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Dryad

An exploration of trends and future directions in sustainability performance

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Jul 25, 2022 version files 42.89 MB

Abstract

Current global economic activities are increasingly being perceived as unsustainable. With Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) statement in 2015, sustainability performance has received significant attention from academics and practitioners. 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 on the foundation of publishing outputs, co-authorships amongst authors and affiliated countries, and cooccurrences of author keywords, as well as to identify gaps and make research recommendations. The analysis has reviewed, retrieved and analysed 3680 papers, which were published from 1997 to 2021. 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 was produced by researchers from the United States and Australia, outnumbering the remaining 138 countries/territories. Furthermore, among the 10 most prolific authors in sustainability performance, their current affiliations all belong to the university. Finally, this study proposes 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.