Detecting trends in sustainability publications: research development and dynamics in Green and sustainable science and technology category

Although the sustainability movement began to take shape in the early nineteen seventies, it was not until 1987 with the publication of the Brundtland Report that it acquired institutional recognition. The academic community's engagement with the movement came a few years later in the form of sustainability science, which developed and consolidated in keeping with the dynamics of any new scientific discipline. This review analyses its development based on the papers listed in the web of science (WoS) category 'Green and sustainable science and technology'. The bibliometric methodology used included social network and multivariate analysis focusing on journal, discipline and subject inter-relationships to map and analyse developments in this new field. The main findings identified four clusters of journals with different patterns of development: sustainability, renewable energies, green chemistry and green ecology. Mainstream and emerging subjects were determined on the grounds of co-word analysis.

Automated summary

The sustainability movement began in the early seventies, but it was not until the publication of the Brundtland Report in 1987 that it gained institutional recognition. The academic community's engagement with the movement came in the form of sustainability science, which developed in line with the dynamics of a new scientific discipline. This review analyzed the development of the field based on papers in the 'Green and sustainable science and technology' category on WoS, identifying different clusters of journals and mainstream and emerging subjects through bibliometric methodology.