Strengthen finance in sustainability transitions research
Bjarne Steffen, Tobias S. Schmidt
Abstract
Given the importance of financial capital for major socio-technical transitions, a better understanding of the financial system's role in transitions is overdue. Established transition frameworks appear well-suited to that end, but more research is needed to exploit their potential, particularly in the middle-range between specific case studies of individual financing challenges and broad analyses of the financial system as a whole. Enhancing the representation of finance can also bridge sustainability transition research with the fast-growing scholarship on sustainable finance, showing pathways how to overcome hurdles that the financial system poses for socio-technical transitions, and to use the acceleration potential of re-directing financial capital.