Role of green finance in achieving sustainable development

In the field of energy and environment, several pressing issues are confronting both developing and developed countries, including high energy prices, greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, global warming, unachieved energy efficiency goals, and a lack of public support for renewable energy development. The financial industry is expected to be essential in tackling these enormous challenges. Establishing the required technology and legislative frameworks to handle these issues is not enough. Inadequate financial resources are a crucial hurdle to addressing these issues and guaranteeing equitable and sustainable development for everyone while maintaining within the bounds of the planet's boundaries. These solutions are not being deployed at scale in the priority regions.  

Energy transition and increasing the share of renewable energy in our energy baskets would help reduce the reliance on fossil fuels, electricity prices, and GHG emissions to achieve sustainability goals. However, renewable energy projects have more difficulties than other projects in accessing finance. The main challenges that renewable energy projects face in accessing finance are lack of long-term financing, the existence of various risks, Lower rate of return in renewable energy projects, and lack of capacity in market actors (Taghizadeh-hesary and Yoshino, 2019). Hence, If we plan to achieve a sustainable global economy, serious policy reform on financial management is required, and we need to scale up the financing of investments that provide environmental benefits, known as “Green Finance.” (Sachs et al. 2019). In the wake of COVID-19, the importance of green finance for enhancing investments in renewable energy projects to achieve climate-related goals is highlighted.

The purpose of this call is to provide comprehensive solutions covering many aspects of green finance, especially on ways to unlock private investments into green projects for the energy transition and sustainable development. This Collection seeks theoretical, empirical, case studies, and policy-oriented papers that deal with innovative and market-based solutions for unlocking private investments for the energy transition and sustainable development. Successful manuscripts will consist of papers developed based on a sound theoretical framework and significantly contribute to the literature. The Collection will collectively provide policy recommendations for designing green finance strategies for energy transition and sustainable development. The Collection aims to provide lessons to end-users and market players on access to green finance for the energy transition.

Relevant themes include, but are not limited to, the following:

• Green finance, energy transition, and sustainable development goals (SDGs)
• Investing in the energy transition in the post-COVID-19 world
• Green finance for green recovery
• Financial management and energy transition
• Financial institutions and green finance
• Role of governments in accelerating green finance and energy transition
• Carbon taxation and sustainability
• Green central banking and sustainability
• Green financing as a policy tool for financial development to promote the energy transition and sustainability
• Green finance and carbon neutrality
• Green finance and financial inclusion
• Green finance and small and medium-sized enterprises
• Green finance and technological progress
• Blockchain technology and green finance
• Artificial intelligence, machine learning, and green finance
• Green bonds and sustainable development
• Green banks and sustainability
• Role of green digital finance in accelerating the energy transition
• Green finance and energy efficiency
• Energy efficiency financing role in the energy transition
• Green financing as a new determinant of green fiscal policies for the energy transition
• Green and transition finance

This Collection supports and amplifies research related to SDG 8, SDG 9, and SDG 11.