Sustainable Investing: A Path to a New Horizon

by Herman Bril (Editor), Georg Kell (Editor), Andreas Rasche (Editor)

This book tells the story of how the convergence between corporate sustainability and sustainable investing is now becoming a major force driving systemic market changes. The idea and practice of corporate sustainability is no longer a niche movement. Investors are increasingly paying attention to sustainability factors in their analysis and decision-making, thus reinforcing market transformation. In this book, high-level practitioners and academic thought leaders, including contributions from John Ruggie, Fiona Reynolds, Johan Rockström, and Paul Polman, explain the forces behind these developments. The contributors highlight (a) that systemic market change is influenced by various contextual factors that impact how sustainable investing is perceived and practiced; (b) that the integration of ESG factors in investment decisions is impacting markets on a large scale and hence changes practices of major market players (e.g. pension funds); and (c) that technology and the increasing datafication of sustainability act as further accelerators of such change. The book goes beyond standard economic theory approaches to sustainable investing and emphasizes that capitalism founded on more real-world (complex) economics and cooperation can strengthen ESG integration. Aimed at both investment professionals and academics, this book gives the reader access to more practitioner-relevant information and it also discusses implementation issues. The reader will gain insights into how "mainstream" financial actors relate to sustainable investing.

374 pages, Hardcover

Published September 25, 2020

Reviews

[Ed Yao · Rating 4 out of 5]

I learned a lot from this book, but it was sometimes slow and repetitive. To be fair, this "book" is a collection of writings from different contributors, so overlaps are expected.

I would not recommend this book if you want a general understanding of climate change issues. But if you want to dig into ESG, read this as there are few choices.