Transition finance and the three sustainable finance revolutions

In the first of a two-part series in Environmental Finance, Hervé Duteil, BNP Paribas' Chief Sustainability Officer for the Americas, writes about the benefit for society of extending financial and extra-financial advantages traditionally offered for 'green' use of proceeds to 'brown' sectors. These sectors have a key role to play in keeping global warming at less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels, and in creating a climate-neutral, circular and resource-efficient economy.

What is 'transition' finance – and why is it becoming so important? How can sectors whose growth largely depends on environmentally harmful forms of activity be included under the 'sustainable' umbrella? And how does this fit in with the three revolutions that sustainable finance has been undergoing?