Principles of Sustainable Finance

by Dirk Schoenmaker, Willem Schramade

Finance is widely seen as an obstacle to a better world.

Principles of Sustainable Finance explains how the financial sector can be mobilized to counter this. Using finance as a means to achieve social goals, we can divert the planet and its economy from its current path to a world that is sustainable for all.

Written for undergraduate, graduate, and executive students of finance, economics, business, and sustainability, this textbook combines theory, empirical data, and policy to explain the sustainability challenges for corporate investment. It shows how finance can steer funding to certain companies and projects without sacrificing return and thus speed up the transition to a sustainable economy. It analyses the Sustainable Development Goals as a strategy for a better world and provides evidence that environmental, social, and governance factors matter, explaining in detail how to incorporate these factors in the corporate and financial sectors.

Tailored for students, Principles of Sustainable Finance starts each chapter with an overview and learning objectives to support study. It includes suggestions for further reading, lists and definitions of key concepts, and extensive uses of figures, boxes, and tables to enhance educational goals and clarify concepts. Principles of Sustainable Finance is also supported by an online resource that includes teaching materials and cases.

Genres: Finance

432 pages, Paperback

Published October 3, 2022

Reviews

[Rob de Jeu · Rating 2 out of 5]

Good framework but way too less concrete ideas and actions for moving to SF 3.0. It’s too academic. The main author Schoenmaker is not from the finance industry and thus unfortunately lacks concrete action. The references are more interesting but even better, I highly recommend the book of Willem Schramade ‘Duurzaam Kapitalisme (Sustainable Capitalism)’, which is unfortunately in Dutch and besides that, I would have chosen an different title.

[Yiwei · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is listed as a reference for my course. While it initiated me into some basic terminology of sustainable finance, I still feel there's a gap between those concepts and actual financial analysis, as I expected there would be more practical applications that go beyond my course, so extensive reading about corporate valuation will be beneficial e.g. Valuation: Measuring and Managing the Value of Companies

[Maria Martins · Rating 4 out of 5]

The book is very clear and interesting, but it seems more of an educational elementary book than a green finance high-complexity support paper. It is great for me in terms of understanding how green finance can bring higher profits to companies and how greenwashing is common in the world of big corporates.

It is an interesting book and I'd recommend.

[Angela · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think it was a good book. It presented quite a few topics from the perspective of sustainable finance.