Sustainable finance. A critical realist perspective

This article seeks to respond to certain epistemological challenges which are posed to the traditional methods of inquiry used in finance by the emergence of sustainable finance. We first underline the qualitative changes that have been induced in the finance function by the imperatives of sustainable finance. Then, through the prism of critical realism, we analyse it to reveal a contradiction, which we attribute to a misconceived social ontology in academic finance. Finally, we outline methodological avenues which might allow us to overcome these difficulties and pave the way for a more realist and pluralist approach to finance research in the 21st century.