Beyond the contradictions of capitalist green finance: Alternative paths to sustainability

The urgency of climate change has propelled green finance to the centre of global economic and policy debates (European Commission, 2018, 2019). Governments, financial institutions, and corporations increasingly frame private capital as a key driver and enabler of sustainability transitions, positioning financial markets as indispensable to achieving net-zero economies and addressing planetary crises. Yet, this reliance on private capital raises pressing questions about the contradictions in the financial, political, and institutional architectures that govern economic transitions and underpin green capitalism (e.g. Buttel, 2000; Christophers, 2021; Mader et al., 2020; Mol and Spaargaren, 2000; Ouma, 2024):
Can green finance represent a genuine departure from financial capitalism’s speculative, profit-driven logics, instead of being merely an adaptation preserving its core mechanisms? That is, how can sustainability be reconciled with an economic system dependent on perpetual expansion, short-term financial returns, and asset-based accumulation? (...)