An exploration of trends and future directions in sustainability performance: A bibliometric analysis of Scopus database

Abstract

Background: Current global economic activities are increasingly being perceived as unsustainable. With the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) statement in 2015, sustainability performance has received significant attention. Thus, it is necessary to better understand the topics of interest and expand cooperation networks to advance studies in integrated efforts. The present bibliometric research intends to assess worldwide research tendency in sustainability performance. Methods: We conducted an extensive bibliometric analysis of published academic articles on sustainability performance (SP) from 1997 to 2021. We reviewed, retrieved, and analysed 3680 papers published in Scopus. Specifically, VOSviewer software was used to conduct document co-authorship and co-occurrence analyses and burst detection analyses. Results: The outcomes reveal that since 1997, the sum of publications has been on the rise steadily. About a third of all global papers on sustainability performance were produced by researchers from the United States and Australia, outnumbering the remaining 138 countries/territories. Furthermore, the ten most prolific authors of sustainability performance are all from universities. Haapala, Karl R. and Murat Kucukvar were the most influential authors found, based on the total publication number of sustainability performance. Conclusions: The bibliometric analysis was conducted to identify the trends in the area of sustainability performance. Therefore, this study identified a significant research gap for future study of practitioners and researchers. The social sustainability and the relationship between the material flow analysis and sustainability performance should be noted. In addition, only the Scopus database has been considered due to its academic prestige. The database includes a large number of articles on sustainability performance. Therefore, the analysis was limited to the Scopus database only. However, other databases, such as Web of Science, Google Scholar, and MedLine, can be used for future research. These can also be used in combination.