Sustainable Finance and Law

Thoughts on an Emerging Field of Legal Studies

Abstract

The introduction of sustainability related measures and practices in the world of finance represents, in the words of one senior practitioner, “the end of finance as we know it”. If the financial system is indeed the subject of fundamental change, the theory and practice of the law which sets out to regulate finance must also evolve to remain relevant. This paper takes a step back from the current plethora of efforts within sustainable finance and law to ask how this potential area of research and education could be defined. For that purpose, it introduces an approach to navigating the legal aspects of sustainable finance along three dimensions: theoretical, regulatory, and transactional.