A systematic review of literature about finance and sustainability

ABSTRACT

The relationship between finance and environmental sustainability areas has increasingly been attracting the attention of researchers and professionals in this field. However, there are not many studies that gather and systematize the available knowledge about the issue of financial management and the concern with sustainable development. The objective of this paper is to present the results or main gaps from a systematic review of literature about the relationship between finance and sustainability. We have adapted the methods presented by Lage Junior et al. [2010. “Variations of the Kanban System: Literature Review and Classification”.International Journal of Production Economics 125 (1), 13–21.], Jabbour [2013. Environmental Training in Organisations: From a Literature Review to a Framework for Future Research. Resources, Conservation and Recycling 74, 144–155] and Seuring [2013. A Review of Modeling Approaches for Sustainable Supply Chain Management. Decision Support Systems 54 (4), 1513–1520], and we then analysed the articles published between 2011 and 2015 in the main journal of the area, the Journal of Sustainable Finance & Investment. The method applied allowed us to identify existing gaps in the literature, such as, for example, a greater focus on developing countries or the use of empiric studies with a quantitative approach.

KEYWORDS:

• Review of literature
• finance
• sustainability

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 Leading Association in the United States of America. More information can be found on http://www.ussif.org/.