sustainability Article Finance, Sustainability and Negative Externalities. An Overview of the European Context Magdalena Ziolo 1,*, Beata Zofia Filipiak 1, Iwona B ˛ak 2 , Katarzyna Cheba 2 , Diana Mihaela Tîrca 3 and Isabel Novo-Corti 4 1 Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Szczecin–Poland, 71 101 Szczecin, Poland 2 Faculty of Economics, West Pomeranian University of Technology Szczecin, 71-270 Szczecin, Poland 3 Faculty of Economics, “Constantin Brâncusi” University of Târgu-Jiu, 210185 Targu-Jiu, Romania 4 Economic Development and Social Sustainability Research Group (EDaSS), Department of Economics—Universidade da Coruña—Spain, Campus de Elviña, s/n, 15071 A Coruña, Spain * Correspondence:
[email protected]; Tel.: +48-914442170 Received: 8 July 2019; Accepted: 30 July 2019; Published: 6 August 2019 Abstract: The goal of the paper is to examine the relation between finance and sustainability, with a special emphasis on the impact of negative externalities. Sustainable development as a concept aims to mitigate negative externalities. Conventional finance offers no room for the environment and society. Therefore, three-dimensional sustainable finance has appeared. This paper is the first original attempt to examine the relationship between: financial, economic, environmental and social development indicators from the sustainability perspective, with a special focus on externalities. To study the disparities between the European Union (EU) countries belonging to the OECD in the field of sustainable development and sustainable finance, the multi-criteria taxonomy was used. The basis of the analyses was the indicators transformed according to the relative taxonomy method. The database, based on Eurostat, contains indicators describing pillars of sustainable development such as: economic (12 indicators), social (28), environmental (7) and sustainable finance (16).