Essays on Sustainable Finance

Abstract

This dissertation examines sustainable finance along a continuum from regulatory implementa-tion to measurable climate impact. As the European Union's regulatory architecture for sustain-able finance continues to evolve, fundamental questions about how disclosure frameworks op-erate in practice and whether they deliver meaningful environmental outcomes remain insuffi-ciently addressed. The first part comprises studies examining the regulatory requirements and practical challenges of EU Taxonomy disclosure in banks. Drawing on data from German banks across different business models and portfolio structures, the studies document how data limitations, regulatory ambiguity, strategic incentives, and structural constraints lead to divergent interpretive decisions that substantially limit the comparability and management relevance of disclosed metrics. Re-cent regulatory developments under the Omnibus simplification package are further shown to address some but not all of the structural limitations identified. The second part provides empirical evidence on the Green Asset Ratio as the central sustaina-bility indicator for banks, examining a heterogeneous sample covering both large universal banks and small regional savings and cooperative banks. The findings reveal that reported val-ues are generally very low and that disclosed metrics do not systematically reflect stakeholder information needs, raising important questions about the effectiveness of the current framework as a disclosure-based steering mechanism. The third part introduces the Abatement Impact Factor, a metric that quantifies lifecycle green-house gas abatement per euro invested in residential building renovations. Applied to a simulat-ed sample of multi-residential buildings within the German housing stock, the analysis reveals pronounced heterogeneity in abatement efficiency across technologies and building characteris-tics, highlighting the importance of cost-efficient prioritisation in renovation investment decisions. Taken together, the three parts offer grounded analytical and empirical insights that connect regulatory intent with real-world climate impact, contributing to both academic inquiry and evi-dence-based policy design.