The sociology of sustainability indices

Abstract

The collapse in the financial markets caused by the subprime crisis in 2008 created a challenging and favorable atmosphere for the development of new sociological theories and approaches to studying the financial system. Although every sub-space of finance was badly affected, Socially Responsible Investing shows evidence of new solutions to the crisis. Some financial analysts now look to avoid the shrinkage faced by older investing practices by taking environmental, social and economic criteria into account at the moment of the investment. Adopting an approach based on economic sociology, this article offers the initial bases for a study about these social actors who have been forcefully working to create an interface between finance and sustainability, or in other words, a Sustainable Financial Market. The article explores this issueat international level by considering the North American, British, Southern African and Brazilian Corporate Sustainability Index Committees, which can be seen as social spaces in which the sociological characteristics of this interface become apparent. The article concludes by presenting a comparative study of these committees, which are constituted by lieu neutre (neutral ground) logic as well as by the particularities of the countries that they each represent.