Sustainable Banking introduces business leaders and students to the many ways in which financial institutions can manage their environmental and social impact and meet the needs of the current generation without compromising the needs of future generations. Olaf Weber and Blair Feltmate go beyond the business case for sustainability: how managing environmental, social, and governance risk can contribute to a bank’s bottom line – to make the sustainability case for banking: how ban...

This book addresses the highly differentiated spatial, social, cultural and demographic structure(s) of Germany, with a particular focus on the reciprocal relations between different levels of spatial development.The historical development of Germany serves as a background in order to provide context for the development of spatially relevant ideas and ideals (whether in relation to politics, landscape, or culture). In this regard, questions of divergence and convergence become high...

This handbook presents different perspectives on landscapes and illuminates various landscape understandings from different disciplines. Written by experts in the field, it provides an overview of landscape research’s current status and sheds light on the future of the field. The handbook examines theoretical perspectives of landscape research, landscape in the context of disciplinary references, meta-perspective approaches to landscape, methods of landscape research and practice, and fiel...

Green finance is heralded in theory and practice as the new panacea – the ideal way to support the green transition of businesses into more sustainable, environmentally responsible forms, by means of incentivized financial investments. This handbook brings together a variety of expert scholars with industry specialists to offer the most authoritative overview of green finance to date, presenting the current situation in the field. It focuses on green finance in a comprehensive way, discuss...

Europe and the world in all their diversity and complexity have always been – and continue to be – in a state of change. Recent (geo)political, environmental, social, and economic developments demonstrate a world in constant flux. These ever-changing framework conditions require corresponding transformations in many different structures. This anthology takes these observations as a starting point to illuminate theoretical perspectives, methodological approaches, and empirical insights rela...

Social Banking describes a way of value-driven banking that has a positive social and ecological impact at its heart, as well as its own economic sustainability. Although it has a long and successful history, it has arguably never been more topical than it is now in the aftermath of the latest financial crisis. Most Social Banks came out of this crisis not only unscathed but much stronger and bigger than they were before. And contrary to their conventional peers, none of the Social Banks h...

This book tells the story of how the convergence between corporate sustainability and sustainable investing is now becoming a major force driving systemic market changes. The idea and practice of corporate sustainability is no longer a niche movement. Investors are increasingly paying attention to sustainability factors in their analysis and decision-making, thus reinforcing market transformation.In this book, high-level practitioners and academic thought leaders, including contrib...

It's hard to imagine an issue or image more riveting than Black Germans during the Third Reich. Yet accounts of their lives are virtually nonexistent, despite the fact that they lived through a regime dedicated to racial purity.Tina Campt's Other Germans tells the story of this largely forgotten group of individuals, with important distinctions from other accounts. Most strikingly, Campt centers her arguments on race, rather than anti-semitism. She also provides oral history as bac...

An in-depth look at the trouble with shareholder value thinking and at better options for models of corporate purpose.Executives, investors, and the business press routinely chant the mantra that corporations are required to "maximize shareholder value." In this pathbreaking book, renowned corporate expert Lynn Stout debunks the myth that corporate law mandates shareholder primacy. Stout shows how shareholder value thinking endangers not only investors but the rest ...

The behavior of managers-such as the rewards they obtain for poor performance, the role of boards of directors in monitoring managers, and the regulatory framework covering the corporate governance mechanisms that are put in place to ensure managers' accountability to shareholder and other stakeholders-has been the subject of extensive media and policy scrutiny in light of the financial crisis of the early 2000s. However, corporate governance covers a much broader set of issues, which requ...

Should business and finance play larger roles in resolving the great social and environmental challenges of our time? Proponents of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing say yes. They argue that ESG financial strategies can help reverse runaway carbon emissions and fix income and gender inequalities, among other ills. ESG-integrated investments already encompass more than $120 trillion in financial assets. Are they working as promised? If not, how can they be improved?...

Each year we pay billions in fees to those who run our financial system. The money comes from our bank accounts, our pensions, our borrowing, and often we aren’t told that the money has been taken. These billions may be justified if the finance industry does a good job, but as this book shows, it too often fails us. Financial institutions regularly place their business interests first, charging for advice that does nothing to improve performance, employing short-term buying strategies that...