July 9, 2019

The Surprising Connections between Climate Finance, Sacrifice and the Spirit of Capitalism

The Surprising Connections between Climate Finance, Sacrifice and the Spirit of Capitalism

In this episode, Adam and Aneil reflect on Aneil’s fieldwork in climate finance. Climate finance is an area of finance focused on mobilizing investment for climate change solutions, namely infrastructure that is sustainable. Aneil’s research is centered on the growth of the green bond market within climate finance. Green bonds are debt instruments that finance infrastructure deemed sustainable by the climate finance community, such as public transit, green building, renewable energy, and water infrastructure (Tripathy 2017).

We analyze some snippets of interviews with climate finance practitioners and reflect on why notions of sacrifice appear so prominent in how they approach finance. It is unexpected, provocative, and humanizing. 

Max Weber Spirit of Capitalism and the Protestant Ethic

Definition of Finance from Mirriam Webster Dictionary

For more on Sacrifice: 

Marcel Mauss and Hubert Spencer On Sacrifice

This Anthro Life: Making Sense of Finance: Boundaries, Institutions, and power and Caitlin Zaloom

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