The study is concerned with the financialisation of rural development in liberal-market economies (UK) through the commodification of financial risk. The process of financialisation is situated within a wider discussion of rural governance in the ‘risk society’ (Beck, 1992) and green finance as an institutional apparatus of reflexive modernisation.

The research is divided into three parts, investigating:

• Optimisation of financial risk, spatial planning and territorial cohesion policy in Welsh Agriculture.
• Institutional apparatus and ‘commoning’ of financial risk in (sub) sovereign green bonds.
• Data justice, financialisation and participation in ‘smart’ rural development.

Rural economic geographies provide a key research site for investigating the environmental politics of green finance and resourcing the transition to a low-carbon economy. The site of such politics is assumed to be in ‘feasibility assessments’ of financing rural firms in transitioning land uses.

The thesis aims to elucidate interactions between the optimisation of financial risk through market instruments and existing frameworks of rural governance. These include notions of sectoral integration, territorial cohesion, sustainable place-making (Marsden, 2017; Woods, 2007) and social justice (Harvey, 2009) in rural space.