--- description: Find out why Christine Lagarde is on TIME's 2025 list of the 100 most influential leaders driving business climate action. title: Christine Lagarde: The 100 Most Influential Climate Leaders of 2025 image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17c7f6895bfafc16/6998cb0ac8dcb4d8b8b50992/Titans-Christine-Lagarde.jpg?branch=production&width=2400&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 --- Oct 30, 2025 # Christine Lagarde President, European Central Bank by [Esha Chhabra](/author/esha-chhabra/) ## Esha Chhabra Update your preferences in [Account Settings](/account/preferences/) Close  Photo-Illustration by TIME (Source Photo: Ulrich Baumgarten—Getty Images) Christine Lagarde, the French lawyer and former International Monetary Fund chief who has led the European Central Bank (ECB) since 2019, is taking a groundbreaking approach to fighting climate change—not through environmental regulations, but by changing how money flows through Europe's financial system. On July 29, Lagarde's ECB announced that starting in the second half of 2026, it will adjust the value of polluting companies differently than clean ones when banks need to borrow money. This was done to protect the Eurosystem against potential declines in the value of the polluting companies in the event of adverse climate-related transition shocks. Here's how it works: when banks borrow from the Central Bank, they must put up assets as collateral (like a security deposit). Under the new rules, assets from companies that could cause higher climate risk to the central bank will be worth less as collateral. This matters because it could make lending to polluting industries more expensive for banks. “We don’t have the luxury of time. Our work shows that the longer we wait to address the climate crisis, the higher the economic costs and financial risks will be,” Lagarde says. The move reflects Lagarde's determination to make climate action central to the ECB's mission. While the U.S. Federal Reserve stepped back from a global climate initiative earlier this year, Lagarde has doubled down, Lagarde has stayed the course. The ECB, as banking supervisor, has asked banks to [manage their climate risks](https://www.reuters.com/sustainability/ecb-started-issuing-fine-notices-banks-not-meeting-climate-expectations-2024-09-24/#:~:text=Appointed%20in%20mid%2D2021%2C%20Heemskerk,biodiversity%20levels%2C%20the%20ECB%20said "undefined") and[ announced fines](https://greencentralbanking.com/2024/06/18/ecb-climate-fine/ "undefined") for those who don't comply. Under Lagarde's leadership, the ECB has become one of the first major central banks to directly price environmental impact into its core operations, making pollution a fundamental financial consideration. “Climate change and the green transition have an impact on inflation. That’s why they are directly relevant for our price stability mandate” she says. “This will help us keep prices stable and banks safe.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"Article","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326575/christine-lagarde/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326575/christine-lagarde/"},"headline":"Christine Lagarde","datePublished":"2025-10-30T11:30:16.000Z","dateModified":"2026-03-03T02:30:14.405Z","description":"","url":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326575/christine-lagarde/","keywords":["TIME100 Climate 2025","list","franchise","Magazine","Special Project","sponsorshipblock","Accolades"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17c7f6895bfafc16/6998cb0ac8dcb4d8b8b50992/Titans-Christine-Lagarde.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Esha Chhabra","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/esha-chhabra/"}],"creator":"Esha Chhabra","articleSection":"Climate","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt17c7f6895bfafc16/6998cb0ac8dcb4d8b8b50992/Titans-Christine-Lagarde.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/climate/","name":"Climate"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time100-climate-2025/","name":"TIME100 Climate 2025"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/collections/time-100-climate-2025/7326575/christine-lagarde/","name":"Christine Lagarde"}}]}] ```