Green finance is heralded in theory and practice as the new panacea – the ideal way to support the green transition of businesses into more sustainable, environmentally responsible forms, by means of incentivized financial investments. This handbook brings together a variety of expert scholars with industry specialists to offer the most authoritative overview of green finance to date, presenting the current situation in the field. It focuses on green finance in a comprehensive way, discussing its characteristics, underlying principles, and mechanisms. The book carefully illuminates the issues surrounding green finance and delineates its boundaries, mapping out and displaying the disparate voices, traditions, and professional communities engaged in green and sustainable finance activities. Specifically, it examines the "environmental" in the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) measurements, while also discussing the interplay between each measurement. It develops a range of analytic approaches to the subject, both appreciative and critical, and synthesizes new theoretical constructs that make better sense of hybrid financial relationships. Furthermore, the handbook illustrates existing best practices and theories, and critically examines the gaps to derive the necessary future research questions. It highlights the essential issues and debates and provides a robust research agenda. As such, it helps to create an effective market for the various green financing instruments through clarification and standardization. This handbook will be the standard reference work for a broad audience, encompassing scholars, researchers, and students but also interested professionals, regulators, and policymakers wishing to orient themselves in a rapidly developing and increasingly topical field.

Routledge Handbook of Social and Sustainable Finance brings together an international cast of leading authorities to map out and display the disparate voices, traditions and professional communities engaged in social finance activity. With a clear societal or environmental mission, foundations, individual and group investors, as well as public bodies around the world have become increasingly eager to finance and support innovative forms of doing business. Together, founders and established businesses alike are embracing new sustainable business models with a distinct stakeholder approach to tackle social or environmental problems in what they see as a failed economic system in crisis. As a result, the topic of social and sustainable finance is at the forefront of financial economic thought. This Handbook is divided up into three parts. The first, "The Landscape of Social and Sustainable Finance and Investments", comprises of chapters from a multitude of perspectives in an effort to grasp the entirety of the landscape. The second, "Challenges, Suggestions, Critiques and Debates", focuses on areas ranging from sociological underpinnings to critical takes on markets, and the identification of specialized business models. Amongst ethical considerations, topics include the scaling of impact, an analysis of sustainability as risk prevention and comparative analyses of various methods of justification and measurement. In the third and final section, "Markets and Institutions", contributions range from various perspectives on sustainable banking to environmental marketplaces, and finally on to practical cases and country specific observations. This volume is essential reading for both academics and students in economics and finance. It is also of interest to those who study environmental economics, microeconomics and banking.

Can China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) promote sustainable development, alongside its primary aims of increasing commercial connectivity with China’s partners? In discussions of the BRI the focus has tended to be on the implications for infrastructure construction, connectivity, and economic diplomacy. Rather less attention has been paid to its potential impact on sustainability. The initiative has not only set principles to prevent climate change and promote sustainable development, but also pledged to align with the UN’s environmental objectives. The contributors to this volume describe and evaluate the consequent policy coordination in the areas of green finance, green energy, and sustainable development in the Belt and Road regions. They examine both the challenges and opportunities of these projects, and the role that Hong Kong can play in supporting their assessment, finance, and implementation. With contributions from authors based in mainland China, Hong Kong, Australia, Qatar, the UK, and the US – with experience in corporate social responsibility, international finance, environmental policy, and international relations – this book presents a thorough and rigorous analysis of the green side of the BRI. A valuable resource for scholars of the BRI and its many implications for China, its partners, and the development of sustainable infrastructure.

In recent years, the Green New Deal has moved from relative obscurity to front and centre of policy discussions and public debates about how to respond to the climate crisis. It has been credited with radically changing the nature of the conversation on climate change and with re-energizing the environmental movement at a critical time. All Green New Deal proposals share an emphasis on the need for governments (rather than markets) to lead the energy transition. However, they differ in other respects. This Handbook analyses the fundamentals underlying all Green New Deals as well as exploring national and regional variations. It is divided into three parts. The first part examines the political economy of the Green New Deal focussing not just on how proposals will be costed but also on opportunities for a fundamental transformation of both national economies and the global economic system. The second part explores issues of justice, which are central to many Green New Deal proposals, including Indigenous rights, racial and gender equity, and justice for the Global South. In the third part, authors detail case studies of Green New Deal proposals and plans at the local, national, and regional level. This book will be an invaluable research and reference volume for students and scholars in economics, politics, sociology, geography, and environmental studies. It should also be of interest to those actively involved in climate and environmental policymaking.

The Routledge Handbook of Banking and Finance in Asia brings together leading scholars, policymakers, and practitioners to provide a comprehensive and cutting-edge guide to Asia’s financial institutions, markets, and systems. Part I provides a country-by-country overview of banking and finance in East, Southeast, and South Asia, including examples from China, Japan, Hong Kong, India, and Singapore. Part II contains thematic chapters, covering topics such as commercial banking, development banking, infrastructure finance, stock markets, insurance, and sovereign wealth funds. It also includes examinations of banking regulation and supervision, and analyses of macroprudential regulation, capital flow management measures, and monetary policy. Finally, it provides new insights into topical issues such as SME, green, and Islamic finance. This handbook is an essential resource for scholars and students of Asian economics and finance and for professionals working in financial markets in Asia.

To best serve current and future generations, infrastructure needs to be resilient to the changing world while using limited resources in a sustainable manner. Research on and funding towards sustainability and resilience are growing rapidly, and significant research is being carried out at a number of institutions and centers worldwide. This handbook brings together current research on sustainable and resilient infrastructure and, in particular, stresses the fundamental nexus between sustainability and resilience. It aims to coalesce work from a large and diverse group of contributors across a wide range of disciplines including engineering, technology and informatics, urban planning, public policy, economics, and finance. Not only does it present a theoretical formulation of sustainability and resilience but it also demonstrates how these ideals can be realized in practice. This work will provide a reference text to students and scholars of a number of disciplines.

This handbook is a comprehensive and up to date work of reference that offers a survey of the state of financial geography. With Brexit, a global recession triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic, as well as new financial technology threatening and promising to revolutionize finance, the map of the financial world is in a state of transformation, with major implications for development. With these developments in the background, this handbook builds on this unprecedented momentum and responds to these epochal challenges, offering a comprehensive guide to financial geography. Financial geography is concerned with the study of money and finance in space and time, and their impacts on economy, society and nature. The book consists of 29 chapters organized in six sections: theoretical perspectives on financial geography, financial assets and markets, investors, intermediation, regulation and governance, and finance, development and the environment. Each chapter provides a balanced overview of current knowledge, identifying issues and discussing relevant debates. Written in an analytical and engaging style by authors based on six continents from a wide range of disciplines, the work also offers reflections on where the research agenda is likely to advance in the future. The book’s key audience will primarily be students and researchers in geography, urban studies, global studies and planning, more or less familiar with financial geography, who seek access to a state-of-the art survey of this area. It will also be useful for students and researchers in other disciplines, such as finance and economics, history, sociology, anthropology, politics, business studies, environmental studies and other social sciences, who seek convenient access to financial geography as a new and relatively unfamiliar area. Finally, it will be a valuable resource for practitioners in the public and private sector, including business consultants and policy-makers, who look for alternative approaches to understanding money and finance.