Green finance as a driver for ecological transition

This paper investigates the model of green bonds as a legal tool designed to offer to private actors on financial markets legal and economic incentives to pursue the protection of environment as a socially desirable goal. The risk of greenwashing that green finance typically entails has prompted different regulatory approaches throughout the world. Whilst the US system still mainly relies on private governance tools, the European Union has recently enacted a more effective regulation based on a harmonized taxonomy of sustainable investments and on detailed duties of disclosure upon participants to financial markets. The comparative analysis of those regulatory approaches offers the opportunity to assess whether and to what extent private law tools succeed in aligning private benefits with social benefits to achieve sustainable development goals.