Current state and future directions of sustainability and innovation in finance: a bibliometric review

The role which finance and related innovations can play in promoting environmental sustainability, is a recent area where research has started to emerge. The present study aims to understand the research trends and emerging research areas at the intersection of finance, innovation and sustainability. The research is a quantitative investigation of the intellectual framework of this field. It adopts a bibliometric analysis approach to a systematic literature review. Out of 1246 documents retrieved from Scopus database, 132 documents were selected for analysis after screening. Biblioshiny package of R studio and VosViewer software were used to conduct the analyses and visualizations. The results from co-occurrence analysis revealed four major themes on which the research is being conducted in the field, the first theme was related to financial innovations and sustainability, the second theme was on innovation, sustainability and financial performance, the third theme was related to sustainable development, green innovation and environmental regulations, while the fourth theme presented a focus on financial development and technological innovation. The recent research topics in this field were green innovation, green finance and financial development. While the emerging topics were related to sustainable finance, green bonds, and ESG. This review is unique as it systematically and quantitatively reviews the intersection of three emerging, pertinent and closely related areas of sustainability, innovation and finance. The study puts forth research trends, research gaps and future research directions for the field.