Designing a Sustainable Financial System
This edited collection brings together leading theoretical and applied research with the intent to design a sustainable global financial future. The overarching theme in this collection of chapters is a response to the worldwide, supranational sustainable finance discussions about how we can transition to a new socio-ecological system where finance, human well-being, and planetary health are recognized as being highly intertwined.
The contributors argue that our world cannot move toward sustainability, address climate change, reverse environmental degradation, and improve human well-being without aligning the financial system with sustainable development goals like those outlined by the United Nations. Such a system would: a) be environmentally and socially responsible; b) align with planetary boundaries; c) manage natural resources sustainably; d) avoid doing more harm than good; and e) be resilient and adaptable to changing conditions.
The chapter ”Mobilizing Early-Stage Investments for an Innovation-Led Sustainability Transition”
Fores is especially proud to present this chapter. Written by Friedemann Polzin, Mark Sanders and Ulrika Stavlöt, who proposes a mix of policies to mobilize early-stage finance for green technologies. To develop this policy package, we considered the menu of available policies from an investor’s and entrepreneur’s point of view. Based on a series of interviews and a survey with entrepreneurs and investors in Sweden and the Netherlands, we conclude that their preferred policy mix would include measures that fit the nature of innovation and overcome the disadvantages of green tech while also addressing barriers to the early-stage investment process in general, such as labor-market rules, intellectual property policy and tax treatment of early-stage investments.