Editor’s introduction

UK, and USA.These papers can mainly be categorized into four sub themes.The first theme, sustainable finance, green finance, and ESG, examines how policies, green innovations, and ESG practices influence sustainability, governance, and financial performance.The second theme, FinTech, blockchain, and cryptocurrencies, explores the adoption, market dynamics, and regulatory impacts of fintech, blockchain, and cryptocurrency ecosystems.The third theme highlights the use of AI and advanced computational models to enhance forecasting, option pricing, and investment decision-making.The final theme, financial innovation, inclusion, and product design, focuses on financing strategies, financial inclusion, open finance, fraud prevention, and the integration of income-based risk factors. Sustainable finance, green finance, and ESGJin et al. ( 2025) demonstrates an inverted U-shaped relationship between fiscal expenditure decentralization and sustainable development across 52 countries, identifying an optimal decentralization range of 30.9-34.5% that maximizes long-term economic, social, and environmental welfare.Ali et al. (2025) uses wavelet-based time-frequency analysis and time-varying causality tests to show that financial and patent innovations reduce China's transport-sector CO emissions in the long run-while bioenergy offers only short-term relief-highlighting the need to strengthen innovation and bioenergy adoption for sustainable emission reduction.Moro-Visconti et al. (2025) shows that integrating ESG metrics with multilayer network theory can enhance the economic sustainability, governance innovation, and digital inclusivity of metaverse ecosystems, revealing that ESG-strong BigTechs and scalable network structures are key to supporting the metaverse's long-term viability.Conca et al. (2025) finds that environmental practices most strongly enhance European banks' profitability, governance supports stability without boosting short-term returns, and social practices reduce profitability-highlighting the need for a One Health-based, more holistic approach to sustainable banking.Spyridou et al. (2025) shows, using machine learning and local projection impulse responses on 87 global green assets, that their prices, returns, and trading volumes have