Comprehensive analysis of sustainable logistics and supply chain based on bibliometrics: overview, trends, challenges, and opportunities

ABSTRACT

Since the beginning of the twentieth century, the concept of sustainable logistics and supply chain management (SL&SCM) started gaining popularity in academia, more than 5000 publications have been published in the last 30 years. This study aims to review the literature in SL&SCM published from 1994–2019 and present insights and directions for future research. First, this study selects 2809 publications from WoS and Scopus databases, presents a bibliometric overview of SL&SCM. Second, this study presents a visual collaboration network based on VOSviewer® and Bibliometric®. Finally, this study shows visual thematic trends, challenges, and opportunities. The limitations of this paper are also summarised. Research results show that the mainstream studies mainly focus on the case studies, green practices, green performance, optimisation, and carbon footprint. In addition, the thematic evolution of keywords shows that sustainability and supply chain issues have become basic themes in the field of SL&SCM research in recent years.

KEYWORDS:

• Sustainable supply chain
• sustainable logistics
• environmental sustainability
• network analysis
• bibliometric
• VOSviewer

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The authors confirm that the data supporting the findings of this study are available within the article and its supplementary materials.

Additional information

Funding

This research is supported by the Fundamental Research Program of Shanxi Province [grant number 202103021223049], the Scientific and Technological Innovation Programs of Higher Education Institutions in Shanxi (STIP), and the National Natural Science Foundation of China [grant number 72071006].