Sustainable Finance (SF) has been identified as one of the biggest trends in the financial industry in the past years. By channeling capital into sustainable investments, it is hoped that finance can accelerate the transition towards a greener and more sustainable future. However, given that the discussion about SF lacks consistency and a common understanding of SF, the role of financial journalists in reporting about this trend and in enacting their role as watchdogs becomes of paramount interest. To do so, 33 semi-structured interviews with journalists who have covered SF in six countries (AT, BE, CH, DE, NL, UK) were conducted to find out about journalistic role perceptions and daily journalistic practices (such as sources, style of writing and role of the audience). Findings show that journalists mainly enact the role of a chronicler, informant and educator when writing about SF, but fail to fulfil an active watchdog role. Furthermore, the coverage of SF is predominately event-driven, directed at a financial elite, and has become highly professionalized at financial news outlets. Given the urgency of the climate crisis, journalists reported that they found themselves in a moral dilemma between enacting their professional role as a journalist on the one hand and providing a platform for unsubstantiated claims about SF (greenwashing) made by the industry, on the other hand.

在过去的几年中，可持续金融（SF）被认为是金融业的最大趋势之一。希望通过将资金用于可持续投资，希望金融能够加速向更绿色，更可持续的未来过渡。但是，考虑到关于SF的讨论缺乏一致性，并且对SF缺乏共识，因此，金融新闻工作者在报道这一趋势以及履行其作为监督者的角色方面的作用变得尤为重要。为此，对六个国家（AT，BE，CH，DE，NL，英国）的科幻记者进行了33次半结构化采访，以了解新闻工作者的角色观念和日常新闻实践（例如消息来源，风格）的写作和观众的角色）。调查结果表明，记者主要扮演编年史家的角色，关于SF的信息提供者和教育者，但未能履行积极的监督角色。此外，SF的报道主要是事件驱动的，针对金融精英，并且已经在金融新闻媒体高度专业化。鉴于气候危机的紧迫性，记者报道说，他们发现自己处于道德困境，一方面是扮演记者的职业角色，另一方面是为该行业对SF（洗绿）的未经证实的主张提供平台。手。