Rethinking Fiduciary Duty: How Do Financiers Consolidate Sustainable Finance?

This ethnographic project investigates the worldbuilding practices of sustainable finance professionals in Germany and the United States vis-à-vis their legal and occupational constraints. Sustainable finance has consolidated as an innovative financial framework over the past decade, and it promises to solve environmental and social problems by selectively allocating financial capital. However, sustainable finance professionals face some serious, contextually determined limitations, like the fiduciary duty. In looking at the divergent narratives employed by sustainable financiers in these two settings, I aim to understand how they legitimize their quest to build a sustainable world while dealing with the structural obstacles.