Sustainable Finance Guide: everything you need to know in one place

As leading actors for sustainability knowledge and innovation, Globalfields and illuminem are proud to present the Sustainable Finance Guide.

Developed for public and private financial actors, and equally for curious-minded individuals, students, and future practitioners, this Guide brings together analysis, case studies, and expert perspectives to examine how sustainable finance functions in practice — and where it is still falling short.

0. The Sustainable Finance Blueprint

• 0. The Sustainable Finance Guide blueprint: enhancing a sustainability framework for people, business and nature

1. Unpacking sustainable finance: demystifying the jargon and setting the stage

• 1.1 Why the financial system is failing the planet

• 1.2 Making sense of the sustainable finance landscape

• 1.3 How sustainable finance is going mainstream, fast

2. Climate risk is financial risk: why the world can’t afford to ignore It

• 2.1 Are green taxonomies really redrawing the map of finance?

• 2.1.1 Exclusive case study: From mitigation to resilience: reframing green taxonomies for a climate-impacted world 

• 2.2 How to face the climate risks that could break the market

• 2.2.2 Exclusive case study: Climate risk is quietly re-wiring the arteries of the global economy

3. How capital is shifting in the current global climate economy 

• 3.1 Investing to cut greenhouse gases — where the money should go

• 3.2 How capital can protect people, places and supply chains

• 3.3 Financing the overlap between mitigation and adaptation

4. What businesses must know to stay credible, competitive and compliant

• 4.1 How private capital is driving the climate agenda

• 4.1.1 Exclusive comment: Why private climate finance flows where the Green Premium is already gone

• 4.2 Concessional capital is the unsung hero of green finance

• 4.2.1 Exclusive Case Study: Artisanal mining — A digital marketplace for democratising access to climate, social and mining finance

• 4.3 The sustainability frameworks that matter most

5. The future of sustainable finance: building resilient and inclusive frameworks

• 5.1 Why a just transition is everyone’s business

• 5.1.1 Exclusive take: Why law still determines whether sustainable finance works

• 5.2 How values-based finance is shaping the sustainable agenda

• 5.3 The future of sustainable finance: A concluding remark

Taken together, the chapters in this Guide are designed to build understanding progressively - from foundational concepts to forward-looking debates shaping the next phase of sustainable finance.

The ambition is not to prescribe a single pathway, but to provide readers with the analytical clarity, practical insight, and contextual awareness needed to engage with sustainable finance more effectively.

Sustainable finance will continue to evolve. This Guide is intended as a reliable companion for navigating that evolution.