Stranded Assets: Developments in Finance and Investment

The topic of ‘stranded assets’ created by environment-related risk factors has risen up the agenda dramatically, influencing many pressing topics in relation to global environmental change. For example: how best to manage the exposure of investments to environment-related risks so that financial institutions can avoid stranded assets; the financial stability implications of stranded assets and what this means for macroprudential regulation, microprudential regulation, and financial conduct; reducing the negative consequences of stranded assets by finding ways to address unemployment, lost profits, and reduced tax income; internalising the risk of stranded assets in corporate strategy and decision-making, particularly in carbon intensive sectors susceptible to the effects of societal action on climate change; underpinning arguments by civil society campaigns attempting to secure rapid decarbonisation to reduce the scale of anthropogenic climate change; and designing decarbonisation plans developed by governments, as well as companies and investors.

Taken as a whole, this book provides some of the latest thinking on how stranded assets are relevant to investor strategy and decision-making, as well as those seeking to understand and influence financial institutions. This book was originally published as a special issue of the Journal of Sustainable Finance and Investment.