Open AccessCapitalizing on Green Debt
Author(s) -
Tomaso Ferrando,
Gabriela de Oliveira Junqueira,
Marcela Vecchione-Gonçalves,
Iagê Z. Miola,
Flávio Marques Prol,
Héctor Herrera
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of world-systems research
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.219
H-Index - 2
ISSN - 1076-156X
DOI - 10.5195/jwsr.2021.1062
Subject(s) - bond , leverage (statistics) , debt , natural capital , sustainability , green growth , work (physics) , business , capital (architecture) , private capital , finance , sustainable development , economics , economy , ecology , financial system , geography , engineering , microeconomics , archaeology , ecosystem services , machine learning , ecosystem , production (economics) , computer science , biology , mechanical engineering
Green bonds represent an increasingly popular way to match “environmental sustainability,” growth, and the aspirations of global financial capital. In this article, we leverage a world-ecology approach to unpack and make sense of green bonds as public/private constructions that shape and subordinate the complex ecologies of territories to the needs of finance and reproduce the global patterns of uneven development and capitalist accumulation. Through the study of recent green bond issuances realized by private companies active in the forestry sector in Brazil, we discuss how green bonds as a “new” form of “green” debt put nature at work and transform the territories and natural elements in the global south into “temporal and spatial fixes” for the needs of global financial capital.