The nexus between green finance and ESG components: a bibliometric qualitative literature review through the lens of environmental sustainability

Unofficial AI-generated summary based on the public title and abstract. Not an official translation.

🔬研究者:Provides a structured research roadmap and 12 targeted future research questions to guide further studies on green finance and ESG.

🏢実務担当者:Offers insights into how green finance mechanisms (e.g., green bonds) can strengthen corporate ESG performance and fund sustainable projects.

🏛政策担当者:Highlights policy design considerations, institutional barriers, and context-specific implementation strategies for green finance.

This study aims to identify key trends and future research directions in green finance (GF) and environmental, social and governance (ESG) research. This study conducts a bibliometric analysis of 399 articles, complemented by a systematic content analysis. Data were collected from the years 2014 to 2024. Performance analysis and science mapping techniques were used to map publication trends, influential publications and emerging research topics synthesised into an integrative conceptual framework. This study highlights the significance of GF in promoting sustainability outcomes, underscoring the importance of corporate ESG engagement. It identifies four thematic clusters: GF and sustainable development; GF and environmental sustainability; GF and green economy; and GF and sustainable investment. The findings also outline the annual scientific production and influential publications, sources, authors and countries and propose future research questions for each major thematic cluster. In addition, a conceptual framework was developed highlighting three pathways where GF functions as a catalyst that enables green innovation (GI), strengthens ESG performance and directly funds sustainable projects. This study offers a twofold agenda for researchers and policymakers. Researchers are provided with an integrative conceptual framework and 12 targeted future research questions supported by an integrated future research roadmap. Policymakers gain insights into policy design, institutional barriers and context-specific GF implementation strategies. This study enriches the literature by systematically integrating GF, GI, corporate ESG practices and environmental sustainability. It advances the field through a multidimensional integrative framework linking GF, GI, ESG and environmental sustainability; and a structured research roadmap identifying priority themes, underexplored areas and methodological directions. It further clarifies how green financial instruments influence climate change mitigation and sustainability outcomes.

• semanticscholar https://doi.org/10.1108/ijoes-06-2025-0297first seen 2026-05-24 04:52:56 · last seen 2026-05-27 05:06:04