Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) 8, 9, 12, 13, and 16 highlight the importance of industrial innovation to align the firms’ financial goals with sustainable green investments. There is a vast literature investigating the trade-off between Corporation Financialization (CF) and green project investments. This study reviews such literature by following a systematic review approach of PRISMA and selected 90 research papers from the Scopus database published during 2011-2025. The findings suggest that CF has a deep impact on firms’ innovation and sustainability behavior, which is largely influenced by governance structures, managerial incentives, and strategic priorities. The literature informs that excessive CF usually discourages investments in innovation and green projects. Firms’ CF activities prioritize shareholder value over green project investments. However, environmental regulations, green finance initiatives, and carbon market mechanisms change the CF behavior of firms in highly polluting industries with strong governance. Policy uncertainty reduces the incentive for green project investments. Moreover, firms’ financial constraints increase CF and reduce investments in green projects. However, digitalization and technological change help to increase green investments. Moreover, state-owned firms are more active in green project investments compared to private firms. In addition, the government's stringent environmental regulations and governance reforms help to mitigate CF’s crowding-out effect on green project investments. The literature provides policy implications to integrate sustainability into core financial strategies by aligning investment decisions with long-term environmental goals, which can be achieved by strengthening governance, adopting green finance frameworks, and influencing firms’ strategic financial management in favor of green projects.