Money and a Green Economy: financialised solutions to the environmental problems

Recent discourses about green finance in the financial sector together with financial innovation designed for ecological good are viewed as expansion of financialisation and therefore as counterproductive to the societal needs by some critical literature. Although the majority of such literature see financialisation of environment as a negative development because the driving motif of finance is to seek financial returns through creation of a new environmental asset class, there are also alternative views arguing that there is not enough financial investment for a green economy and that central bank monetary policy should involve buying green bonds. This chapter will introduce an alternative perspective on financialisation of nature by critically rethinking central banks’ climate risk agenda and the United Nations endorsed Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) technologies that create an environmental simulacrum in capital markets. This chapter will propose an activist research agenda inspired by the philosopher Serres’s work on nature.