IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/jsustf/v4y2014i1p9-20.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Sustainability challenges and the ambivalent role of the financial sector

Author

Listed:
  • Arnim Wiek
  • Olaf Weber

Abstract

Over the past few decades, the financial sector has sought to positively contributing to sustainable development through innovative products and services. However, in its business-as-usual the financial sector continues to contribute to military interventions, environmental degradation, growing disparity of incomes, de-coupling of finance and real economy, and global economic crises. This article presents a framework of how to appraise the positive and negative contributions of the financial sector to sustainable development, from a systems perspective. On this base, the article proposes an approach for designing effective finance interventions to complex sustainability problems. Based on similar experiences from studies on water governance and technology development, the approach proposes a participatory procedure, first, to identify the role of the financial sector in complex sustainability problem constellations and, second, to develop intervention strategies for financial intermediaries interested in shifting their role and mitigating the identified problems. We discuss challenges of establishing causal links within the problem constellation, which is a prerequisite for successful intervention design, as well as in the cause-effect structure of the interventions themselves. The article concludes with outlining future research needs.

Suggested Citation

  • Arnim Wiek & Olaf Weber, 2014. "Sustainability challenges and the ambivalent role of the financial sector," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 4(1), pages 9-20, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:jsustf:v:4:y:2014:i:1:p:9-20
    DOI: 10.1080/20430795.2014.887349
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/20430795.2014.887349
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/20430795.2014.887349?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Antony Bugg-Levine & Jed Emerson, 2011. "Impact Investing: Transforming How We Make Money while Making a Difference," Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization, MIT Press, vol. 6(3), pages 9-18, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Maria Carolina Rezende de Carvalho Ferreira & Vinicius Amorim Sobreiro & Herbert Kimura & Flavio Luiz de Moraes Barboza, 2016. "A systematic review of literature about finance and sustainability," Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 6(2), pages 112-147, April.
    2. Shome, Samik & Hassan, M. Kabir & Verma, Sushma & Panigrahi, Tushar Ranjan, 2023. "Impact investment for sustainable development: A bibliometric analysis," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 770-800.
    3. Mario La Torre & Helen Chiappini (ed.), 2020. "Contemporary Issues in Sustainable Finance," Palgrave Studies in Impact Finance, Palgrave Macmillan, number 978-3-030-40248-8, June.
    4. Samer Ajour El Zein & Carolina Consolacion-Segura & Ruben Huertas-Garcia, 2019. "The Role of Sustainability in Brand Equity Value in the Financial Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(1), pages 1-19, December.
    5. Alexandre Rambaud & Jacques Richard, 2015. "Towards a finance that CARES," Post-Print halshs-01260075, HAL.
    6. Kathleen Krause & Dirk Battenfeld, 2019. "Coming Out of the Niche? Social Banking in Germany: An Empirical Analysis of Consumer Characteristics and Market Size," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 155(3), pages 889-911, March.
    7. Joachim P. Hasebrook & Leonie Michalak & Anna Wessels & Sabine Koenig & Stefan Spierling & Stefan Kirmsse, 2022. "Green Behavior: Factors Influencing Behavioral Intention and Actual Environmental Behavior of Employees in the Financial Service Sector," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(17), pages 1-35, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Belen Lopez & Alfonso Torres & Alberto Ruozzi & Jose Antonio Vicente, 2020. "Main Factors for Understanding High Impacts on CSR Dimensions in the Finance Industry," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(6), pages 1-17, March.
    2. Caterina Galluccio, 2023. "Crime Prevention through Social Finance and Social Impact Bonds," Sociology and Social Work Review, International Society for projects in Education and Research, vol. 7(2), pages 112-120, December.
    3. Anthony Piscitelli, 2023. "Classifying responsible investors: Identifying clusters of Ontario investors," Annals of Public and Cooperative Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 94(4), pages 1133-1144, December.
    4. Irene Bengo & Leonardo Boni & Alessandro Sancino, 2022. "EU financial regulations and social impact measurement practices: A comprehensive framework on finance for sustainable development," Corporate Social Responsibility and Environmental Management, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 29(4), pages 809-819, July.
    5. Shaker A. Zahra & Lance R. Newey & Yong Li, 2014. "On the Frontiers: The Implications of Social Entrepreneurship for International Entrepreneurship," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 38(1), pages 137-158, January.
    6. Mazzuca, Maria & Panzera, Elena & Ruberto, Sabrina, 2023. "The investor's participation in social impact bonds," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 349-363.
    7. Miguel Poiares Maduro & Giulio Pasi & Gianluca Misuraca, 2018. "Social Impact Investment in the EU. Financing strategies and outcome oriented approaches for social policy innovation: narratives, experiences, and recommendations," JRC Research Reports JRC111373, Joint Research Centre.
    8. Laura Toschi & Elisa Ughetto & Andrea Fronzetti Colladon, 2023. "The identity of social impact venture capitalists: exploring social linguistic positioning and linguistic distinctiveness through text mining," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 60(3), pages 1249-1280, March.
    9. Alet C. Erasmus & Geoffrey Tocknell & Flip Schutte, 2023. "The potential of crowdfunding to promote business in the context of an emerging economy," Journal of Financial Services Marketing, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 28(3), pages 558-569, September.
    10. Henrietta N. Onwuegbuzie & Oluwasoye P. Mafimisebi & Adun Okupe & Eseroghene Orighoyegha, 2022. "Indigenous Knowledge and Africapitalism: An Unexploited Source for Sustainable Development," Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Emerging Economies, Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India, vol. 8(2), pages 244-257, July.
    11. Manfred Lehner Othmar & Weber Christiana, 2020. "Growing up from In-Betweeners: Alternatives to Hybridity in Social Entrepreneurship Research," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 10(3), pages 1-13, July.
    12. Xiangping Jia, 2020. "Priming the pump of impact entrepreneurship and social finance in China," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 37(4), pages 1293-1311, December.
    13. Annebeth Roor & Karen Maas, 2024. "Do impact investors live up to their promise? A systematic literature review on (im)proving investments' impacts," Business Strategy and the Environment, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 33(4), pages 3707-3732, May.
    14. Nino Antadze & Frances R. Westley, 2012. "Impact Metrics for Social Innovation: Barriers or Bridges to Radical Change?," Journal of Social Entrepreneurship, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 3(2), pages 133-150, October.
    15. Clarkin John E. & L. Cangioni Carole, 2016. "Impact Investing: A Primer and Review of the Literature," Entrepreneurship Research Journal, De Gruyter, vol. 6(2), pages 135-173, April.
    16. Paul Mansell & Simon P. Philbin & Efrosyni Konstantinou, 2020. "Redefining the Use of Sustainable Development Goals at the Organisation and Project Levels—A Survey of Engineers," Administrative Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(3), pages 1-39, August.
    17. Moroz, Peter W. & Gamble, Edward N., 2021. "Business model innovation as a window into adaptive tensions: Five paths on the B Corp journey," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 672-683.
    18. Koenigsmarck, Markus & Geissdoerfer, Martin, 2023. "Shifting the Focus to Measurement: A Review of Socially Responsible Investing and Sustainability Indicators," Publications of Darmstadt Technical University, Institute for Business Studies (BWL) 136617, Darmstadt Technical University, Department of Business Administration, Economics and Law, Institute for Business Studies (BWL).
    19. Clement R. Mumba Jr, 2024. "Factors Influencing Sustainable Entrepreneurship Development in Zambia: A Case Study of Chingola Town," International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science, International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS), vol. 8(3s), pages 4019-4084, September.
    20. Kerlin Janelle A. & Ye Meng & Chen Wendy, 2023. "A Tax Credit Proposal for Profit Moderation and Social Mission Maximization in Long-Term Residential Care Businesses," Nonprofit Policy Forum, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 77-97, January.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:jsustf:v:4:y:2014:i:1:p:9-20. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/TSFI20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.