Photo: Gerardo Pesantez / World Bank
Photo: R. Kautsky/Azote
Financial systems could play a transformative role in steering global development towards sustainability. But whether and how this positive impact materializes will depend on a number of things.
For example, to what degree investors integrate environmental impact and dependency information into their assessments and allow this to guide investment decisions. Or, how able corporate sustainability accounting systems are to generate the information needed for companies and investors to make robust assessments of nature-related financial risks and opportunities.
Over the past years, researchers at Stockholm Resilience Centre have continued to shed light on the urgent need for redirecting capital flows towards sustainable and nature-positive investments, but our work has also shown how science can inform and guide the prioritization of what information to request from companies under sustainability reporting and thereby improve the ability to assess whether investments are in fact sustainable or if nature-related risks are continuing to rise. The need for such environmentally (not immediately fiancially) material information is a fundamental but often overlooked piece of the sustainable investment puzzle.
SRC promotes a systems perspective of the financial system because it helps identify leverage points for change that could have systemic effect. Financial actors are linked through their investments and their actions and practices can in fact both support and block each other’s sustainability goals. By mapping connections between financial actors and their practices, systems thinking has clarified where small changes in financial practices can trigger bigger shifts across the system, making it easier to spot the best points for intervention or action and the potential for virtuous cycles for sustainability.
Centre research on sustainable finance provides tangible insights on how the financial sector and corporations can understand their impact and dependence on planetary health, how these impacts can translate into risks, but also how changed data collection practices, engagements and impact assessments can help direct investments and activities towards restoring nature and building resilience.
In 2024, key research outcomes were presented in two reports: “Doing business within planetary boundaries” and “Redirecting flows - navigating the future of the Amazon”.
In 2025 we participated in the policy debate by articulating the need to incorporate a scientific perspective in the development of corporate sustainability standards.
We also launched a new tool to support asset owners and managers in their work to engage with companies for improved biodiversity outcomes.
By analyzing nearly 7,000 European equity funds we also showed that “green” labels (Article 8 and 9 funds) rarely translate into different portfolio choices, highlighting a gap between sustainable finance policy and real‑world investment practice.
Finance projects
Key publications about Finance
Wassénius, E., Crona, B. & Quahe, S. 2024. Essential environmental impact variables: A means for transparent corporate sustainability reporting aligned with planetary boundaries. One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2024.01.014
Pinto da Silva, A., Knecht, N., Thomas, R., Lotcheris, R., Crona, B. & Rocha, J.C. 2025. Challenges and opportunities when assessing exposure of financial investments to ecosystem regime shifts. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cosust.2025.101526
Crona, B., Peterson, G., Meacham, M., Parlato, G., Lade, S.J., Rocha, J. C. & Galaz, V. 2025. A systems approach to sustainable finance: Actors, influence mechanisms, and potentially virtuous cycles of sustainability. iScience. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2025.112785
Galaz, V., Rocha, J.C., Sánchez-García, P.A., Dauriach, A., Roukny, T. & Søgaard Jørgensen, P. 2023. Financial influence on global risks of zoonotic emerging and re-emerging diseases: an integrative analysis. The Lancet Planetary Health. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(23)00232-2
Remme, R.P., Meacham, M., Pellowe, K.E., Andersson, E., et. al. 2024. Aligning nature-based solutions with ecosystem services in the urban century. Ecosystem Services. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2024.101610
Ahlström, H., Williams, A., Wassénius, E. & Downing, A.S. 2024. Deepening the Conversation on Systemic Sustainability Risks: A Social-Ecological Systems Approach. Journal of Business Ethics. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10551-024-05860-3
Preiser, R., Hichert, T., Biggs, R., van Velden, J., et. al. 2024. Transformative foresight for diverse futures: the Seeds of Good Anthropocenes initiative. Development Policy Review. https://doi.org/10.1111/dpr.12791
Sánchez-García, P.A., Galaz, V., Rocha, J.C. & Barbour, F. 2025. Climate change, nature degradation, and financial stability: a review of domino-effects between finance, climate, and the biosphere. Ecology and Society. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-16130-300236
Wassénius, E. & Crona. B. 2022. Adapting risk assessments for a complex future. One Earth. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2021.12.004
Kuiper, J., Carpenter-Urquhart, L.R., Berbés-Blázquez, M., Oteros-Rozas, E., et. al. 2024. Biosphere Futures: a database of social-ecological scenarios. Ecology and Society 29(1):19. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-14795-290119
