Sustainable Finance: Research and Policy Activities

Climate change is one of the megatrends that society is confronted with. In 2019, the European Union (EU) declared in the European Green Deal to transition to a sustainable economy until 2050, bringing up new challenges for the financial system.
For financial markets, the consequences of climate change create new risks as well as a huge financing need to bear the costs of the transition toward a net-zero economy. At the same time, private investors’ interest in green and sustainable finance is rising. To make informed decisions from an economic and ecological perspective, it is important that information on environmental, social, and governance criteria (ESG) is available in a transparent and harmonized manner.
At SAFE, research looks into the impact on households, firms, and financial intermediaries and addresses issues like heterogenous ESG standards, regulatory loopholes, and greenwashing.
SAFE is part of the Frankfurt Panel on Sustainability Research and co-organized the First Sustainability Standards Watchers Conference in July 2022. Find out more about the conference.
Our researchers Loriana Pelizzon and Max Riedel presented their project “Green Auto Securitisation” at the kick-off-event for the research project “Sustainable Finance and Climate Protection”, supported by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research. Their project aims to develop a framework for a green financing mechanism to encourage the automotive industry, stakeholders, and consumers to support the financing of low-emission vehicles through bank loans.
The cooperative project “ClimLabels” by the Universities Bochum and Münster, the think tank Climate & Company, and SAFE was also featured at the conference. This project aims to improve the availability of climate-related information regarding investment decisions and is divided into four sub-projects, one being coordinated by Christine Laudenbach. More information on the projects here.
Highlight

On 29 November, an alliance of scientific and research organizations organized the conference Business needs Nature - Towards a nature-positive Economy prior to the UN CBD COP 15 in Montréal.
Publications
Author/s | Title | Program Area | Type | Published | Keywords |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
Jan Pieter Krahnen | Welche Rolle spielt die Finanzwirtschaft im Angesicht des Klimawandels? Policy Letter No. 101 | Financial Markets | Policy Paper | 2023 | Grüne Transformation, Finanzsystem, Regulierung |
Tobias Berg, Elena Carletti, Stijn Claessens, Jan Pieter Krahnen, Irene Monasterolo, Marco Pagano | Climate regulation and financial risk: The challenge of policy uncertainty Policy Letter No. 100 | Financial Markets | Policy Paper | 2023 | Climate Change, Financial Regulation and Banking |
Alperen Afşin Gözlügöl | The Clash of ‘E’ and ‘S’ of ESG: Just Transition on the Path to Net Zero and the Implications for Sustainable Corporate Governance and Finance Journal of World Energy Law & Business | Law and Finance | Published Paper | 2022 | climate change, sustainability, ESG, employees, workforce, net zero transition, corporate governance, institutional investors, green finance |
Alperen Afşin Gözlügöl, Wolf-Georg Ringe | Private Companies: The Missing Link on The Path to Net Zero SAFE Working Paper No. 342 | Law and Finance | SAFE Working Paper | 2022 | private companies, net zero transition, sustainability disclosures, brown-spinning, climate change, private equity |
Kevin Bauer, Oliver Hinz, Johanna Jagow, Cristina Mihale-Wilson, Maximilian Speicher, Moritz von Zahn | The Smart Green Nudge: Reducing Product Returns through Enriched Digital Footprints & Causal Machine Learning SAFE Working Paper No. 363 | Financial Intermediation, Experiment Center | SAFE Working Paper | 2022 | |
Roman Inderst, Stefan Thomas | Nachhaltigkeit und Wettbewerb: Zu einer Reform des Wettbewerbsrechts für die Erreichung von Nachhaltigkeitszielen Policy Letter No. 94 | Law and Finance | Policy Paper | 2022 | Nachhaltigkeit, ESG, Wettbewerbsrecht |
Monica Billio, Michele Costola, Iva Hristova, Carmelo Latino, Loriana Pelizzon | Sustainable Finance: A journey toward ESG and climate risk SAFE Working Paper No. 349 | Financial Markets | SAFE Working Paper | 2022 | Environmental, social, and governance factors (ESG); credit risk; debt cost; equity cost; sovereign bonds; portfolio management |
Jana Eisenkopf, Steffen Juranek, Uwe Walz | Responsible Investment and Stock Market Shocks: Short-Term Insurance and Persistent Outperformance Post-Crisis? SAFE Working Paper No. 329 | Financial Intermediation | SAFE Working Paper | 2021 | Responsible investment, ESG, stock market crisis, persistence |
Alperen Afşin Gözlügöl | The Clash of ‘E’ and ‘S’ of ESG: Just Transition on the Path to Net Zero and the Implications for Sustainable Corporate Governance and Finance SAFE Working Paper No. 325 | Law and Finance | SAFE Working Paper | 2021 | climate change, sustainability, ESG, employees, workforce, net zero transition, corporate governance, institutional investors, green finance |
Jan Pieter Krahnen, Jörg Rocholl, Marcel Thum | A primer on green finance: From wishful thinking to marginal impact White Paper No. 87 | Financial Markets | Policy Paper | 2021 | Green Finance, Climate Change, Sustainability, Taxonomy, ESG |
Sebastian Steuer, Tobias Tröger | The Role of Disclosure in Green Finance SAFE Working Paper No. 320 | Law and Finance | SAFE Working Paper | 2021 | |
Loriana Pelizzon, Aleksandra Rzeźnik, Kathleen Weiss Hanley | Investor Reliance on ESG Ratings and Stock Price Performance SAFE Working Paper No. 310 | Financial Markets | SAFE Working Paper | 2021 | Corporate Social Responsibility, ESG Rating Agencies, Sustainable Invest- ments, Socially responsible investing, ESG, Portfolio choice |
Monica Billio, Michele Costola, Iva Hristova, Carmelo Latino, Loriana Pelizzon | Inside the ESG Ratings: (Dis)agreement and Performance SAFE Working Paper No. 284 | Financial Markets | SAFE Working Paper | 2020 |
Finance Blog
Ongoing Research Projects
Publication Count |
---|