Green and socially responsible finance: past, present and future

Abstract

PurposeGreen finance has shown the importance of being socially responsible and supporting the flow of financial instruments to develop environmentally sustainable and ethical business models. The growing trends raised the need for a quantitative study to address scientific performance analysis and intellectual development. This paper aims to cater quantitative statistics, through a bibliometric review to understand the vital intellectual and influential constitution of green and socially responsible finance.Design/methodology/approachThe authors apply trending and cutting-edge quali-quantitative approach of bibliometric citation analysis and review of 280 journal articles from the Web of Science database for the period of 1981–2021.FindingsThe results identify the leading academic authors, journals, institutions and countries with relation to green and socially responsible finance literature. We also discuss three research streams in this field: (1) overview of green finance, perception and investor behavior; (2) analysis of performance models and growth factors of green finance; (3) pricing mechanism of SRI. Finally, we identify the research gaps within existing green finance literature, proposing 30 research questions for the future agenda.Research limitations/implicationsThe study confines on the Web of Science database, English published articles in known journals and reviews only. It relies on a reputable source and top scientific productions with the most direct link to green finance.Originality/valueTo the best of the authors knowledge, this paper is the first to discuss research streams in the literature of Green finance from a bibliometric aspect along with vast coverage of articles from reputed journals and databases till date. The results of this research along with future research questions will guide the researchers and academicians to further explore and stand on solid quantitative basis regarding the scientific development of Green finance.