The Impact of Advice in Sustainable Finance
摘要
Financial institutions have a significant responsibility to contribute to achieving sustainability goals and thereby foster a sustainable economy. The focus primarily lies on the role of banks, insurers, and asset managers. This chapter emphasizes the role of financial advisors and the potential impact of sustainable financial advice. The focus is on advising SMEs, as they constitute the largest part of the business sector and play a crucial part in reaching sustainable development objectives. SMEs experience difficulties in finding funding and insurance for their sustainability activities. They are confronted with sustainability legislation like the CSRD and lack knowledge about the financial consequences of sustainable entrepreneurship. Many SMEs rely on financial advisors like accountants, insurance agents, tax consultants, and financial planners to deal with their financial issues. These financial advisors can potentially help and stimulate SMEs in becoming more sustainable as there are millions of them available. But to provide sustainable advice, there are various challenges and requirements that financial advisors must address to truly make an impact. Intrinsic motivation, basic knowledge, communication skills, critical and integrated thinking to name a few, have to be developed. Trust and remuneration are conditions to facilitate financial advisors to become sustainable financial advisors. This chapter supplements the literature on sustainable finance by specifically discussing the role of financial advisors in relation to advising SMEs.