Part of the Problem or Part of the Solution? Reflections on the Uneven Path of the Sustainable Finance in the EU

Abstract

This article, which is part of the attempt to bring sustainability to the heart of financial geography, describes the story of sustainable finance in Europe starting from the Global Financial Crisis of 2007-2008 and arriving, through a three-phases path, up to the present. By analyzing official documents, press releases and reports, it is shown how sustainable finance has gone from a niche tool to mainstream in investment strategies. This process, far from being linear and teleological as it is presented in community reporting and partly in scientific literature, is a political process, and as such highly contested, which widens and narrows depending on the interests from time to time involved. By showing these ambiguous dynamics, the article tries to escape from the binary logic that considers sustainable finance either as “part of the problem” or as “part of a possible solution” to the actual environmental and social challenges, critically reflecting on the role that financial geography can take on in the interpretation of ongoing changes.