Exploring how green finance has become a key strategy for the financial industry in the wake of the 2007-08 financial crisis, this timely book critically assesses the current dominant forms of neoliberal green finance. Understanding Green Finance delivers a pioneering analysis of the topic, covering the essential tenets of green finance with an emphasis on critical approaches to mainstream views and presenting alternatives insights and perspectives. This prescient book first introduces the concept of, and current approaches to, green finance and green monetary policy, ultimately presenting a range of potential alternatives including both reformist and transformative-progressive approaches. Chapters explore how neoliberal green finance tends to deepen financialisation, and does not effectively address environmental problems, offering insights into reformist forms of green finance that insist that state regulation and public financing are crucial to tackling environmental problems. A crucial contribution to the debate surrounding the financial industry’s role in addressing the environmental crisis, this book will be beneficial for academics and students with an interest in environmental, ecological and financial economics. The accessible writing style will also prove valuable for policy makers, civil society professionals and financial and sustainability experts.