Main Factors That Explain the Slowdown of Sustainable Investing in Iberia, a Practitioner Approach

This DBA study investigates which factors explain the apparent slowdown of the sustainable investment market in Spain, Portugal and Andorra, including misalignments between investors, borrowers and regulators and the effects of recent EU and national regulation. Drawing on stakeholder, agency, legitimacy, institutional and signalling theories, it adopts a mixed-methods design combining time-series analysis of ESG fund flows and issuance with Qualitative Comparative Analysis of practitioner interviews and regulatory documents. Preliminary insights from the literature point to interacting regulatory, market microstructure and investor behaviour factors.