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This book provides a detailed yet succinct overview of sustainable finance, with a specific focus on its origins, its policy focus and the practitioner dimension. With fossil fuel companies still attracting investment and subsidies across the world, the book describes how we can reverse these incentives, using the power of finance to tackle the climate and ecological crises. The world of finance is moving beyond the era of ethical investment and into a future where all financial companies will have to report the climate impact of their investments. This is the first stage toward full-scale ESG reporting (Environmental, Social and Governance). Since financial reporting depends on the information provided by companies who receive investment, this has huge implications for non-financial reporting by all large companies. The timeline for these legal changes is short for what will be a transformation of financial accounting and investment. Sustainable Finance also covers the related issues of climate finance and the role of central and public banks in funding the transition to sustainability, and how we can ensure accountability for countries bearing the brunt of the impact from those with the largest responsibility for historic emissions. This book will enable those working in these fields to update their knowledge and skills, and brings together the author's practical experience as an MEP with her academic insight as the first professor of green economics.
Molly Scott Cato is a Professor of Green Economics at Roehampton Business School, UK and was formerly a member of the European Parliament’s Economic and Monetary Policy committee and its rapporteur on sustainable finance. She is a green economist and expert on cooperatives and social enterprise, sustainable finance, monetary policy and tax policy. Molly is the national Green Party speaker on finance and on Brexit.
"The damage banks and investment companies are doing to our world and our climate is nothing short of criminal. We urgently need to turn this around and use the power of money for good. Molly Scott Cato explains how with the clarity and insight she has gained from her unique background as both an economics professor and a politician regulating Europe's financial system."
– Caroline Lucas, Green Party MP
"For too long 'the economy' and 'the finance' flowing through it have proceeded as if their own self-defined laws are immutable and detached from people and the planet we inhabit. Molly Scott Cato has been at the forefront of the sustainable finance agenda and has written a must-read primer for anyone interested in understanding how to align the financial system with climate objectives. With authentic experience of the 'cut and thrust of political negotiations', Molly not only offers first-hand perspective on why progress on this vital agenda has been slow but offers compelling proposals for what to do about it."
– Frank van Lerven, Senior Economist, New Economics Foundation
