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 state of the art. It focuses on Green Finance in a comprehensive way, discussing its characteristics, underlying principles and mechanisms.

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.

Autorentext

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 the CIBC Chair in Sustainable Finance.

Inhalt

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