Ethical Sensemaking in Impact Investing: Reasons and Motives in the Chinese Renewable Energy Sector

This study investigates how impact investors in China’s renewable energy sector engage in ethical sensemaking when navigating complex investment decisions. Using a multi‑stakeholder approach, the authors identify four key motives—prosocial, personal, reputational, and economic—with the first two rooted in values and the latter two grounded in evidence. They uncover three distinct sensemaking modes (pragmatic, retrospective, forecasting) that shape how context‑specific reasons drive these motives. The findings advance theory by integrating value‑based and evidence‑based motives into a cohesive framework and offer insights for ethical impact investment practice