Digital Commons Network^™

Keeping Ethical Investment Ethical: Regulatory Issues For Investing For Sustainability, Benjamin J. Richardson

Articles & Book Chapters

Regulation must target the financial sector, which often funds and profits from environmentally unsustainable development. In an era of global financial markets, the financial sector has a crucial impact on the state of the environment. The long-standing movement for ethically and socially responsible investment (SRI) has recently begun to advocate environmental standards for financiers. While this movement is gaining more adherents, it has increasingly justified responsible financing as a path to be prosperous, rather than virtuous. This trend partly owes to how financial institutions view their legal responsibilities. The business case motivations that now predominantly drive SRI are not sufficient …