ESG Meets AI: Why 2026's Sustainable Finance Reset Matters
ESG and artificial intelligence used to sit in separate corners of a finance library: one shelf for sustainability frameworks, another for algorithmic trading and machine learning. Sustainability, Digital Transformation, and AI-Driven Innovation (Springer, 2026) treats them as one conversation — and 2026 is making that conversation unavoidable.
This year, regulators on both sides of the Atlantic are redrawing the rules for exactly the territory this book covers. In the EU, a revised Sustainable Finance Disclosure Regulation is moving through the legislative process, aimed at cutting compliance costs while keeping ESG disclosures meaningful — a live test of how "simplification" and "credibility" can coexist. At the same time, law firms tracking 2026's regulatory landscape are flagging AI itself as a new governance risk inside ESG reporting: the same generative tools that help asset managers process climate and supply-chain data also raise fresh questions about audit trails, bias, and accountability. Freshfields' 2026 ESG trends briefing lays out exactly this tension between disclosure reform and AI-driven risk.
That's the gap this book's 19 chapters work in. Contributors move from ESG investment performance and carbon finance bibliometrics to AI-driven portfolio optimization and the criminal-law side of crypto-assets — giving a reader one reference point for how sustainability commitments, financial technology, and algorithmic decision-making are actually colliding in practice, not just in theory.
For a library or research desk building out an Economics & Finance collection, that combination is hard to find pre-packaged elsewhere. You can browse where it sits alongside our wider Economics & Finance holdings here: Economics & Finance Catalogue →
Q&A
Where can I buy Sustainability, Digital Transformation, and AI-Driven Innovation?
Directly from CLNZ Books — the price includes secure worldwide shipping.
How current is the regulatory content in this book?
It's a 2026 Springer release, published as the EU's revised SFDR proposal and AI-in-ESG governance debates were actively unfolding — the chapters on regulation and ESG compliance reflect that same moment.
Does the book explain AI-driven portfolio optimization in practical terms?
Yes — Chapter 3 (Algorithmic Intelligence) and related chapters cover algorithmic trading, robo-advisory, and AI-supported investment decision-making.
Is this suitable for teaching a graduate course on sustainable finance and FinTech?
Yes — its 19 contributed chapters and mix of theory and empirical research make it well suited to graduate seminars and faculty research collections.
Does it cover digital assets and central bank digital currencies as well as ESG?
Yes — alongside ESG and AI chapters, the volume includes work on volatility spillovers across traditional and digital assets and on decentralized finance.