The Routledge Handbook of Green Finance (2024)

Green finance is heralded in theory and practice as the new panacea – the ideal way to support the green transition of businesses into more sustainable, environmentally responsible forms, by means of incentivized financial investments. This handbook brings together a variety of expert scholars with industry specialists to offer the most authoritative overview of green finance to date, presenting the current situation in the field. It focuses on green finance in a comprehensive way, discussing its characteristics, underlying principles, and mechanisms.

The book carefully illuminates the issues surrounding green finance and delineates its boundaries, mapping out and displaying the disparate voices, traditions, and professional communities engaged in green and sustainable finance activities. Specifically, it examines the "environmental" in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measurements, while also discussing the interplay between each measurement. It develops a range of analytic approaches to the subject, both appreciative and critical, and synthesizes new theoretical constructs that make better sense of hybrid financial relationships. Furthermore, the handbook illustrates existing best practices and theories, and critically examines the gaps to derive the necessary future research questions. It highlights the essential issues and debates and provides a robust research agenda. As such, it helps to create an effective market for the various green financing instruments through clarification and standardization.

This handbook will be the standard reference work for a broad audience, encompassing scholars, researchers, and students but also interested professionals, regulators, and policymakers wishing to orient themselves in a rapidly developing and increasingly topical field.

Introduction: Setting the Scene for Green Finance Part 1: Green Finance Market and Regulatory Environments 1. Sustainable finance ecosystem: A case study from Aotearoa New Zealand 2. Accounting for a Green Economy – Sustainable Finance and the harmonization of sustainability reporting 3. Double Materiality: Why does it matter for sustainability reporting? 4. Climate Scenario Analysis for Central Banks 5. Public Financial Institutions and Climate Change 6. Internal Carbon Pricing in Research and Practice Part 2: Green Finance Instruments and their Effects 7. Corporate Environmental Impact: Measurement, Data, and Information 8. Corporate Carbon Management Systems and Carbon Opportunity: An International Study 9. Beyond Monetary Gain: Motivational Correlates of Sustainable Finance 10. The influence of firm´s ESG initiatives on firm value: An analysis for select European firms 11. The yields of green bank bonds - Are banks perceived as trustworthy in the green financial markets? Part 3: Sector and Country Specific Aspects 12. The Quest for Global Green Finance Participation: Developing Countries and Barriers to Full Participation 13. Accounting as a mediating practice between values and contexts: a research agenda on impact investment 14. When do bank loans become green? 15. Public Policy and Green Finance in China 16. Green finance in China: System, practice, and international role 17. Finance without Unified Measurement Framework: Rise of Collective Norm Entrepreneurs in Impact Finance in Japan 18. Green Finance Strategies in Africa: A Focus on Capital Market-Based Impact Investments in Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises in Ghana 19. The United Nations’ Principles for Responsible Banking and CSR and corporate governance in the banking industry Part 4: Critical Perspectives 20. Measuring Biodiversity: Mission Impossible 21. Can nuclear attract green finance? 22. Green, Greener, not Green Enough? Critical Perspectives on Green Bond Covenants 23. The Hidden Costs of Impact Measurement Part 5: Building Theory on Green Finance 24. Sustainability reporting of state-owned enterprises: current practices and implications of the CSR-Directive 25. Assessing the current state of research on climate and environment-related financial risks: What are we missing? A review and research agenda 26. A systematic literature review on financial stock performance of sustainable investments: Bridging the gap between empirical evidence and recent theoretical models 27. Arguing for urban climate change adaptation finance – A bibliometric study 28. Green Bonds as a Tool of Green Financing 29. Building normativity in sustainability reporting: from national to European Union-level regulations 30. Air Pollution and Investors’ Behavior: A Review of Recent Literature

Biography

Othmar M. Lehner is the director of the Center for Accounting, Finance and Governance at the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki.

Theresia Harrer is a postdoctoral researcher in sustainability accounting at the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki.

Hanna Silvola is an associate professor of accounting at the Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki.

Olaf Weber is a professor at the Schulich School of Business and holds theCIBC Chair in Sustainable Finance.

"This collection represents an important and timely new contribution to our understanding of green and sustainable finance. It brings together chapters by many of the leading scholars in this field and offers new thinking across a range of topics such as regulation, accounting, and reporting, as well as critical issues such as green-washing and the role of the state." — Professor Alex Nicholls MBA, Professor of Social Entrepreneurship, Said Business School, University of Oxford, and Fellow in Management, Harris Manchester College, University of Oxford, United Kingdom.

"The Routledge Handbook of Green Finance successfully combines a collection of insights from international thought leaders. Thus, the handbook is an invaluable resource for understanding current developments through a breadth of diverse perspectives." — Aaron Ezroj, Former Director of the Office of Climate Risk Initiatives, California Department of Insurance, United States

"Green finance is growing, whether it will be a rare plant or a sustainable forest is still to be seen. This book is a great platform to observe and theorise these developments, and possibly imagine a better world." — Professor Paolo Quattrone, Professor of Accounting, Governance and Society and Director of the Centre for the Analysis of Investment Risk, Alliance Manchester Business School, Manchester, United Kingdom.

　"The book is a leading authority on green finance, and those interested in ESG research will find this a good reference material." — Dr Matthias Nnadi, Senior Lecturer in Accounting, Cranfield School of Management, Bedfordshire, United Kingdom.

"The world of finance is fast-moving and the green finance sector moves even faster – and it moves forward. This book takes a good global look at its latest developments in terms of financing instruments, various evolving regulatory efforts, the main reporting platforms as well as certain less discussed green finance sectors. The book offers a good overview of the state of affairs by multiple contributors but a warning is in place; it may be a portal to a desire for deeper insights into the fascinating world of green finance." — Eila Kreivi, Director, Chief Sustainable Finance Advisor, European Investment Bank, Member of the Platform for Sustainable Finance