Search

This study introduces a novel methodology that integrates the Black–Litterman model with Long Short-Term Memory Neural Networks (BL–LSTM). We use predictions from the LSTM as views in the Black–Litterman model. The resulting portfolio performs better than the traditional mean-variance (MV) and exchange-traded funds (ETFs) used as benchmarks. The proposal empowers investors to make more insightful decisions, drawing from a synthesis of historical data and advanced predictive techniques. This methodology is applied to a water market. Investing in the water market allows investors to actively support sustainable water solutions while potentially benefiting from the sector's growth, contributing to achieving SDG 6. In addition, our modeling allows for companies' environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores to be considered in the portfolio construction process. In this case, investors' decisions take into account companies' socially responsible behavior in a broad sense, including aspects related to decent work, respect for indigenous communities and diversity, and the absence of corruption, among others. Therefore, this proposal provides investors with a tool for promoting sustainable investment practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the potential of Climate Transition Bonds as strategic financial instruments in promoting green transformations within Japan's carbon-intensive sectors. Through a qualitative case study approach, we assess four prominent bond issuances—Japan Government Bonds, MUFG Bonds, TEPCO Bonds, and SMBC Bonds—focusing on their contributions to emissions reduction, renewable energy expansion, and technological innovation. The analysis reveals that these bonds play a pivotal role in enabling Japan to advance its carbon neutrality goals by financing key decarbonization projects. However, significant challenges persist, including the limited scalability of emerging technologies, disparities in economic benefits across sectors, and governance inefficiencies that may hinder optimal outcomes. The findings underscore the necessity of refining collaborative governance frameworks to enhance transparency, stakeholder inclusivity and regulatory oversight in the deployment of these bonds. This paper contributes to the discourse on sustainable finance by elucidating the policy implications of climate transition bonds, proposing avenues for improved governance, and highlighting the structural adjustments required to align these financial mechanisms with Japan's long-term sustainability objectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As climate change intensifies the frequency and severity of its adverse events, there is growing concern about its impact on the economy, particularly in financial markets and corporate financial management. This study addresses this gap through a systematic literature review in Scopus according to the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) method, aiming to analyse how climate risk affects the Weighted Average Cost of Capital (WACC) and, consequently, corporate investment and financing decisions. The findings reveal that companies with negative environmental profiles face higher capital costs and loan interest rates. The cost of capital is crucial in the fight against climate change, highlighting the need for sustainable financial policies and investments. Therefore, it is essential to implement policy interventions that reduce these costs, which requires a radical transformation of existing financial frameworks, the promotion of innovative instruments, and the strengthening of financial markets through an integrated approach that links climate finance with economic and social development. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Attention to environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing has grown in recent years. Even after the SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19) global pandemic, there has been a rise in financial instruments that are structured according to certain prescribed "sustainable finance" objectives. From a risk management perspective, and as we continue to see a rise in inflows into such instruments, it is important to appreciate that ESG markets will have a growing influence on our financial system and its development. In light of this, and using a sample of some of the most common and popular US-based ESG index funds, this study explores the extent to which herding behaviors are present in such markets. From a regulatory point of view, such behaviors are important to identify, given that they can lead to excess price volatility, bubbles, and other such market-destabilizing phenomena. In addition, this study builds a framework for exploring whether Twitter-based economic uncertainty, which is arguably a forward-looking indicator of investors' expectations, can exacerbate herding behaviors in ESG markets. Overall, this study shows the following: (i) herding behaviors are present in ESG markets; (ii) rises in Twitter economic uncertainty can potentially exacerbate such herding; (iii) although ESG funds, like traditional asset classes, generally show a negative risk–return tradeoff, this can be driven by changes in Twitter economic uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This scoping review explores the dynamic field of Gender Lens Investing (GLI), examining its evolution from a niche approach to its current status as a widely recognized investment strategy with the potential to contribute to sustainable development and yield social, financial, and economic benefits. This study provides a comprehensive overview of the theoretical foundations of GLI and its practical applications across public equity markets. By conducting research across four major databases, we performed a thematic analysis that identified four principal themes: Benefits and Impacts, GLI Strategies, GLI Instruments and Innovations, and Challenges and Barriers to Implementation. Key findings reveal an increased implementation of GLI in various forms and a gradual increase in publications, reflecting growing interest within academia and industry. Despite these advancements, critical gaps remain in understanding the financial and social impacts of GLI strategies and instruments. While GLI has been broadly defined and implemented, further empirical research is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of GLI in public equities and its long-term impacts. The limitations of this review include a focus on English-language publications, which might limit the comprehensiveness of the analysis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Credit unions in Latin America play an important role in the financial system, making a significant contribution to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) through their focus on financial inclusion, sustainability, and economic resilience. Assessing the social responsibility of these cooperatives ensures ethical, sustainable operations that benefit the population. Unlike traditional financial institutions, cooperatives are based on principles focused on mutual benefit, democratic participation, and responsibility toward their members and the community. This critical literature review, conducted through scientific databases, synthesizes findings on social responsibility in credit unions. The financial system is relevant for global economic stability and growth, comprising institutions like credit unions that facilitate capital flow. It operates through financial instruments, intermediaries, and markets, ensuring efficient resource allocation and risk management. Effective financial management involves planning, organizing, directing, and controlling resources to achieve stability and growth, integrating social responsibility. Credit unions in Latin America highlight cooperative principles, emphasizing member service, community development, and sustainable practices over profit maximization, thereby fostering economic inclusion and ethical business practices. In conclusion, credit unions provide affordable financial services while promoting values of solidarity and equity. However, as entities directly linked to communities, it is essential for them to monitor their actions in terms of social responsibility. This is important to measure and ensure their impact on society and its context. Finally, future research should focus on balancing economic viability with social responsibility, exploring innovative models, governance frameworks, and technological impacts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

As the global financial ecosystem undergoes a paradigm shift toward sustainability, platforms emerge as instrumental intermediaries, connecting diverse stakeholders, facilitating information flow, and catalyzing impactful investments. This paper analyses the evolving landscape of sustainable finance and investigates the role of platforms in fostering its growth. Sustainable finance platform-based enablers were determined using a systematic literature review and bibliometric techniques on a sample of papers retrieved from the SCOPUS database, and included crowdfunding platforms, impact investment platforms, peer-to-peer (P2P) lending platforms, blockchain-based financing platforms, and ESG data platforms. The analysis showed that platform-based solutions act as accelerators of sustainable finance mobilization, by enhancing transparency of the processes, and by improving dissemination and accessibility of the funds needed. Thus, platform-based solutions help a broader set of stakeholders direct the potential of platforms to accelerate the transition toward a more sustainable and inclusive global financial system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study reviews various financing solutions available for fisheries and aquaculture development in Caribbean small island developing states (SIDS) and Barbados, Grenada, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines. Previously identified financing needs within the fisheries and aquaculture sectors have been matched with the most suitable financing mechanisms. However, the use of blue levies is recommended and applicable in almost every scenario, as they allow these sectors to drive their own development in financing research and conservation projects to their own benefit. The use of "blue tokens" with sufficiently low repayment coupons allows development projects to gather public support for fisheries, thereby increasing the likelihood of the project being successful through community buy-in. The possibility of natural capital being traded as public equities as "Natural Asset Companies" provides the opportunity for development projects to fund themselves. The review concludes that natural capital can be leveraged as the base through which public-private partnerships (PPPs) can facilitate optimal delivery of ecosystem services, benefit multiple stakeholders, and provide numerous development opportunities. An enabling environment for debt and lending with low-interest loan repayments is also applicable to almost every scenario, as it facilitates access to capital finance for infrastructure development and the acquisition of increasingly sustainable fishing equipment. Steps towards generating an enabling environment for financing fisheries and aquaculture in the Caribbean region are also discussed. The establishment of dedicated financing institutions, PPPs, and sufficient data reporting infrastructure for the fisheries and aquaculture industry are essential for driving development in these sectors. Likely, the largest limiting factor in financing Caribbean fisheries and aquaculture industries is a lack of awareness of the range of finance and financing mechanisms available to stakeholders, as well as an enabling environment for financing blue Economy sectors. This review is thus intended to aid financing institutions, Blue Economy developers, and specifically Caribbean fisheries and aquaculture stakeholders and Caribbean governments by raising awareness of the financing mechanisms available, encourage the incorporation of their use in the fisheries and aquaculture industries in the Caribbean, and encourage policymakers to create an enabling environment for financing development in these crucial sectors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates whether green bonds have an issuance cost advantage over conventional bonds (greenium), examines the impact of geopolitical risks on their price dynamics, and explores the industry-specific effects of such risks in the financial sector. Using a dataset of 270 green bonds and 667 conventional bonds from May 2018 to August 2021, this study applies a two-step panel estimation method to analyze the influence of geopolitical risks on green bond pricing. The findings indicate that green bonds in China have an issuance cost advantage compared to traditional bonds, with a premium of 10–12 bps. Additionally, both recent and historical geopolitical risks, including GPR threats and GPR acts, significantly reduce green bond financing costs, with the China-specific geopolitical risk index having the most substantial impact, lowering costs by up to 17.4 bps. This study also highlights the financial sector, where green bonds do not display an issuance premium, and geopolitical risk has a slightly lower effect compared to the overall market. These results provide a comprehensive analysis of the impact of geopolitical risks on the pricing of Chinese green bonds, utilize strict screening criteria and the latest two-stage panel estimation method for more reliable analytical conclusions, and establish green bonds as reliable tools for sustainable investment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper examines the regulatory impact on the European Banking Sector using advanced deep learning techniques to analyze the relationship between Sustainable Finance guidelines and the SX7P Index from January 2012 to December 2023. Utilizing Long Short-Term Memory Auto-encoder (LSTM-AE), Variational Autoencoder (VAE), and Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) for anomaly detection, the study compares anomalies and investigates their correlation with European Banking Authority (EBA) events and Sustainable Finance guidelines from January 2020 to December 2023. Through the analysis of 43 pertinent EBA documents, the research identifies patterns and variations in anomalies, assessing their association with regulatory changes. The results reveal significant anomalies aligning with regulatory events, indicating a potential causal relationship. Notably, the VAE methodology shows the strongest correlation between EBA Sustainable Finance events and anomalies. This research advances the understanding of deep learning applications in financial markets and offers valuable insights for policymakers and financial institutions regarding regulatory shifts in Sustainable Finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores the emergence of sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs) as an innovative instrument to finance sustainability objectives. SLBs are any type of bond instrument for which the financial characteristics vary depending on whether the issuer achieves predefined sustainability objectives. SLBs were launched in 2019, represent 7% of labeled bonds, and now exceed USD 250 billion. In the context of the growth of sustainable finance and concerns of greenwashing, this paper asks whether SLBs are an effective mechanism to attract sustainable finance. Drawing on a complete revision of the literature and interviews with practitioners, the findings highlight the potential of SLBs to contribute to sustainability financing, especially in hard-to-abate sectors. Recommendations include defining standardized KPIs based on a materiality assessment, requesting SPTs to be supported by science, and tailored step-up mechanisms. The academic literature and experts converge in their description of greenwashing risks posed by SLBs, their signaling effect, and the lack of sophistication in SLB pricing, in particular the optionality represented by step-ups. The literature differs from the practitioners' perception on the existence of an issuance premium. Enhancing the design of SLBs represents an opportunity to add rigor to sustainable finance and better price externalities, where material topics have an explicit impact on the cost of funding. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, investors have increasingly focused on the environmental, social, and governance (ESG) performance of businesses, driven by the rising importance of social and environmental challenges. This trend highlights the critical role of ESG factors in the financial sector. This study leverages stakeholder theory, risk management theory, and ESG investment theory, utilising financial data and ESG scores from Chinese listed banks to comprehensively analyse ESG elements and examine their impact on the liquidity risk of commercial banks. The results show that: (1) Enhanced ESG performance can mitigate liquidity risk in commercial banks by reducing the proportion of non-performing loans and improving overall financial performance. (2) By standardising and implementing sustainable business practices, ESG elements can improve commercial banks' liquidity management levels and lessen the incidence and effects of liquidity risk. As a result, it is critical to lower banks' liquidity risk and support the long-term growth of commercial banks from five angles: information disclosure, differentiated reform, digital transformation, education and training, and international cooperation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Earnings quality is crucial to provide investors and lenders with accurate information about the economic health of the firm and to help them make the right decisions. This paper examines whether the pooling of financial resources and internal funds allocation in corporate groups has a positive effect on earnings quality through reduced earnings management practices in affiliated firms. It is hypothesized that the funding benefits of pooling financial resources in corporate groups allow affiliated firms to reduce solvency problems arising from higher leverage, which in turn reduces incentives for earnings management. The study is based on a balanced panel data set of 95 non-financial firms traded on Borsa Istanbul covering the period between 2015 and 2022 (8 years) with a total of 760 observations. Using management's discretionary accruals as a proxy variable to measure management's flexibility to engage in earnings management, this study finds that being affiliated to a business group reduces earnings management incentives in group affiliates when firm's leverage increases. The business group's support on the debt-leveraged firm alleviates the motivation for earnings management practices. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study examines the integration of climate change risks and sustainability goals within Saudi Arabia's financial regulatory framework to enhance green finance initiatives aligned with Vision 2030. A qualitative research design synthesises insights from a comprehensive literature review, semi-structured interviews with domain experts, and a detailed analysis of critical Saudi green finance frameworks and legislation. This research identifies mechanisms for embedding sustainability in the financial sector and addresses the challenges, opportunities, and strategic directions essential for Saudi Arabia within the global context of sustainable finance. The findings reveal a robust foundation laid by Vision 2030 initiatives yet underscore the need for enhanced regulatory frameworks, increased market readiness, and greater societal engagement. This study highlights a significant literature gap in understanding Saudi Arabia's unique approach to green finance amid its economic diversification and sustainability goals. Contributing to original insights, this research underscores the critical role of Saudi Arabia in the global energy market and its substantial economic and environmental transformations. It offers detailed analyses and recommendations that enrich the discourse on sustainable finance, impacting policymakers, financial practitioners, and scholars. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This research paper investigates the potential of FinTech solutions in promoting sustainable finance in Mongolia, an emerging market economy with a burgeoning FinTech landscape. This study explores how Mongolia leverages FinTech innovations to advance sustainable development goals. Utilizing secondary data sourced from Mongolian government agencies, global financial organizations, academic institutions, market research firms, and industry associations, we conducted an integrated SWOT-MLP analysis of Mongolia's FinTech industry, which includes the FinTech business models, ecosystem, regulatory frameworks, traditional financial institutions, and stakeholders. This study presents a comprehensive analysis of the opportunities and challenges facing Mongolia in integrating FinTech into its sustainable finance agenda, and SWOT-based strategies. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article investigates the role of the model of family and their savings as a support to growth and source of economic sustainability. The central objective of the present article was to determine the impact of the model of a family on the propensity to save money in the population of Poland. As indicated by independence tests, in most studied cases, the model of a family does not have a key role in sustainable consumption and saving behavior. The only exception are the forms of allocation of the saved capital. The study results suggest that households in Poland hold traditional views on the family model and the allocation of their savings. Decisions in everyday life are often reached together with the partner, which may attest to the growing egalitarian tendencies in Polish families. The research shows that the funds saved monthly by households are not planned in advance but constitute a financial surplus after all the expenses have been paid, which is then set aside as a reserve for the future. Partners usually prefer to have separate bank accounts with funds for day-to-day spending. However, the awareness concerning the forms of allocating capital is still poor, which is confirmed by the fact that most of the financial surplus is kept in the current account. The funds saved this way are spent to satisfy current needs, such as holidays or durable goods, and cover expenses in emergencies, which may be particularly important in the context of minimizing the risk of poverty and social exclusion, which should be prevented in line with the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals 2030. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Over the last decade, sustainable finance has appeared to be capturing a high level of interest as a crucial pillar of sustainable development. The process of taking environmental, social, and governance (ESG) considerations into account when making investment decisions in the financial sector is expected to play a key role in this framework, and although it has attracted the attention of many scholars and academics, a lack of understanding of the nature of the phenomenon remains. Therefore, on the basis of a systematic literature review of 80 studies, we examine, in detail, the subject areas and emphasize the main points in the existing literature. The findings reveal that there are four main thematic areas attracting research interest, as follows: (1) A shift in value creation; (2) green bonds; (3) ESG ratings and performance; and (4) sustainable finance, banking, and financial risks. Finally, this study outlines future research avenues in the field. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In recent years, the globe has faced a series of topics of growing concern, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, the international financial crisis, rising socio-economic inequalities, the negative outcomes of greenhouse gas emissions, which resulted in climate change, and many others. Organizations worldwide have confronted these new challenges of sustainable finance by incorporating environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors and digital transformation (DT) in their innovation business strategies. The healthcare sector represents a large share of the global economy (about 10% of global economic output), employs a large number of workers, and needs to rely more on an open innovation model where interested parties, especially patients, are going to have a say in their own well-being. Thus, it is imperative that healthcare providers be efficient, effective, resilient, and sustainable in the face of significant challenges and risks. At the same time, they must offer sustainable development goals and digital transformation to healthcare users through limited governmental resources. This study investigates the role, importance, and correlation of ESG factors and digital transformation to the sustainable finance of healthcare systems through an innovative model. The main purpose of the paper is to present the already implemented ESG and DT factors in the healthcare sector and to propose a mutual and combined implementation strategy based on common evaluation tools, methods, and actions. A set of proposed actions and strategies are presented for the sustainability and resilience of the healthcare sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study investigates the global relationship between venture capital (VC) investments and environmental pressure in order to contribute to the literature on the influence of venture capital on sustainable development. Using a unique dataset covering VC activity and CO2 intensity in 131 countries from 2011 to 2021, the study employs a revised STIRPAT model—a stochastic model for assessing the environmental impact of human activities. The aim is to examine the potential negative correlation between VC investments and CO2 intensity. This motivation stems from previous findings, indicating that increased VC investments spur the diffusion of eco-efficient technologies. The main results affirm a significant negative correlation between VC investments and CO2 intensity, even after controlling for relevant variables and potential confounding factors (e.g., foreign direct investments), country, and year fixed effects, and addressing potential endogeneity through lagging independent variables. Exploring heterogeneity in the baseline results reveals that these findings are consistent only for VC investments in the Asia-Pacific region, in emerging and developing economies, and in areas where they can contribute more to the development of green technologies and innovations. This suggests that VC activity may impact environmental intensity primarily in countries where emission regulations are less stringent or where existing technologies exhibit lower efficiency in terms of energy consumption. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although issuances of sustainable debt are growing worldwide, there is a lack of studies that allow a better understanding the social bond issuances, particularly those with a gender focus, which are directly related to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals 5, 8, 9, and 10. This study addresses the identified knowledge gap by examining the overall state of the gender social bonds in the Latin American market between 2019 and 2022. The results revealed that a total of USD 1 billion was issued by 12 issuers conducting 14 issuances across six countries. Also, most issuances were financial corporations (58.4%) and supranational banks had a pivotal role in this market by being buyers and/or lead managers. As the first study conducted on this topic, this represents a milestone in sustainable finance research. Finally, this study will allow policy makers, regulators, and researchers to promote the issuance of gender social bonds. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The analysis of green bonds and the composition of portfolio investments has gained importance in recent research. The current global context of Sustainable Development Goals requires investors to be environmentally, politically, and socially sustainable, in which the financing of green innovations has occupied a central role. Through the Web of Science and Scopus databases, we focused on analyzing recent trends and further research on green bonds into portfolio investments. The study was performed on 102 studies using Tree of Science (ToS), VOSviewer, and Bibliometrix techniques. We recognize the principal authors and sources, the most influential studies, and the bibliography coupling of studies and authors to identify their importance in the topic analysis. In order to expand the green bond market, particularly at the small and medium enterprise level, more policy instruments are needed. Thus, this study provides an extensive understanding of the research status of the analysis of green bonds and portfolio investments research as an essential input for market participants, researchers, policymakers, and decision-makers. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Management in the banking industry is not solely focused on financial performance but also on the sustainability of their portfolios. To achieve this, banks need to incorporate sustainable finance into their balance sheet. In addition, a global phenomenon has emerged where investors have demanded the inclusion of sustainable finance in portfolios. This financial instrument served to support the global agreement on climate change, which they were committed to making a reality. The impact of sustainable finance on firm value remains a question. Therefore, this study aimed to examine the effect of sustainable finance and capital on firm value within the banking industry, focusing on entities listed on the ASEAN stock market from 2015 to 2021. To assess investor demand for involvement in sustainable finance, a moderating variable was included in the model. Furthermore, this study used a quantitative design and a purposive sampling technique with panel data regression analysis for the hypothesis testing. The results showed that sustainable finance and capital had a significant effect on firm value. Institutional ownership moderated the relationship between sustainable finance and firm value, although it did not moderate the link between capital and firm value. This indicated that banks prioritized sustainable finance due to its positive impact on their operations, ultimately leading to an improvement in firm value. Furthermore, institutional ownership influenced the relationship between sustainable finance and firm value, as banks strived to comply with international society or enhance firm value. This study incorporated profitability ratios and firm size as the control variables. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Economic resilience and sustainable finance are two interlinked and crucial issues for development and convergence in Romania's counties increasing cohesion. These issues can contribute to sustainable and balanced growth of local and regional economies and to the reduction of inequalities in regional development. Economic resilience in counties refers to their capacity to adapt and survive in the face of unforeseen economic shocks or challenges, and sustainable finance refers to ensuring responsible management of financial resources to support long-term development and protect the environment. Identifying and understanding the significant variations in economic resilience and sustainable financing between counties is essential for the formulation of regional development policies and strategies. These variations provide valuable information about the vulnerabilities and opportunities of individual counties and guide resource allocation and investment decisions. The research provides new data and relevant information on the significant variations among counties in economic resilience and sustainable financing, using a Markov transition probability matrix and exploratory–visual method. This study on Romanian counties aims to provide valuable information for the formulation of public policies to support balanced economic development across the country. The results showed that economic diversification is essential to increase the resilience of the economy to shocks and fluctuations. Counties that have a diversified economic structure, with multiple sources of income and economic activities, are less vulnerable to the negative impact of economic or natural events. Governance and political stability are key factors in creating a favorable environment for investment and economic development. Well-managed government policies can help maintain macroeconomic stability and increase the resilience of the economy to external fluctuations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Traditionally, finance has paid attention to the risk-return trade-off. Recently, given the incorporation of the 2030 Agenda and climate change, a third pillar has been incorporated into the investment decision: sustainability. Socially responsible investment is an instrument that can incorporate all three pillars. This paper aims to assess sustainability by Spanish investors using a choice experiment by applying the Bayesian approach with Markov chain Monte Carlo sampling and obtain the willingness to pay (invest) for each attribute. The results show that profitability remains the most important factor, although risk is at the same level as sustainability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

To understand the behavioral intentions of bank employees to implement green finance, this study explores the impact of attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control on behavioral intention based on the theory of planned behavior. In addition, this study also examines whether internal measures have moderating effects on the relationship between attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and behavioral intention. By collecting 123 questionnaires from 18 September 2022 to 18 October 2022, this study uses hierarchical regression to discuss the aforementioned issues. In order to avoid the possible bias of the regression model, the variance inflation factor (VIF) is applied to detect multicollinearity problems. The empirical results of this study find that bank employees' attitudes, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and internal measures to implement green finance have a significant and positive impact on behavioral intention. In addition, the coefficients of VIF in all regression models are smaller than 10, indicating that the multicollinearity problems are not serious in this study. Therefore, our inferences are not affected by correlations between independent variables in the regression model. The research finding also shows that the interaction effects of internal measures and attitude, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control do not have a positive moderating effect on behavioral intention. The implications of this study are that it can be provided as a reference for the banking industry to help them to improve the comprehensive thinking of employees in the implementation of green financial behavioral intentions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Governments worldwide have launched climate policies to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions (GHG). These policies aim to enhance businesses to be active actors in the process of decarbonisation. Therefore, the main objective of this paper is to identify the drivers of voluntary corporate decarbonisation illustrated by climate target-setting practices. In particular, this paper aims at diagnosing whether European Union (EU)-wide and country-level policies foster material corporate commitment to mitigating the carbon footprint in two countries that are exceptionally heavily dependent on fossil fuels: Poland and Hungary, which are characterised by a specific political-economic situation. This analysis focuses on policies related to the EU sustainable finance initiative that enhances companies to voluntarily reduce their GHG emissions: (1) sustainable financial sector, (2) corporate disclosure, and (3) corporate governance policy. At the country level, the national policies for state-owned enterprises (SOEs) are analysed. The empirical research is conducted based on the financial and economic data for a group of Polish and Hungarian publicly listed companies exposed to these regulations. The exposure to certain policies is approximated through selected corporate characteristics. Logistic regression analysis is applied to firm-level data gathered from Refinitive and corporate reports. The dataset covers the period 2014 to 2021, with 214 data-points. The response variable is a binary indicator of whether a company sets emission targets. The empirical research proved that state ownership, belonging to the financial sector, and performance-oriented corporate governance factors have a significantly negative impact on the probability of a company setting target emissions. On the other hand, the company's size and leverage have a strong positive impact on the probability of setting emission targets. Also, it was confirmed that after 2020 the frequency of corporate target-setting in Poland and Hungary increased. Additionally, it was observed that Polish firms are more willing to set climate targets than Hungarian ones. Therefore, from the analysed policies, only the corporate sustainability disclosure policy proved to have a positive impact on the practices of setting climate targets in Polish and Hungarian firms. The policies related to the sustainable financial sector and to state-owned enterprises proved to have a negative impact on the probability of setting climate targets, while for the corporate governance policy, the results are mixed. In this vein, it was shown that, by a majority, policies to stimulate voluntary corporate commitment to decarbonisation are counter-effective in countries characterised by exceptional fossil fuel dependence and particular institutional features. The original value of this study stems from the applied methodology focusing on a mix of policies addressing the deep decarbonisation process in the specific country settings. The presented research contributes to an on-going debate on the drivers of voluntary corporate decarbonisation, in particular the impact that policy mixes framed under the sustainable finance agenda may have on material commitments to GHG emission reduction targets. In this context, the main findings are important for policymakers who are responsible for creating and implementing policy measures devoted to the deep decarbonisation process. It is recommended that policymakers should consider national specificities while designing policies for a Europe-wide net-zero transition and account for potential tensions arising from different goals as they may have impact on the effectiveness of the decarbonisation process. Future research may focus on the verification of the observed relationships between variables on a larger sample of the European firms to identify the key drivers of deep corporate decarbonisation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the financial performance of sustainable investments against conventional investment products in an emerging market context using a sample of sustainable and governance equity investment funds that focus solely on the Brazilian stock market. A quantitative analysis is used to compare monthly returns, volatility, and Jensen's alpha for the period of January 2017 to December 2019 (bull market) and January 2020 and December 2021 (bear market). The study finds that sustainable investments do not diverge from conventional stock funds during a bear market period in terms of financial performance and present similar volatility. The main findings of this study corroborate the latest research from the ANBIMA reports related to sustainability practices in the Brazilian capital markets. The study also contributes to the academic literature by providing empirical evidence from an emerging economy such as Brazil of reasonable performance from sustainable investments in different periods of an economic cycle. The study has a few limitations such as the lack of a taxonomy and an ESG regulatory framework for the sustainable and governance equity investment funds and the small number of sustainable and governance equity investment funds in Brazil. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The issue of climate change is highly related to carbon emissions. One of the practical efforts to reduce carbon emissions is through carbon trading and offset mechanisms. Implementing carbon trading demands massive funding allocation, which requires sustainable financial policy arrangements from the government and the private sector as an instrument to support nationally determined contributions under the Paris Agreement. However, only a few review articles look into the specific combination of green finance (also known as sustainable financing) and the carbon trading mechanism. In this study, we aim to review research on green finance and its association to the emission reduction and carbon trading. We utilized the VOSviewer framework to perform a bibliometric analysis on the Scopus database, and performed search, identification, and screening processes using selected relevant keywords. We obtained 506 articles from 2014 to 2022 related to sustainable finance and carbon trading aspects. Using rigorous bibliometric approaches, we identified both established and recent research clusters for topological analysis, identification of major research subjects, interdependencies, and trends in collaborative effort. The results indicate that there is ample room for additional research to link carbon trading with green finance initiatives or financing, which can improve the success of carbon trading activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Unlike conventional finance, sustainable finance seeks to integrate social, environmental, and climate change considerations into financial institutions' business strategies. The financial system's ability to positively respond to sustainability transition demands is contingent upon a directional transformation that involves regulatory, political, structural, theoretical, and relational shifts. Accordingly, this paper performs a quali-quantitative analysis that combines both a bibliometric method with a content analysis process to investigate the trend of sustainable finance literature in the Scopus database and provide directions for potential future research. Our bibliometric performance analysis of 723 publications reveals that the UK, China, the US, Switzerland, and Japan are the major centers of research excellence in sustainable finance. They are the most productive countries and hold the most relevant institutions. Moreover, the prevalence of transdisciplinary journals over mainstream finance and economics sources is obvious. Our network map analysis, on the other hand, shows the substantial relevancy of sustainable/green banks' involvement in sustainable development. Nonetheless, its relatively low density underlines the existence of relevant research gaps. Therefore, we undertake a content analysis of that particular topic's literature to derive its conceptual structure and truly understand banks' important role in sustainability transition. Key research themes in this respect include sustainability performance and banks' profitability associations; sustainable banks' risk profile; determinants of banks' willingness to introduce sustainability criteria into their business strategy; depositors'/customers' responsiveness to banks' sustainability performance; and relevant macroprudential regulations, monetary policies, and supervisory guidelines to sustainability transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The blue bond market has emerged as one of the latest additions in the sustainable debt market. Its goal is to channel funding toward sustainable blue economy projects related to the ocean and freshwater. While the protection of hydric resources has gained importance within the problem of climate change, Sustainable Development Goals linked to water remain the most underfunded. Since the issuance of the first blue bond in the Seychelles in 2018, multiple public and private organizations have turned to the blue bond market to raise funds. However, unlike the green bond market, no comprehensive market overview exists, preventing stakeholders from judging whether this label has been effective in protecting water resources and drawing conclusions on its future potential. This paper draws on an extensive review of academic research and complements it with a unique and comprehensive analysis of blue bonds issued to date, providing a contribution to the literature on sustainable finance. Between 2018 and 2022, 26 blue bond transactions took place, amounting to a total value of USD 5.0 billion, with a 92% CAGR between those years. Currently, blue bonds represent less than 0.5% of the sustainable debt market. The use of proceeds has mostly focused on waste management, biodiversity, and sustainable fisheries, but also ranges across other areas of the sustainable blue economy. Only two-thirds of blue bond issuers report on impact metrics, providing further opportunity to add detail and rigor. We draw comparisons to the more mature green bond market and conclude that a lack of standardized definitions, metrics, and expertise by issuers and investors are significant barriers to the blue bond market. Resolving these barriers is crucial to attract corporations and ensure continued growth of the blue bond market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from the extremely novel impact investing landscape and the limited existing literature on the topic, it appears that investing in social enterprises should come at the cost of partially sacrificing financial returns to invested capital. This paper investigates the existence of this tradeoff by assessing how the performance of impact investing funds compares to that of traditional private equity and venture capital operators. Focusing on portfolio firm operating performance, we construct a dataset of 85 impact-investing observations and 5310 traditional observations over the period ranging from 2009 to 2020, in order to compare the performance of the traditional investor-backed firms with those of sustainable companies participated by social impact investors. Advanced matching methods such as Radius and Kernel matching suggest that the composition of the shareholding structure significantly affects the profitability of the company, with traditional firms outperforming their socially-concerned counterparts. Looking instead within the subsample of impact investor portfolio companies, and focusing only on the post-investment observations, we analyze how the percentage owned by the impact investors impacts the performance of the owned companies. The results show that, similarly to traditional ownership, a greater share controlled by impact investors leads to higher returns. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Banknotes and coins are some of the most frequently traded items in the world. Their current use, however, is unsustainable, and many countries are trying to digitalize their payment systems. The recent pandemic has accelerated this transition. Building on the Theory of Unintended Consequences, the aim of this article is to examine the influence of some pandemic-specific factors (in specific, hand sanitization, conspiracy theory mentality, and financial acumen) on the current and prospective use of e-payment. A particular aim of the study is to analyze these relationships in Serbia (as an example of a cash-centric society). The study is based on primary data gathered via a questionnaire. The questionnaire was designed for the purpose of this study. In total, the study examined N = 474 examinees. The results of this study confirm that the pandemic-induced variables are statistically significant predictors of e-payment use. In particular, hand sanitization, conspiracy mentality (reversely), and financial acumen positively affect current and prospective e-payment use. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green finance is significant since it is the first organized effort by the financial industry to link financial performance with a positive environmental impact. Green finance products are being developed appropriately to achieve sustainability. The present study employs a fundamental bibliometric methodology to assess the current state and progress of academic research on green finance. 1748 papers are taken for this study. Data are extracted from a scholarly database i.e., SCOPUS and for network analysis, VOSviewer software is used. The present paper is focused on six research questions. Information is gathered to examine the above research questions and network maps are applied. We examined year-wise document publications, types of documents, subject areas, most influential articles, different journal sources, co-authorship of countries, and co-occurrence of keywords of green finance. We categorized keywords into clusters and discovered new trends in green finance. The paper also highlighted the recent issues and challenges. The study has also certain limitations and it is concluded by providing implications and suggestions for future studies. At last, this paper will give more insights to researchers, academicians, and others to discover the research gaps in this field of green finance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

An increasing number of investors is including sustainability considerations in their investment processes. This can improve both financial and corporate sustainability performance. The emergence of sustainable investing as an academic research field has been accompanied by considerable interest from the industry. Despite its importance, there is still no uniform understanding of what a socially responsible investment (SRI) comprises. There is a multitude of similar terms that are not clearly defined and delineated, accompanied by a lack of a uniform understanding of how sustainability should be measured in the investment context. The resulting confusion hinders conceptual clarity, a material barrier for both scholarly and practitioner endeavours in the field. We try to address these issues by conducting a structured literature review based on database searches and cross-reference snowballing. We aim to provide a synthesised and unified definition of SRI and ancillary terms and to draw attention to the exact sustainability measurements. We (1) outline the history of the concept, (2) concisely define SRI and related terms, (3) propose a trinomial sustainability indicator framework (the Cambridge SRI indicator framework) for conceptualisation, and (4) use this framework to provide a structured overview of sustainability indicators for SRIs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

ESG ratings are data-driven indices, focused on three key pillars (Environmental, Social, and Governance), which are used by investors in order to evaluate companies and countries, in terms of Sustainability. A reasonable question which arises is how these ratings are associated to each other. The research purpose of this work is to provide the first analysis of correlation networks, constructed from ESG ratings of selected economies. The networks are constructed based on Pearson correlation and analyzed in terms of some well-known tools from Network Science, namely: degree centrality of the nodes, degree centralization of the network, network density and network balance. We found that the Prevalence of Overweight and Life Expectancy are the most central ESG ratings, while unexpectedly, two of the most commonly used economic indicators, namely the GDP growth and Unemployment, are at the bottom of the list. China's ESG network has remarkably high positive and high negative centralization, which has strong implications on network's vulnerability and targeted controllability. Interestingly, if the sign of correlations is omitted, the above result cannot be captured. This is a clear example of why signed network analysis is needed. The most striking result of our analysis is that the ESG networks are extremely balanced, i.e. they are split into two anti-correlated groups of ESG ratings (nodes). It is impressive that USA's network achieves 97.9% balance, i.e. almost perfect structural split into two anti-correlated groups of nodes. This split of network structure may have strong implications on hedging risk, if we see ESG ratings as underlying assets for portfolio selection. Investing into anti-correlated assets, called as "hedge assets", can be useful to offset potential losses. Our future direction is to apply and extend the proposed signed network analysis to ESG ratings of corporate organizations, aiming to design optimal portfolios with desired balance between risk and return. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we examined the extant literature on the dynamic association between oil prices and financial assets with special emphasis on the methodologies for measuring the dependence among oil prices, exchange rates, stock prices, energy markets, and assets related to sustainable finance. We performed a scientometric review of the structure and global trends of the dynamic association among oil prices and financial assets, based on research from 1982 to 2022 (September) using techniques such as the analysis of (i) sources, (ii) authors, (iii) documents, and (iv) cluster analysis. A total of 746 bibliographic records from Scopus and Web of Science databases were analyzed to generate the study's research data through scientometric networks. The findings indicate that the most promising areas for further research in this field are represented by co-movement, copula, wavelet, dynamic correlation, and volatility analysis. Furthermore, energy markets and assets related to sustainable finance emerge as crucial trends in investigating dynamic co-movements with oil prices. They also suggest a research gap in analyzing by means of machine learning, deep learning, big data, and artificial intelligence for measuring dynamic co-movements among oil prices and assets in financial and energy markets, especially in emerging countries. Thus, these methodologies can be implemented in further research because these methods could more robustly quantify the association among such variables. The analysis provides researchers and practitioners with a comprehensive understanding of the existing literature and research trends on the dynamic association among oil prices and financial assets. It also promotes further studies in this domain. The identification of these relations presents benefits in risk diversification, hedges, speculation, and inflation targeting. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The study investigates if causal claims based on a theory-of-change approach for impact reporting are credible. The authors use their most recent impact report for a Social Bond to show how theory-based logic models can be used to map the sustainability claims of issuers to quantifiable indicators. A single project family (homeownership loans) is then used as a case study to test the underlying hypotheses of the sustainability claims. By applying Bayes Theorem, evidence for and against the claims is weighted to calculate the degree to which the belief in the claims is warranted. The authors found that only one out of three claims describe a probable cause–effect chain for social benefits from the loans. The other two claims either require more primary data to be corroborated or should be re-defined to link the intervention more closely and robustly with the overarching societal goals. However, all previous reported indicators are below the thresholds of the most conservative estimates for fractions of beneficiaries in the paper at hand. We conclude that the combination of a Theory-of-Change with a Bayesian Analysis is an effective way to test the plausibility of sustainability claims and to mitigate biases. Nevertheless, the method is—in the presented form—also too elaborate and time-consuming for impact reporting in the sustainable finance market. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green cryptocurrencies have been recently created to reduce energy consumption and environmental pollution by adopting alternative mining practices. This paper examines for the first time the market of green cryptocurrencies for indication of herding behavior in the period of January 2017–June 2022. By using two measures that capture the proximity of asset returns from the market consensus, we conclude that herding behavior among investors in green cryptocurrencies was absent in the whole sample. However, the results of a subsample analysis and rolling window regression show that herding dynamics varied significantly throughout the sample period. The recent COVID-19 pandemic amplified the observed levels of herding behavior, suggesting that opportunities for diversification for investors operating in this market may have become more limited lately. For this reason, financial regulators should focus on the market of green cryptocurrencies if they want to promote the market's efficiency necessary to attract additional investors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study contributes to sustainable finance literature by exemplifying promotion of sustainable finance through fintech solutions for emerging market economies by presenting the case of Turkey. Turkey is one of the largest emerging market economies in the world with a strong banking system and high adoption of technology, so it has great potential to benefit from fintech solutions to boost sustainable finance. For the case analysis, the data used came from a research platform for a Turkish start-up ecosystem, Turkish regulations, and documents released on Turkey's sustainable finance strategies by Turkish and international institutions. We found that Turkey has made remarkable progress in increasing financial inclusivity for underbanked individuals and SMEs via providing contactless payment and contract systems and microfinance by mobile carriers and other online platforms. Turkey was also able to promote the responsible consumption goal for sustainable development by improving fintech solutions on payment systems with educational content on this goal. With upcoming developments such as the sandbox environment in Istanbul Financial Center, fintech solutions using Big Data, AI, and blockchain could emerge much faster with collaboration between banking and fintech sectors and regulatory institutions to better assess climate-related financial risks and form a national carbon trading mechanism. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Access to finance is a key element of sustainable and inclusive landscapes. We conducted a literature review to identify the factors that contribute to or hinder inclusive financing for micro/small/medium-sized enterprises and projects across sectors in ways that collectively contribute to more sustainable landscapes in the tropics. The key factors in the design of inclusive landscape finance are landscape governance, the financial literacy of local stakeholders, access to finance technology and services, and inclusive finance facilities and associated mechanisms for integrated (i.e., multi-project, multi-sector, spatially coordinated) landscape finance. The most frequent challenges are the types of existing financial products, the lack of livelihood assets among recipients (such as capital and income), the lack of transparency in finance mechanisms, the small scale of potential business cases, and the high risks perceived by finance providers and their customers. From this review, we propose components specifically focused on financial inclusion that complement the framework for integrated landscape finance developed by the Finance Solutions Design Team for the 1000 Landscapes for 1 Billion People Initiative. We suggest how the revised framework can be applied in designing and assessing the inclusiveness of finance mechanisms for integrated landscape management and to guide further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The expanding international influence of sustainable finance has made it one of the most cutting-edge development trends in the financial field. Learning about the global evolution of research on sustainable finance can improve the understanding and evaluation of sustainable finance by scholars and practitioners. Based on the ISI Web of Science database, this paper used bibliometric methods to analyze 3786 articles related to sustainable finance published between 2000 and 2021, mastering their discipline co-occurrence, publication characteristics, partnership, influence, keyword co-occurrence, co-citations, and structural variation. The highlights of the results: socially responsible investment, climate change, corporate social responsibility, green finance, carbon credits, and renewable energy were the hotspots between 2000 and 2021; responsible investment, green bond, low-carbon transition, vulnerable countries, low-carbon investment, business model, financial development, supply chain, conventional investment dilemma, sustainable financing, environmental investment, and green credit policy were the hot research topics between 2016 and 2021; papers related to socially responsible investment were an important knowledge base for sustainable financial research between 2000 and 2021; the research topics of the articles with the strongest transformative potentials between 2016 and 2021 mainly involved green bonds, socially responsible mutual funds, ESG investors' preferences, and the impact of COVID-19. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paradigm of green finance is currently in the developmental stage in Bangladesh; however, it has drawn enormous interest in the global financial sector. Recently, researchers, academics, policymakers, and both the supply-side and demand-side of these funds are more serious in Green Finance and Sustainable Finance than ever before. In creating a greener economy, market players need to focus on sustainable development. All banks and NBFIs have to disburse the funded loan greater than or equal to 5% in green finance and 20% in sustainable finance according to BB policy guidelines. This paper examines the recent target accomplishment scenario of green finance and sustainable finance through banks and NBFIs in Bangladesh for the year of 2021 (four quarters). This study also observes the highest and lowest contributors in both schemes and is descriptive in nature. Data has been collected from secondary sources. According to the findings of this study, Bangladesh's central bank has made significant accomplishments in the effort to green the country's financial system by implementing several green policies and regulatory measures. This study also indicates the total target achievements of banks and NBFIs were 3.16% of 5% in the green finance of total loan disbursement and 9.32% of 20% in sustainable finance, which is still far behind the SDGs' goal that must be achieved by 2030. The intention of this research is to encourage the supply and demand sides of the fund and to capitalize more on future research directions. Independent experts in this field are needed to confirm the findings of any further research. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The European Union (EU) has impacted regulation worldwide in areas ranging from data protection to trade or antitrust. In select fields, it has defined stringent standards and has had an impact on global business because of the size of its market and the price of participating in it. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the main provisions of the EU regulation on Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) and determine whether and how it will have an impact on business globally, including regulations around disclosure for companies, taxonomy for the asset management sector, supply chain due diligence requirements, new mechanisms such as carbon markets, or non-tariffs restrictions on international trade. For this, our analysis includes an in-depth review of the literature on EU regulation of the past 20 years, complemented with interviews with experts in the field, in order to understand the main tools used by European policymakers in ESG regulations to understand their effect. The analysis adds to the body of research pertaining to the impact of regulation on business and the growing body of research on sustainable finance. We find that the new ESG regulation impacts countries outside of the EU, influencing regulation worldwide, and raising the question of possible regulatory arbitrage. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is beyond any doubt that Latin America is one of the most important emerging markets in the world, which has increased its importance in the last decades. In effect, the issues of green, social, and sustainability (GSS) bonds are gaining more and more importance in the Latin American and the Caribbean (LAC) financial markets. They are specifically focused on raising funding for public expenditure programs that contribute to achieving several objectives, such as climate and environmental projects, energy efficiency, pollution prevention, sustainable agriculture, fishery and forestry, etc. The main objective of this paper is to provide a literature revision of the evolution of the issuance of GSS bonds in the LAC region and to analyze the economic growth of the countries which issue this type of bond. We will apply multiple linear regression to relate the economic growth of some countries of the LAC region with the variables proposed by the IFC Emerging Market Green Bonds Report (2019). It has been shown that the economic growth of the countries in the LAC region that are issuing GSS bonds is significantly related to the Sovereign Green Issuance (Total Planned), the ratio of Private Credit/GDP, and the Rule of Law Index. However, this research has had the limitation of the scarcity of available data in the LAC markets. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Large companies in the European Union are required to publish information related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. The aim of our study is to determine the quality of ESG reporting in EU public companies (measured by the ESG-index) and its effect on their market capitalisation. Therefore, the results of our research will be both scientific and applicative, and they will be useful for investors when making investment decisions on the stock exchange. The research includes over 15,000 companies listed on 27 stock exchanges (in the "old" and "new" member states, EU-14 and EU-13, respectively), covering the period 2002 to 2019. The data were obtained from the Refinitiv database. We drew three conclusions after the research. Firstly, only 50% of the companies listed on the stock exchanges in the old EU member states and merely 5% of the companies from the new EU member states had reported ESG-indexes in any year of the research period. Secondly, we found a positive relationship between a company's market capitalisation and the quality of its ESG reports. Thirdly, the market values of companies are positively but not strongly affected by the ESG-indexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study analyzes the relationships and dynamics between material production, foreign direct investment (FDI), economic activity, carbon productivity, the stock market, and green tech, both in a global and European context, using panel vector autoregressive methodology (PVAR). The empirical evidence obtained for the Global Group reveals four significant and positive unidirectional causality relationships, where aggregate material production is the prominent variable. For the EU-15 group, six significant causality relationships were detected, among them three negative and three positive unidirectional relationships. The stock markets shock reveals to be the most dominant variable, despite FDI standing out as causing the greatest shock effect. Nevertheless, in the European context, limited evidence of dematerialization is detected. Economic recessions show a generally negative effect, which contrastswith the economic Kitchin cycles, which reveal the effect of a generally positive relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the last few years, the financing of responsibly operating small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) has become the focus of attention of several national and international bodies. Consequently, a number of policies and support programmes have been established aimed at supporting SMEs that take a responsible approach concerning the company and its operations. Against this background, this article presents a comprehensive international overview of support programmes for financing responsible SMEs. Based on systematic desk research, documents of national governments as well as supranational and international organisations have been investigated. The findings reveal that there are strong regional differences in terms of support policy approaches, intensity, and criteria. The largest part of the identified programmes has been launched by the European Union and/or its member states. Additionally, the findings clarify that the primary focus of extant programmes is on the environmental dimension of sustainability, mainly energy-related questions. The social dimension has been neglected so far in the programmes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper fits into the stream of current research on the concept of short-termism and its importance for economic sustainability, especially sustainable finance. Short-termism focuses on short time horizons by both corporate managers and the financial markets, and prioritizes short-time shareholder return over the long-term growth of the company's value. This study engages the short-termism discussion by examining the effect of quarterly reporting on the long-term market value of listed companies. The aim of the article is to determine whether European companies experience the negative effects of short-termism, precisely, whether public companies that prepare quarterly reports, and which focus mainly on achieving the short-term goals of stock exchange investors, are seeing a decline in their market value in the long-term. We have not proven the existence of such a dependence, the increase in reporting frequency of public companies does not contribute to a decline in their long-term market value. In the case of the EU-15 the results of regression model estimation indicate a positive and statistically significant impact of the time of regular quarterly reporting on the buy-and-hold rates of return, in the "new" EU member states this relationship is not observed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Green and sustainable finance, corporate social responsibility and financial and non-financial performance are attracting widespread interest due to the challenging times that the business environment is currently facing. Moreover, green and sustainable finance, corporate social responsibility, and intellectual and human capital have become central issues in measuring organizations' success, competitive advantage and influence on the marketplace. This scientific paper seeks to address the relationship between corporate social responsibility, intellectual capital and performance, providing valuable insights and relevant evidence from a Romanian business environment. The questionnaire method was used for the targeted research objectives, which referred to: (a) Romanian organizations and local community understanding of green and sustainable finance, corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital; (b) corporate social responsibility actions taken by Romanian organizations and the local community; (c) main drivers of corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital in Romanian organizations; and (d) ways to enhance financial and non-financial performance of Romanian organizations with the aid of corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital. The findings support the idea of a strong relationship between corporate social responsibility, intellectual capital and performance in the Romanian business environment. Our work shows that, broadly speaking, Romanian entities operate on a socially responsible level, being aware of the importance and the advantages brought by both corporate social responsibility and intellectual capital when it comes to enhancing profit, productivity and performance. Our results are highly encouraging and may be validated by a larger sample size. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]