Sustainable finance in a new era: Trends, themes, theories, and innovations through bibliometric and narrative insights

Amid rising climate disasters, persistent social issues, and governance challenges, sustainable finance and its innovative tools have become increasingly important worldwide. This review offers a comprehensive overview of the evolution and future directions in sustainable finance, examining trends in publication, subject categories, co-authorship networks, keywords, countries, institutions, journal co-citations, and cluster analysis. The study uniquely combined bibliometric analysis, network mapping, LDA topic modeling, and the TCCM framework to provide a systematic analysis of sustainable finance literature. Results emphasize the need for increased global collaboration among researchers. Future research areas include carbon trading, financial inclusion, reporting standards to prevent greenwashing, climate change impacts, mobilizing sustainable finance through green bonds, and exploring technological links between sustainable finance, blockchain, and AI. The study also offers practical implications for stakeholders.