and transform climate migration into a shared opportunity — by revealing the skills and potential of displaced people and by building, together with companies, regions, and civil society, pathways to integration that also meet the economic needs of sectors facing labor shortages.
At the heart of sustainability issues, climate change has become one of the main drivers of migration and displacement worldwide. In 2024, 46 million displacements were caused by climate-related disasters, not counting those forced to leave due to slower-onset impacts such as soil degradation or rising sea levels — nor the consequences these movements create for the economies and populations of host countries.
Despite the scale of the phenomenon, little research measures its economic impact on employment, housing, or territorial competitiveness. HEC Paris — the only European business school with two IPCC experts, the global reference in climate science — seeks to combine scientific rigor with an analysis of the real economic and social impacts.
HEC Paris aims to connect climate science with economic decision-making and become a hub for knowledge exchange and solutions on this topic, involving key stakeholders (businesses, local governments), as well as students and faculty.
Objectives:
- Propose migration policies that are inclusive, economically sustainable, socially acceptable, and adapted to territorial transitions.
- Rethink sustainable training and employment models in regions affected by climate impacts, in order to transform migration into a genuine adaptation strategy and maximize the resilience of affected populations.
- Produce new climate economic indicators (value, resilience, impact).
The results will be presented in major international forums (COP, OECD, WEF) and aim to drive action programs and thought leadership capable of influencing economic decisions and public policies.
FROM IDEA TO IMPACT
To provide concrete guidance for action in a world shaped by permanent crisis — climate, social, geopolitical, and trust-related — HEC Paris offers a cutting-edge approach. While others speak of transition or doubt its feasibility, HEC designs it with its partners, measures it, and actively facilitates its implementation.
Every euro invested acts as a multiplier of impact: it generates knowledge, practical approaches, and economic models capable of transforming reality.
Climate-related disasters now cause more displacement than conflicts and violence. It is essential to measure and anticipate these migratory movements, and to propose adaptation scenarios that are inclusive, economically sustainable, and socially acceptable.
