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Tinkering Toward the Good––Sustainable Investing Between Utopian Imaginaries and Actualizations

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  • Sara Dahlman

    (Roskilde University)

Abstract

This article seeks to reimagine the relationship between sustainability and financial performance in sustainable investing. Employing a utopian lens, I show how sustainability is constantly negotiated in a process of imagining and actualizing sustainable investing. For this purpose, I explore a fin-tech start-up’s endeavors to democratize sustainable investing through digitalization. Empirically, this article contributes a detailed account of the organizational process of––and the complexities involved in––establishing a sustainable investment organization, to this end focusing on the relationship between sustainability and financial performance. The article further provides a novel theoretical perspective (utopianism) on sustainable investing, one offering a processual approach that uses both external and internal factors in its understanding of the practice. I conclude that a utopian mindset of possibility paves the way for an experimentational attitude and future-oriented thinking. Such a mindset could generate new approaches to the relationship between sustainability and financial performance, thus shining a light on the new and innovative solutions needed to establish financial markets oriented to the common good.

Suggested Citation

  • Sara Dahlman, 2023. "Tinkering Toward the Good––Sustainable Investing Between Utopian Imaginaries and Actualizations," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 185(2), pages 281-297, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:kap:jbuset:v:185:y:2023:i:2:d:10.1007_s10551-022-05217-8
    DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05217-8
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