Why Ecologists Should Care about Financial Markets

Financial actors such as international banks and investors play an important role in the global economy. This role is shifting due to financial innovations, increased sustainability ambitions from large financial actors, and changes in international commodity markets. These changes are creating new global connections that potentially make financial markets, actors, and instruments important aspects of global environmental change. Despite this, the way financial markets and actors affect ecosystem change in different parts of the world has seldom been elaborated in the literature. We summarize these financial trends, explore how they connect to ecosystems and ecological change in both direct and indirect ways, and elaborate on crucial research gaps.