The Politics of the Financialization of Sustainability

Abstract

Financialization generally denotes the growing importance of the financial market for more and more sectors of societal life. In this article, I investigate how financialization has spread outside the financial sector and which political processes allowed for that to happen. Empirically, I focus on the financialization of sustainability in the case of sustainability accounting. Sustainability accounting seeks to integrate non-financial aspects, such as social, environmental or ethical topics, into financial accounting assessments, such as corporate annual reports. I explore the politics of the financialization of sustainability and how it is being increasingly constructed through quantitative indicators in order to enable financial accounting. I reconstruct which political processes allowed for this financialization, which political actors are involved and — as a result — how sustainability becomes financialized.