Environmental Finance: An Interdisciplinary Review

Environmental finance has gained considerable attention globally as an emerging interdisciplinary research area. This study uses bibliometric analysis to systematically review major studies on environmental finance-related areas published since the 1970s. Through a bibliometric analysis of 892 environmental finance-related articles sourced from the Web of Science database, we identified the main research streams and illustrated the trending research themes of environmental finance. We find that publications related to environmental finance have increased exponentially over the past decade. Current research streams include corporate and social re-sponsibility (CSR), climate negotiations, natural gas price volatility, national policy, and cost comparisons. Further analysis of the recent five years of literature shows that emerging research topics include climate finance, sustainable finance, firm value, climate risk, and green bonds. Finally, we conclude with a future research agenda for environmental finance.

Automated summary

This study uses bibliometric analysis to review major studies on environmental finance published since the 1970s. The research finds that publications related to environmental finance have exponentially increased over the past decade and identifies emerging research topics in the field.