The evolution and research framework of carbon footprint: Based on the perspective of knowledge mapping

Abstract

Abstract Carbon footprint can monitor the degree of human stress on the ecological environment and has been widely used to measure the level of climate change and sustainable development. To systematically sort out and analyse the development history of carbon footprint research, a keyword co-appearance and literature co-citation knowledge mapping has been drawn, the carbon footprint research hotspots, knowledge bases, research frontiers, and research features have been analysed, from Web of Science core database since 2008 as a data source. From the review, by establishing a carbon footprint research framework from the perspectives of both government and market, the problems of regional environmental governance efficiency, fairness mechanisms, and carbon emission rights are analysed under the government-led and market-led approaches and reviewed the development of carbon footprint research methods. In addition, the boundary and the applicability of the carbon footprint accounting methods has been discussed. The results show: (1) China is increasingly becoming an ideal for carbon footprint research due to its varied and complicated problem of climate and environment. (2) Future research hotspots will focus more on carbon sinks, land use changes, energy consumption, industrial ecology, buildings, livestock, and international trade. (3) Half-life, burst, and centrality indicate that the knowledge bases of carbon footprint are the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, ISO14040 (2006) and Livestock’s long shadow. (4) The latest international fronts of carbon footprint research focus on the carbon footprint generated in international trade, innovations of methods and discrimination and definition of the theory concept, for example, the expression of carbon footprint means the use of either ecological land area units or physical weight units. (4) The research features are mainly concerned with the carbon footprint application of the multi-region input-output model in international trade, multi-scale assessment of human impact on the environment and sustainable development, and resource-environment effects associated with food loss and waste.