Jean-Tously Fortune Montina

Please tell us about your research project.
I am Jean-Tously Fortune Montina, a fifth-year doctoral student in law at French Guiana University and a graduate research trainee at McGill University. My thesis topic focuses on "The management of civil real estate investment trusts (SCPI) facing environmental challenges." I am under the supervision of Mrs Florence Faberon, Pr. in Public Law, with the co-supervision of Mr Frédéric Bondil, Pr. in Private Law and Criminal Sciences, Directors of the Department of DFR-SJE at the French Guiana University. Today, we are facing an imminent climatic danger. The goal is to limit the increase in global temperature to less than 2 degrees in the long term, based on the climate of the pre-industrial period. However, the slowness and complexity of the current legal and financial framework are not conducive to effectively reducing greenhouse gas emissions, particularly in the building sector. The European Commission estimates that buildings account for 40% of the EU's energy consumption and 36% of its CO2 emissions. SCPIs, which are collective investment vehicles whose purpose is to acquire and manage property assets, have an important role to play in achieving these reduction targets through the management of their buildings. This study will therefore identify the regulatory and financial shortcomings that hamper the environmental action of these structures, and propose theoretical and practical solutions to overcome these difficulties.

Could you please tell us a bit more about your scholarship/exchange programme? 
I am in Oxford thanks to the Erasmus plus mobility programme, a grant agreement which encourages the mobility of students. 

First impressions of Oxford/the University? 
Being at Oxford means participating in an exceptional intellectual ecosystem that stimulates knowledge and skills, leading to individual progress and collective success.