I recently heard a Hidden Brain podcast that changed how I think about money.

The show talked about "money scripts" — the narratives we hold about money, and how it subconsciously informs how we approach financial decisions. These scripts often serve to hurt ourselves most. For example, if you believe that everyone with money is greedy and evil, you’re more likely to make bad financial choices today. If you think wealth is a reward for hard work, you’re more likely to make decisions at the expense of others and your community.

This week I’m at GreenFin 22, the GreenBiz event that focuses on mobilizing capital to make the world a better place, in terms of the environment, society and governing structures. The intentions are good (we need money to support and grow the world we want), and the criticism is growing (does ESG investing make a difference, or is it just greenwash?)

I understand the drive behind the growing criticism. It’s hard to believe that bankers and investors are going to crack the code to social and climate justice ideals, with images from "The Wolf of Wall Street" and "The Big Short" forming my opinion of the financial community. There’s something distasteful about how finance collapses humanity and the environment into a single bottom line.

Or is that opinion just my own money script showing?

Swimming in the waters of the ESG community at GreenFin, I’ve been thinking about the money scripts of the people in the world of finance and their tension with traditional climate change advocates’ scripts. Indeed, it’s possible that the predominant money scripts within the climate community — that finance is part of the problem — are getting in the way of important conversations with the finance community that could help catalyze financial markets to transform the world.

Read the full article about climate finance by Sarah Golden at GreenBiz.