Made available in DSpace on 2016-03-15T19:34:26Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Fernando Rodrigues da Motta Bertoncello.pdf: 889518 bytes, checksum: d02dcf0a830f6d3fd9fe00a8bb2e714d (MD5) Previous issue date: 2015-08-04 / The financial market has developed several programs along the recent years in order to offer financing and sustainable investments. However, the lack of a clear definition of what actually means sustainability and also the lack of adaptation regarding the dynamics of financial markets prevent such programs thrive. This study has aimed to investigate the development of environmental regulation through the market regulators, Central Bank of Brazil and the Brazilian Securities Commission, making use of bibliographic and legislative research. It has come to the analysis of the State's duty to set limits to economic power which deals with the political and environmental responsibility of banks and financial institutions, from which it was concluded that only market regulators are able to interpret sustainability and adapt it to the financial sector, which creates a legal framework with a strong dialogue with Economy and Ecology. / As lutas pela preservação do meio ambiente e dos grupos sociais reprimidos ganham ao longo do tempo uma nova roupagem e avançam até o conceito de sustentabilidade. Este conceito posteriormente é abraçado pelas empresas e pelo mercado financeiro em busca de capital reputacional. Todavia, tem-se questionado a efetividade de algumas políticas de sustentabilidade adotadas pelo mercado, as quais parecem buscar para si somente valor agregado. Sendo assim, percebe-se a necessidade da migração de um ambiente de autorregulação para uma regulação financeira especifica que trate da aplicação da sustentabilidade no mercado financeiro, visando mais claramente atender ao interesse público. Pressupõe-se que a regulação financeira seria o melhor mecanismo dialogar com o mercado e, ao mesmo tempo, garantir o interesse público.

The thesis explores how monetisation of corporate externalities, can be carried out in order to provide investors, policy makers and consumers with accurate pictures of the true costs and benefits of business operations from a resilience and ecosystem services perspective. By drawing conclusions from company cases, and previous research – methods, drivers and monetary values of impacts such as carbon dioxide, water usage, pollutants and land use are analysed. The findings reflect opportunities that open up with monetisation, in terms of tools for guidance and support in internal corporate decision making, by making the actual impacts visualised and understandable. Findings from company cases, show that monetisation of corporate effects has potential to contribute to visualising impacts – and add knowledge that may close information gaps internally as well as externally. It can guide and facilitate strategic choices at corporate level. It may also have a role in bridging information asymmetries in the picture of a firm’s operation, to consumers and investors. Monetising effects may facilitate identification of risks arising from ecosystem services dependencies, visualising the actual impacts by, assed costs in losses in ecosystems’ production (yields e.g.) caused by corporate harm.Providing relevant information to policy makers, on obstacles and where regulative incentives are needed, and investors and consumers with guidance, monetisation of impacts potentially can play a part in bridging market information gaps toward better incentive structures and possibly facilitating effective market transformation in favor of sustainable production and consumption patterns.

Prospektteorin presenterades av Kahneman och Tversky år 1979. Teorin förklarar hur beslutsfattande sker under risk. Kahneman belönades år 2002 med Alfred Nobels Ekonomipris för sitt arbete inom beslutsfattande, riskbedömning och rationalitet. Hans forskning nådde den breda massan med boken Tänka, snabbt och långsamt. Sedan boken släpptes år 2011 har den getts ut i över 30 länder och utsågs till en av årets bästa böcker av The Wall Street Journal, The Economist och The New York Times. Studiens syfte var att med hjälp av prospektteorin förklara hur investerare fattar beslut om hållbara investeringar under risk inom den svenska gruvindustrin. För att uppnå syftet identifierades investerares uppfattning av konsekvenser i svenska gruvföretag. Studien utfördes genom att låta investerare bedöma konsekvenser utifrån ett flertal scenarier och sedan fatta beslut om en hållbar investering. På så sätt erhålls en djupare förståelse för hur beslut fattas under risk. Den kvalitativa empiriinsamlingen gjordes i två steg. En inledande intervju gjordes för att fånga respondenternas uppfattning om gruvindustrins risker och potentiella konsekvenser. Därefter utformades med grund i prospektteorin och tidigare studier ett flertal scenarier samt ett mätinstrument för att analysera resultatet. Resultatet bekräftar att investerares beslutsfattande inom den svenska gruvindustrin påverkas i enlighet med prospektteorins grundantaganden kring beslutsfattande under risk. Det visade även att den finansiella risken var avgörande i majoriteten av besluten. Att testa konsekvensernas påverkan på besluten utifrån givna scenarion har bidragit med en fördjupad förståelse för investerares uppfattning om risk inom den svenska gruvindustrin utifrån prospektteorin. / Prospect theory was presented by Kahneman and Tversky in 1979. The theory explains how decision-making takes place under risk. In 2002, Kahneman was awarded the Alfred Nobel Finance Prize for his work in decision making, risk assessment and rationality. His research reached the broad mass with the book Thinking, fast and slow. Since the book was released in 2011, it has been published in over 30 countries and was voted one of the best books of the year by The Wall Street Journal, The Economist and The New York Times. The purpose of the study was to explain how investors make decisions about sustainable investments under risk with the help of prospect theory. To achieve this purpose, investors' perceptions of the consequences in Swedish mining companies were identified. The study was conducted by allowing investors to assess the consequences based on several scenarios and then decide on a sustainable investment. In this way, a deeper understanding of how decisions are made under risk is obtained. The qualitative empirical data collection was done in two steps. An initial interview was conducted to capture respondents' perceptions of the mining industry's risks and potential consequences. Subsequently, based on prospect theory and previous studies, several scenarios and a measuring instrument were developed to analyze the results. The result confirms that investors' decision-making in the Swedish mining industry is affected in accordance with the prospect theory's basic assumptions about decision-making under risk. It also showed that the financial risk was decisive in most decisions. Testing the impact of the consequences on decisions based on given scenarios has contributed to a deeper understanding of investors' perceptions of risk in the Swedish mining industry based on prospect theory.

Gröna obligationer har fått växande uppmärksamhet på marknaden för hållbara investeringar under de senaste decennierna. Finansieringsformen blir alltmer utbredd världen över och användningen förväntas öka ytterligare. I dagens läge har användningen av gröna obligationer i större utsträckning gått till att finansiera mitigering av växthusgasutsläpp snarare än klimatanpassning av samhällen. Med det som bakgrund fokuserar studien på att undersöka förutsättningar för användning av gröna obligationer som finansieringsform för klimatanpassning i Sverige. Vidare kommer studien utifrån ett kommun- och investerarperspektiv att undersöka erfarenheter, för- och nackdelar med gröna obligationer jämfört med andra finansieringsformer samt framtidens finansieringsverktyg för klimatanpassning. Genom kvalitativa semistrukturerade intervjuer har empiri samlats in från sex aktörer; Göteborg Stad, Örebro kommun, Kristianstad kommun, SEB, Kommuninvest och SMHI. En induktiv kodning av intervjuerna identifierade sex teman som presenteras under följande rubriker i resultatdelen; Komplex ansvarsfördelning och låg prioritet av klimatanpassningsprojekt, Kommunernas finansiering av klimatanpassning, För- och nackdelar med gröna obligationer, Ramverk för rapportering och effektredovisning av gröna obligationer, Möjliga finansieringsformer för klimatanpassning och Framtida användning av obligationer för klimatanpassning. Diskussionen lyfter relevanta delar från resultatet och förankrar dem i de teoretiska utgångspunkterna för att fördjupa förståelsen. Den första slutsatsen från studien visar att det inte är tillgång på extern finansiering som är anledningen till varför få klimatanpassningsåtgärder har genomförts. Det beror istället på att arbetet främst varit i uppstartsfas hos svenska kommuner och prioritering har varit på mitigerande åtgärder. Även lågt samhällsengagemang kan vara bidragande till den låga prioriteringen. Den andra slutsatsen berör utformningen av gröna obligationer; tidsramen, rapporteringen och prestandaindikatorer hade kunnat utvecklas för att öka möjligheterna att använda finansieringsformen för klimatanpassning. Den tredje slutsatsen är att klimatanpassning i svenska kommuner i nuläget finansieras främst internt, men även möjligheter till extern finansiering finns. Framtidens finansiering av klimatanpassning kommer troligtvis utgöras av både interna och externa medel. För den externa finansieringen är gröna obligationer ett troligt alternativ, men även andra obligationsformer uppkommer på marknaden, varav en är hållbarhetslänkade obligationer. / During the last decades green bonds have gained increased interest in the market for sustainable investments. Green bonds is a funding tool that is becoming more widely used around the world and it can be expected to grow further. Historically this funding tool has to a greater extent been used to fund mitigation of greenhouse gas emissions, rather than to adapt societies to climate change. Hence this study aims to investigate the conditions for using green bonds as a funding tool for climate adaptation in Sweden. Further, the study investigates how players from the municipality and investor sectors experience green bonds, pros and cons compared to other funding tools and future funding methods for climate adaptation. To fulfill the aim of this study empiri has been collected through qualitative semi structured interviews with six organizations; Municipality of Gothenburg, Municipality of Örebro, Municipality of Kristianstad, SEB, Kommuninvest and SMHI. The interviews were coded with an inductive approach and six themes were identified, which are presented below the following headlines in the result: Complex distribution of responsibility and low priority of adaptation projects, The municipalities’ funding of climate adaptation, Pros and cons of green bonds, Framework for reporting and presentation of the green bonds’ effects, Possible funding tools for climate adaptation and Future use of bonds for climate adaptation. The discussion highlights relevant parts from the result and anchors them to the theoretical framework to deepen the understanding. A first conclusion is that the reason why few climate adaptation projects have been implemented is not lack of funding but the fact that many Swedish municipalities are in a starting phase of climate adaptation projects. Other contributing factors are that mitigation measures have been prioritized more and there is a lack of involvement from citizens. Another conclusion concerns the design of green bonds; the time frame, reporting and performance indicators could be developed to increase the opportunities for using this funding tool for climate adaptation. A final conclusion is that climate adaptation in Swedish municipalities currently is funded mostly through internal capital but it is also possible to use external capital. Climate adaptation will most likely be funded through both internal and external resources in the future. Green bonds will probably be an important part of the external funding, but it is also likely that other types of bonds which are emerging on the market will be used, for example sustainability-linked bonds.

Med en växande efterfråga efter hållbarhet är förhållandet mellan environmental, social & governance (ESG) och företagsprestanda ofta föremål för forskning. Forskningen om detta ämne har dock hittills inte varit entydig. Orsakerna till detta är olika metoder som används och snäva områden som endast representerar det specifika sammanhanget. Dessutom har förhållandet mellan ESG och företagens resultat hittills mestadels genomförts med fokus på rent finansiella mått, vilket gör att marknadsvärden i viss mån fortfarande är outforskade. Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka förhållandet mellan ESG och marknadsvärde (mätt med Tobin’s Q) inom kontexten av den skandinaviska industrisektorn. Med olika perspektiv från "shareholder theory”, "stakeholder theory” och från rationella eller etiska investerare, säger studiens hypoteser att det bör finnas ett signifikant positivt samband mellan ett företags ESG betyg och dess marknadsvärde, och att det bör finnas ett signifikant negativt samband mellan ett företags ESG risk och dess marknadsvärde. Genom en kvantitativ metod har tvärsnittsdata samlats in och införlivats i en multipel regressionsmodell med flera variabler. Studiens resultat tyder på att det inte finns något signifikant samband (positivt eller negativt) mellan ESG och marknadsvärde. Studien förkastar därav nollhypoteserna och således förklaringsförmågan hos de ovan nämnda teorierna. Det konkluderas att den skandinaviska marknaden troligen består av både rationella och etiska investerare, vilket neutraliserar den effekt som ett företags ESG värde har på dess marknadsvärde. Resultatet föreslår också att företag inom den skandinaviska industrisektorn kan implementera ESG utan att det missgynnar dess marknadsvärdering. / With a growing demand for sustainability, the relationship between environmental, social & governance (ESG) and corporate performance is frequently occuring in research. However, research on this topic has as of now been inconclusive. The reasons for this are the different methodologies used and the narrow scopes that represent the specific context only. Furthermore, the relationship between ESG and corporate performance has mostly been conducted with a focus on strict financial metrics, leaving the perspective of market value to a certain degree still unexplored. This paper aims to examine the relationship between ESG and market value (measured by Tobin’s Q), in the context of the Scandinavian industrial sector. With different perspectives from Shareholder theory, Stakeholder theory and those from a rational or ethical investor, this study’s hypotheses states that there should exist a significant positive relationship between a company’s ESG score and their market value, and accordingly a significant negative relationship between a company’s ESG risk and their market value. Through a quantitative approach, cross-sectional data have been collected and incorporated in a multiple regression model with several variables. Our results suggest that no significant relationship (positive or negative) exists between ESG and market value. We therefore reject the null hypotheses and consequently the explanatory power of the above-mentioned theories as well. It is concluded that the Scandinavian market probably consists of both rational and ethical investors, neutralizing the effect a company’s ESG value has on its market value. The results further indicate that companies within the Scandinavian industrial sector might be able to incorporate ESG to improve their corporate behavior, with no negative market value effects.

ESG investing has been a hot topic during several years and there have been numerousstudies examining the relationship between sustainable assets and non-sustainable assetsincluding green bonds, social bonds, environmental bonds, ESG-bonds and ESG indices;conventional bonds, S&P 500, common stocks and non-ESG indices. During negative marketshocks several ESG stocks and indices have been shown to outperform common stocks andindices. Green bonds demonstrated an asymmetric relationship to other assets providinginvestors with an opportunity for diversification. We’ve looked at the relationship andperformance of sustainable assets and non-sustainable assets by using Markowitz portfoliometrics and Engle Rs’ DCC-GARCH. Our findings propose green bonds and treasuries toprovide hedging and diversification opportunities during crises but demonstrate sustainablefixed income assets to underperform non-sustainable fixed income assets during the COVID19 market shock as opposed to previous studies.

The purpose of this study is to investigate how the introduction of the EU Taxonomy for sustainable activities will affect investors capital allocation towards green investments, and how it will impact the financial market. This master thesis has been conducted with a qualitative approach and semi-structured interviews. The interviews involved 14 financial professionals within the Nordic area, as well as one economic analyst from the European Commission in Brussels, Belgium. In addition, it includes a thorough literature study and a theoretic framework involving the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). Based upon the findings, this research shows that the EU taxonomy will be an adequate tool in order to facilitate the process of shifting capital towards sustainable investments. However, the allocation of capital may be delayed at first, but is expected to achieve a capital reallocation towards green investments in the long term. Challenges identified include the balance between risk adjusted profits and making a transition to attract capital. Both investors and listed companies will face the challenge of choosing the best strategy to attract more capital than their peers. All investors participating in this research expect to see increasing stock prices of listed taxonomy aligned companies in the near future. This short-term increase in stock prices could be derived from the demand of early movers of the green investments. Investors are expected to invest in taxonomy aligned. The research defines that financial regulations are regarded as complex information and therefore not regarded as information available to all investors, the Efficient Market Hypothesis could not be confirmed for complex information. Future research could explore how other market participants outside of the EU could be affected by the implementation of the EU Taxonomy. For future research it could also be interesting and of great use to conduct research based on the variables, risk and profit in combination with a reallocation of capital towards green investments. / Syftet med denna studie är att undersöka hur införandet av EU: s taxonomi för hållbar verksamhet kommer att påverka investerarnas kapitalallokering till gröna investeringar och hur det kommer att påverka den finansiella marknaden. Detta examensarbete har genomförts med en kvalitativ metod och semistrukturerade intervjuer. Intervjuerna involverade 14 yrkesverksamma inom den nordiska finansbranschen samt en ekonomisk analytiker från Europeiska kommissionen i Bryssel, Belgien. Dessutom innehåller den en grundlig litteraturstudie och ett teoretiskt ramverk som involverar the Efficient Market Hypothesis (EMH). Baserat på resultaten visar denna forskning att EU: s taxonomi kommer att vara ett adekvat verktyg för att främja processen av att flytta kapital mot hållbara investeringar. Tilldelningen av kapital kan dock försenas först, men förväntas uppnå en kapitalallokering mot gröna investeringar på lång sikt. Bland de identifierade utmaningarna ingår balansen mellan riskjusterade vinster och en övergång för att attrahera kapital. Både investerare och börsnoterade företag kommer att stå inför utmaningen att välja den bästa strategin för att locka mer kapital än sina konkurrenter. Alla investerare som deltar i denna forskning förväntar sig att stigande aktiekurser för börsnoterade taxonomirelaterade företag kommer inom en snar framtid. Denna kortsiktiga ökning av aktiekurserna kan härledas från efterfrågan från de tidiga flyttarna av de gröna investeringarna. Investerare förväntas investera i taxonomi. Forskningen definierar att finansiella regler betraktas som komplex information och därför inte betraktas som information tillgänglig för alla investerare. Den effektiva marknadshypotesen kunde inte bekräftas för komplex information. Framtida forskning kan undersöka hur andra marknadsaktörer utanför EU kan påverkas av genomförandet av EU: s taxonomi. För framtida forskning kan det också vara intressant och till stor nytta att bedriva forskning baserad på variabler, risk och vinst i kombination med en omfördelning av kapital till gröna investeringar.

Modern society is faced with the complex and intractable challenge of global warming, along with other environmental issues that could potentially alter our way of life if not managed properly. Is it possible that financial markets and equity investors could have a huge part to play in the transformation towards a greener and more sustainable world? Previous studies about investment strategies regarding sustainability have for the most part been centered around possibly less objective ESG-scores or around carbon and GHG-emissions only, with little or no consideration for water usage and waste management. This thesis aims to amend to the previous work on carbon reducing strategies and ESG-investing with the addition of water usage and waste management, especically using raw data of these measures instead of ESG-ratings. Index replicating portfolios have become more and more popular as it proves harder and harder to beat the index, offering good returns along with cheap and uncomplicated portfolio construction and management. In a trending market, the fear of missing out and the demand for market return can make an index replicating strategy a way for investors to have market exposure but still remain diversied and without confusion about which horses to bet on. This thesis studies the relationship between tracking-error and the increase of sustainability in a portfolio through reduction of the intensity of carbon emissions, water usages and poor waste management. To be able to make a fair comparison, these measures are normalized by dividing each measure by the reported annual revenue. These three obtained intensities are then implemented individually, as well as all together into index replicating portfolios in order to study the effect from decreasing them. First and foremost we study the effect on the tracking-error, but also the effects on returns and volatility. We also study the effect on liquidity and turnover in the portfolios to show that it is possible to implement extensive sustainability increasing methods into an index replication equity portfolio. We follow the UCITS-directory to avoid overweightin specic companies and only allow the portfolios to overweight a sector with maximum 2%, in order to avoid an unwanted exposure to sectors with naturally lower intensities. The portfolios are obtained by using a multi-factor risk model to predict the expected statistical behaviour in relation to the chosen factors. Followed by applying Markowitz Modern Portfolio Theory through a convex optimization problem with the objective function to minimize tracking-error. All displayed portfolios had stable and convex optimization and were compliant with the UCITS-directory. We limited our study to only North American stocks and chose the index "MCSI NA" to replicate. Only stocks that were a part of the index were allowed to invest in and we did not allow negative weights for any stocks. The portfolios were constructed and backtested for the period 2014-12-01 until 2019-03-01 with rebalancing quarterly at the same points in time that the index is rebalanced by MCSI. We found that it was possible to implement extensive sustainability considerations into the portfolios and still keep a high correlation with the index whilst keeping low tracking-errors. We believe that most index replicating investors should be able to implement reductions of above mentioned intensities of about 40-60% without compromising tracking-errors,returns and volatility too much. We found evidence that during this time and in this market our low-intensities portfolios would have overperformed the index. We also found that returns increased and volatility decreased as we increased the reduction of each individual measure and all three collectively. Reducing carbon intensity seemed to drive positive returns and lower volatility the most, but we also observed apositive effect from reduction of all intensities. Our belief before conducting this study was that sustainability should have a negative effect on returns due to the limitation of the feasible area of investing. This motivated us to build portfolios with intent to makeup for these lesser returns and hopefully "beat the index". This failed in almost all cases and the only way we were able to beat the index were through implementing sustainability in our portfolios.

Sustainability is a broad concept where sustainability factors have become more fundamental during the recent years. However, the importance of these factors has not been as central when explaining stock returns. Thus, we perform this study with the aim to investigate the relationship between sustainability factors and financial performance. Specifically, by investigating the relationship between environmental, social and governance (ESG) variables and risk premiums. This is evaluated during the period 2014 to 2021, based on stocks included in the MSCI ACWI index. The explanatory variables are used as different levels of sustainability factors, where they reach from ESG scores at the top, down to raw data points at the bottom. To investigate this relation, Panel regression is used, which is a common method when analyzing data including both time series and cross-sectional data. Further, we evaluate if the dependencies vary across sectors, different market performance periods, time periods, and geographical regions. The results obtained show a clear general trend, that sustainability factors have had a positive impact on financial performance. However, this result diverges depending on sectors, time periods, regions, and market performance. Further, we see an increasingly positive effect from sustainability factors over time, and differences arise when analyzing individual sectors. To sum up, from results, we can not conclude that highly ranked companies, in the shape of ESG scores, have yielded higher risk premiums over the observed period.  Based on that the relation has diverged during different time periods, which implies that further outcomes become more unreliable. The relationship between sustainability factors and financial performance is not the same in all sectors, which opposes the general result. We recommend that investors should be aware when investing sustainably because sectors and time periods have a great impact on potential outcomes. / Hållbarhet är ett väldigt brett begrepp, där flertalet hållbarhetsfaktorer under senaste åren har fått en större betydelse inom finans. Hållbarhetsfaktorer är dock oftast inte lika centralt när det kommer till att förklara avkastning. Därför genomförs denna studie för att undersöka relationen mellan hållbarhetfaktorer och finansiell prestationsförmåga, mer specifikt genom att undersöka sambandet mellan ESG variabler och riskpremier, vilket undersöks under perioden 2014 till 2021 på företag som är inkluderade i MSCI ACWI index. Som förklarande variabler används olika nivåer av hållbarhetsfaktorer, där skalan sträcker sig från sammanvägda poäng högst upp till rådatapunkter längst ner. För att undersöka denna relation används Panel regression, vilket är vanligt förekommande i studier som undersöker data som innehåller både tidsserier samt tvärsektioner, vilket även kallas för Panel data. Vidare undersöker även studien ifall detta samband varierar beroende på sektorer, geografiska regioner, tidsperioder och olika marknadsfaser. De erhållna resultaten visar en tydlig generell linje, att hållbarhetsfaktorer har haft en positiv påverkan på finansiell prestanda. Dock uppstår divergenser beroende på vilken tidsperiod, region och marknadsprestanda och sektor som analyseras. Resultatet påvisar att den positiva effekten från hållbarhetsfaktorer ökar över tiden, samt att den uppstår tydliga skillnader beroende på vilken sektor som analyseras. Slutligen, från resultatet, kan vi inte dra slutsatsen att högt rankade företag, i form av ESG scores, har generellt generat högre riskpremier under den observerade tidsperioden. Detta baserat på att hållbarhetsfaktorers påverkan har divergerat över den observerade tidsperioden, vilket betyder att framtida utfall blir mer oberäkneliga. Samtidigt är relationen mellan hållbarhetsfaktorer och finansiell prestanda inte den samma över sektorer, vilket går emot det generella resultatet. Vi rekommenderar därför investerare att vara varsamma vid investeringar baserade på hållbarhetsfaktorer, där sektorer och tidsperioder har centrala roller i potentiella utfall.

The following study presents the results from one focus group discussion and eight individual interviews investigating how sustainable investments impact climate change. The demand for sustainable investments is currently growing, but there is a lack of research conducted within the area. We therefore aim to fill an academic knowledge gap surrounding the understanding of sustainable investments. To achieve this, we to identified the concepts defining sustainable investment practices and simultaneously identified the predominant factors for investors when making them. To assess the practice characteristics, we compared it with traditional investments. The informants were investors and professionals with occupations connected to sustainable investments. Furthermore, the study has the theoretical frameworks of the ecological modernization theory and value-belief-norm theory for assessing and analyzing study results. The results and conclusion of the study were that there is no universal definition of sustainable investments, causing distrust and concerns regarding the practice. Therefore, definitive conclusion about what sustainable investments can achieve for the climate is challenging to assess. Informants' willingness to invest in sustainable investments was connected to their values and knowledge. Results show a knowledge gap between individual's understanding of investments climate impact due to lack of accessible information for some investors. Finally, regulations concerning sustainable investments came into force during the time of the study. / I uppsatsen presenterar vi resultaten från en fokusgrupp och åtta intervjuer där vi studerat hur hållbara investeringar påverkar klimatförändringarna. Efterfrågan på hållbara investeringar växer men för närvarande saknas det forskning inom området. Vi strävar därför efter att fylla ett akademiskt kunskapshål kring förståelsen om hållbara investeringar. För att uppnå det ville vi identifiera begreppen som definierar “hållbara investeringar” och hitta de avgörande faktorerna för investerare när de väljer att investera hållbart. För att bedöma hållbara investeringar jämförde vi dess egenskaper med traditionella investeringar. Informanterna var investerare och yrkesverksamma med yrken kopplade till hållbara investeringar, vidare bygger studien på teorierna om ekologisk modernisering och value-belief-norm theory. Resultaten och slutsatsen från studien visar att det inte finns någon universell definition av en hållbar investering, något som orsakar misstro och oro angående praxis. Det är därför svårt att dra en absolut slutsats om vad hållbara investeringar kan uppnå för klimatet. Informanternas vilja att investera i hållbara investeringar baserades på deras värderingar och kunskap. Det fanns även kunskapsluckor mellan individerna angående investeringarnas påverkan på klimatet på grund av brist på tillgänglig information för vissa investerare. Slutligen trädde regler om hållbara investeringar i kraft under studietiden.