Translating to risk: The legibility of climate change and nature in the green bond market

The growth of climate finance, a field of investment focused on funding climate change adaptation and mitigation projects, both legitimizes and transforms financial flows. Green bonds, a financial product within climate finance, redirect investments from institutional investors into low-carbon infrastructure through the global bond market. These projects include clean energy, water infrastructure, public transportation, and sustainable forest management. The green bond market expands the scope of finance through the commoditization of the environment, as nature enters into financial markets as the added value of green bonds. In interpreting the environmental and economic value of forests, greener building methods, and public transportation, climate finance practitioners translate environmental, climate, and engineering expertise into the language of finance through the use of the term risk. However, these translations into risk require further risk management, promoting the production of green bond market devices such as standards and market indices. The ambiguity of risk supports these translations, creating a credible form of change within finance that legitimizes the development of the green bond market. This use of risk complicates its meaning and thus requires further examination beyond research already done in the social sciences on societal and individual dimensions of risk.