Decontesting an essentially contested concept: The standardization of sustainable finance

• Published in: Business strategy and the environment Vol. 34; no. 1; pp. 39 - 56
• Main Authors: Boiral, Olivier, Brotherton, Marie‐Christine, Gilbert‐Parisée, David, Talbot, David, Martinez, Isabelle
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester Wiley Periodicals Inc 01.01.2025; Wiley
• Subjects: Business administration; Corporate governance; decontestation; Disputes; ESG disclosures; essentially contested concepts; Finance; Governance; Humanities and Social Sciences; Misconduct; Regulation of financial institutions; socially responsible investment; Stakeholders; Standardization; Sustainability; Sustainable development; sustainable finance; Transparency; WBCSD, WorldBusiness Council for Sustainable Development.Received: 4 January 2024 Revised: 31 July 2024 Accepted: 3 September 2024DOI: 10.1002/bse.3972This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDeriv; TheCityUK, 2022). Between 2012 and 2021, the global sustainablefinance market is estimated to have grown a hundredfold, from $5.2billion to over $540 billion (TheCityUK, 2022), but this growth slowedin 2022 (Azevedo Rocha et al., 2022; EU, European Union; 34:39–56. wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/bse 39; ECC, essentially contested concept; ESG,environmental, social, and governance; Migliorelli, 2021),has grown very rapidly over the past decade (Akomea-Frimponget al., 2022; Hanfi Brögger &Schwartzkopff, 2023). General awareness of the urgency of certainenvironmental issues—in particular climate change—and institutionalpressure to integrate various ESG criteria into investment decisionshelp explain the growth observed between; SFDR, Sustainable FinanceDisclosure Regulation; TCFD, Task Force on Climate‐Related Financial Disclosures; FCA, Financial Conduct Authority; Kawabata, 2019). However, the way in which sustainablefinance practitioners integrate ESG issues in practical terms, and theAbbreviations: CSR, corporate social responsibility; Dimmelmeier, 2023; GHG, greenhouse gas; Kashi & Shah, 2023; Kumar et al., 2022; Akomea-Frimpong et al., 2022; ESMA, European Securities and Markets Authority; SRI, socially responsible investment; UNGC, United Nations Global Compact; FSAB, Financial Sector AmendmentBill; GRI, Global Reporting Initiative; decontestation, ESG disclosures, essentially contested concepts, socially responsibleinvestment, standardization, sustainable finance1 | I N T RO DU CT I O NThe inclusion of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) consid-erations in financial decision; Cunhaet al., 2021
• ISSN: 0964-4733; 1099-0836
• DOI: 10.1002/bse.3972

The aim of this article is to investigate how the standardization process and the public consultations carried out in the development of new sustainable finance standards and laws tend to shape the decontestation of practices in this field. The analysis of 255 comment letters submitted by various stakeholders in the context of these public consultations shows the dual role of standardization as a mechanism for both the decontestation and the (re)contestation of sustainable finance. This article makes important contributions to the emerging literature on the governance of sustainable finance through initiatives that are meant to improve the transparency of disclosures in this field and prevent investor misconduct. In light of Gallie's theory of essentially contested concepts, this article also contributes to the literature on the challenges of developing sustainability standards and the implications of adopting practices centered on concepts whose meanings and applications are the subject of endless disputes.