The Sustainable Development Goals introduced by the United Nations in
2016 call for the significant mobilisation of finance. However, although
sustainable investments are steadily increasing, there still remain
large gaps within financing and the information that financial markets
rely on is often incomplete or incorrect. For instance, the financial
system has been structured around short-term frameworks and goals while
the most pressing environmental and social challenges are long-term.
Prices do not convey the cost of externalities associated with social
and environmental challenges. It is therefore important to implement the
effective pricing of externalities and create a common language and
taxonomy between investors, issuers and policy-makers in order to best
serve sustainable development. Addressing this challenge, the authors
delve deeper into the levers that can be pulled within the financial
system to prompt an efficient ecosystem of sustainability-related
information, allowing social and environmental externalities to be
incorporated into the decision-making process of all market agents.
Incentives needed for investors, issuers and intermediaries are proposed
along with regulation that can trigger these incentives. This book
offers a comprehensive collection of chapters which explore the ongoing
evolution of the European regulatory framework, providing essential
reading for policymakers, practitioners and researchers alike.
