Summary
This study provides a systematic literature review of articles in the emerging areas of green finance and discusses the status and challenges in sustainability disclosure. The authors also review the literature on the economic implications of green finance and outline future research directions. The study finds that the increasing public attention to the environment motivates the use of green finance to fund environmentally sustainable projects, and the rise of green finance intensifies the demand for environmental disclosure. There has been a tremendous growth in sustainability reporting over time and around the globe, although concerns have been raised concerns about how such reporting lack consistency, comparability, and assurance. Despite these challenges, the study finds that in general, the literature agrees that a firm’s green practice is positively associated with its financial performance and negatively related to a firm’s cost of capital.