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Research Article

Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on the academic research agenda. A scientometric analysis

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Research Institute on Policies for Social Transformation, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Córdoba, Spain

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Validation, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Public Policy Observatory, Universidad Autónoma de Chile, Santiago, Chile

* E-mail: [email protected]

Affiliation Department of Finance and Accounting, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Córdoba, Spain

Roles Conceptualization, Investigation, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Social Matters Research Group, Universidad Loyola Andalucía, Córdoba, Spain

• Antonio Sianes, 
• Alejandro Vega-Muñoz, 
• Pilar Tirado-Valencia, 
• Antonio Ariza-Montes

• Published: March 17, 2022
• https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409
• Peer Review
• Reader Comments

Today, global challenges such as poverty, inequality, and sustainability are at the core of the academic debate. This centrality has only increased since the transition from the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), whose scope is to shift the world on to a path of resilience focused on promoting sustainable development. The main purpose of this paper is to develop a critical yet comprehensive scientometric analysis of the global academic production on the SDGs, from its approval in 2015 to 2020, conducted using Web of Science (WoS) database. Despite it being a relatively short period of time, scholars have published more than five thousand research papers in the matter, mainly in the fields of green and sustainable sciences. The attained results show how prolific authors and schools of knowledge are emerging, as key topics such as climate change, health and the burden diseases, or the global governance of these issues. However, deeper analyses also show how research gaps exist, persist and, in some cases, are widening. Greater understanding of this body of research is needed, to further strengthen evidence-based policies able to support the implementation of the 2030 Agenda and the achievement of the SDGs.

Citation: Sianes A, Vega-Muñoz A, Tirado-Valencia P, Ariza-Montes A (2022) Impact of the Sustainable Development Goals on the academic research agenda. A scientometric analysis. PLoS ONE 17(3): e0265409. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409

Editor: Stefano Ghinoi, University of Greenwich, UNITED KINGDOM

Received: September 10, 2021; Accepted: March 1, 2022; Published: March 17, 2022

Copyright: © 2022 Sianes et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Data Availability: All relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files.

Funding: The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.

Competing interests: The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

1. Introduction

1.1. from the millennium agenda to the 2030 agenda and the sustainable development goals (sdgs).

To track the origins of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, we must recall the Millennium Agenda, which was the first global plan focused on fighting poverty and its more extreme consequences [ 1 ]. Approved in 2000, its guiding principle was that northern countries should contribute to the development of southern states via Official Development Assistance (ODA) flows. The commitment was to reach 0.7% of donors’ gross domestic product [ 2 ] to reduce poverty by half by 2015. The relative failure to reach this goal and the consolidation of a discourse of segregation between northern and southern countries [ 3 ] opened the door to strong criticism of the Millennium Agenda. Therefore, as 2015 approached, there were widespread calls for a profound reformulation of the system [ 4 ].

The world in 2015 was very different from that in the early 2000s. Globalization had reached every corner of the world, generating development convergence between countries but increasing inequalities within countries [ 5 , 6 ]. Increasing interest in the environmental crisis and other global challenges, such as the relocation of work and migration flows, consolidated a new approach to development and the need of a more encompassed agenda [ 7 ]. This new agenda was conceived after an integrating process that involved representatives from governments, cooperation agencies, nongovernmental organisations, global business, and academia. The willingness of the 2030 Agenda to ‘leave no one behind’ relies on this unprecedented global commitment by the international community [ 8 ].

As a result of this process, in 2015, the United Nations General Assembly formally adopted the document “Transforming our World: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development” [ 9 ], later known as the 2030 Agenda. This new global agenda is an all-comprising strategy that seeks to inform and orient public policies and private interventions in an extensive range of fields, from climate change to smart cities and from labour markets to birth mortality, among many others.

The declared scope of the Agenda is to shift the world on to a path of resilience focused on promoting sustainable development. To do so, the 2030 Agenda operates under the guidance of five principles, formally known as the ‘5 Ps’: people, planet, prosperity, peace, and partnerships [ 10 ]. With these pivotal concepts in mind, the Agenda has established a total of 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and 169 specific targets to be pursued in a 15-year period, which reflects the scale and profound ambition of this new Agenda.

The SDGs do not only address what rich countries should do for the poor but rather what all countries should do together for the global well-being of this and future generations [ 4 ]. Thus, the SDGs cover a much broader range of issues than their predecessors, the Millennium Development Goals [ 11 ], and are intended to be universal on the guidance towards a new paradigm of sustainable development that the international community has been demanding since the 1992 Earth Summit [ 7 , 12 , 13 ].

Despite this potential, some criticise their vagueness, weakness, and unambitious character. Fukuda-Parr [ 14 ], see weaknesses on the simplicity of the SDGs, which can lead to a very narrow conception that reduces the integral concept of development. The issue of measurement is also problematic; for some researchers, the quantification of objectives not only reduces their complexity, but leads to them being carried out without considering the interdependencies between the objectives [ 12 , 13 ]. Other authors have identified difficulties associated with specifying some of the less visible, intangible aspects of their qualitative nature such as inclusive development and green growth [ 14 , 15 ]. Finally, Stafford-Smith et al. [ 16 ] state that their successful implementation also requires paying greater attention to the links across sectors, across societal actors and between and among low-, medium-, and high-income countries.

Despite these criticisms, the SDGs have undoubtedly become the framework for what the Brundtland report defined as our common future. Unlike conventional development agendas that focus on a restricted set of dimensions, the SDGs provide a holistic and multidimensional view of development [ 17 ]. In this line, Le Blanc [ 12 ] concludes that the SDGs constitute a system with a global perspective; because they consider the synergies and trade-offs between the different issues involved in sustainable development, and favour comprehensive thinking and policies.

1.2. Towards a categorization of the SDGs

There is an underlying lack of unanimity in the interpretation of the SDGs, which has given rise to alternative approaches that allow categorizing the issues involved in their achievement without losing sight of the integral vision of sustainable development [ 15 , 18 – 23 ]. However, such categorization of the SDGs makes it possible to approach them in a more holistic and integrated way, focusing on the issues that underlie sustainable development and on trying to elucidate their connections.

Among the many systematization proposals, and following the contributions of Hajer et al. [ 19 ], four connected perspectives can strengthen the universal relevance of the SDGs: a) ‘planetary boundaries’ that emphasize the urgency of addressing environmental concerns and calling on governments to take responsibility for global public goods; b) ‘The safe and just operating space’ to highlight the interconnectedness of social and environmental issues and their consequences for the redistribution of wealth and human well-being; c) ‘The energetic society’ that avoids the plundering of energy resources; and d) ‘green competition’ to stimulate innovation and new business practices that limit the consumption of resources.

Planetary boundaries demand international policies that coordinate efforts to avoid overexploitation of the planet [ 24 ]. Issues such as land degradation, deforestation, biodiversity loss and natural resource overexploitation exacerbate poverty and deepen inequalities [ 21 , 25 – 27 ]. These problems are further compounded by the increasing impacts of climate change with clear ramifications for natural systems and societies around the globe [ 21 , 28 ].

A safe and just operating space implies social inclusivity that ensures equity principles for sharing opportunities for development [ 15 , 29 ]. Furthermore, it requires providing equitable access to effective and high-quality preventive and curative care that reduces global health inequalities [ 30 , 31 ] and promotes human well-being. Studies such as that of Kruk et al. [ 32 ] analyse the reforms needed in health systems to reduce mortality and the systemic changes necessary for high-quality care.

An energetic society demands global, regional and local production and consumption patterns as demands for energy and natural resources continue to increase, providing challenges and opportunities for poverty reduction, economic development, sustainability and social cohesion [ 21 ].

Finally, green competition establishes limits to the consumption of resources, engaging both consumers and companies [ 22 ] and redefining the relationship between firms and their suppliers in the supply chain [ 33 ]. These limits must also be introduced into life in cities, fostering a new urban agenda [ 34 , 35 ]. Poor access to opportunities and services offered by urban centres (a function of distance, transport infrastructure and spatial distribution) is a major barrier to improved livelihoods and overall development [ 36 ].

The diversification of development issues has opened the door to a wide range of new realities that must be studied under the guiding principles of the SDGs, which involve scholars from all disciplines. As Saric et al. [ 37 ] claimed, a shift in academic research is needed to contribute to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda. The identification of critical pathways to success based on sound research is needed to inform a whole new set of policies and interventions aimed at rendering the SDGs both possible and feasible [ 38 ].

1.3. The relevance and impact of the SDGs on academic research

In the barely five years since their approval, the SDGs have proven the ability to mobilize the scientific community and offer an opportunity for researchers to bring interdisciplinary knowledge to facilitate the successful implementation of the 2030 Agenda [ 21 ]. The holistic vision of development considered in the SDGs has impacted very diverse fields of knowledge, such as land degradation processes [ 25 , 26 ], health [ 39 ], energy [ 40 ] and tourism [ 41 ], as well as a priori further disciplines such as earth observation [ 42 ] and neurosurgery [ 43 ]. However, more importantly, the inevitable interdependencies, conflicts and linkages between the different SDGs have also emerged in the analyses, highlighting ideas such as the need for systemic thinking that considers the spatial and temporal connectivity of the SDGs, which calls for multidisciplinary knowledge. According to Le Blanc [ 12 ], the identification of the systemic links between the objectives can be a valuable undertaking for the scientific community in the coming years and sustainable development.

Following this line, several scientific studies have tried to model the relationships between the SDGs in an attempt to clarify the synergies between the objectives, demonstrating their holistic nature [ 12 , 17 , 20 , 44 , 45 ]. This knowledge of interdependencies can bring out difficulties and risks, or conversely the drivers, in the implementation of the SDGs, which will facilitate their achievement [ 22 ]. In addition, it will allow proposing more transformative strategies to implement the SDG agenda, since it favours an overall vision that is opposed to the false illusion that global problems can be approached in isolation [ 19 ].

The lack of prioritisation of the SDGs has been one of the issues raised regarding their weakness, which should also be addressed by academics. For example, Gupta and Vegelin [ 15 ] analyse the dangers of inclusive development prioritising economic issues, relegating social or ecological inclusivity to the background, or the relational aspects of inclusivity that guarantee the existence of laws, policies and global rules that favour equal opportunities. Holden et al. [ 46 ] suggest that this prioritisation should be established according to three moral criteria: the satisfaction of human needs, social equity and respect for environmental limits. These principles must be based on ethical values that, according to Burford et al. [ 47 ], constitute the missing pillar of sustainability. In this way, the ethical imperatives of the SDGs and the values implicit in the discourses on sustainable development open up new possibilities for transdisciplinary research in the social sciences [ 46 , 47 ].

Research on SDG indicators has also been relevant in the academic world, as they offer an opportunity to replace conventional progress metrics such as gross domestic product (GDP) with other metrics more consistent with the current paradigm of development and social welfare that takes into account such aspects as gender equality, urban resilience and governance [ 20 , 48 ].

The study of the role of certain development agents, including companies, universities or supranational organisations, also opens up new areas of investigation for researchers. Some studies have shown the enthusiastic acceptance of the SDGs by companies [ 22 , 49 ]. For Bebbington and Unerman [ 50 ], the study of the role of organisations in achieving the SDGs should be centred around three issues: challenging definitions of entity boundaries to understand their full impacts, introducing new conceptual frameworks for analysis of the context within which organisations operate and re-examining the conceptual basis of justice, responsibility and accountability. On the other hand, the academic community has recognized that knowledge and education are two basic pillars for the transition towards sustainable development, so it may also be relevant to study the responsibility of higher education in achieving the SDGs [ 47 , 50 ]. Institutional sustainability and governance processes are issues that should be addressed in greater depth through research [ 47 ].

Finally, some authors have highlighted the role of information technologies (ICT) in achieving the SDGs [ 23 ] and their role in addressing inequality or vulnerability to processes such as financial exclusion [ 51 ], which opens up new avenues for research.

Despite this huge impact of the SDGs on academic research, to the best of our knowledge, an overall analysis of such an impact to understand its profoundness and capillarity is missing in the literature. To date, reviews have focused on the implementation of specific SDGs [ 52 – 61 ], on specific topics and collectives [ 62 – 70 ], on traditional fields of knowledge, now reconsidered in light of the SDGs [ 71 – 73 ] and on contributions from specific regions or countries [ 74 , 75 ]. By relying on scientometric techniques and data mining analyses, this paper collects and analyses the more than 5,000 papers published on the SDGs to pursue this challenging goal and fill this knowledge gap.

This article aims to provide a critical review of the scientific research on SDGs, a concept that has emerged based on multiple streams of thinking and has begun to be consolidated as of 2015. As such, global references on this topic are identified and highlighted to manage pre-existing knowledge to understand relationships among researchers and with SDG dimensions to enhance the presently dispersed understanding of this subject and its areas of further development. A scientometric meta-analysis of publications on SDGs is conducted to achieve this objective. Mainstream journals from the Web of Science (WoS) are used to identify current topics, the most involved journals, the most prolific authors, and the thematic areas around which the current academic SDG debate revolves.

Once Section 1 has revised on the related literature to accomplish the main objective, Section 2 presents the research methodology. Section 3 presents the main results obtained, and Section 4 critically discusses these results. The conclusion and the main limitations of the study are presented in Section 5.

2. Materials and methods

In methodological terms, this research applies scientometrics as a meta-analytical means to study the evolution of documented scientific knowledge on the Sustainable Development Goals [ 76 – 81 ], taking as a secondary source of information academic contributions (i.e. articles, reviews, editorials, etc.) indexed in the Web of Science (WoS). To ensure that only peer-reviewed contributions authored by individual researchers are retrieved and that such publications have a worldwide prestige assessment, all of them should be published on journals indexed in the Journal Citation Report (JCR), either as part of the Sciences Citation Index Expanded or the Social Sciences Citation Index [ 82 – 84 ].

Following the recommendations of previous studies [ 85 ], it was decided to apply the next search vector from 2015 to 2020 to achieve the research objectives TS = (Sustainable NEAR/0 Development NEAR/0 Goals), which allows the extraction of data with 67 fields for each article registered in WoS.

As the first step, to give meaning to subsequent analyses, we tested the presence of exponential growth in the production of documented knowledge that allows a continuous renewal of knowledge [ 76 , 86 ].

As a second action, given the recent nature of the subject studied, it is of interest to map the playing field [ 87 ] using VOSviewer software version 1.6.16 [ 88 ], to know which topics are most addressed in the matter of SDGs. This analysis seeks an approach, both through the concentration of Keyword Plus® [ 89 ] and by analysing the references used as input in the production of knowledge, which can be treated as cocitations, coupling-citations and cross-citations [ 90 ], using the h-index, in citation terms, as discriminant criteria in the selection of articles [ 91 – 93 ]. This methodology will allow us to establish production, impact and relationship metrics [ 80 , 85 , 87 , 94 , 95 ].

Finally, it is of interest to explore the possible concentrations that may arise. Using Lotka’s Law, we estimated the possible prolific authors and their areas of work in SDGs, and using Bradford’s Law, we conducted a search of a possible adjustment to a geometric series of the concentration zones of journals and therefore a potential nucleus where a profuse discussion on SDGs is taking place [ 96 – 100 ].

3.1. Configuration of the academic production on SDGs

The results present a total of 5,281 articles for a period of six years (2015–2020) in 1,135 journals, with over 60% of these documents published in the last two years. The total of articles is distributed among authors affiliated with 7,418 organisations from 181 countries/regions, giving thematic coverage to 183 categories of the Journal Citation Report-Web of Science (JCR-WoS). Table 1 shows the distribution among the top ten JCR-WoS categories, highlighting the prevalence of journals indexed in green and environmental sciences and, thus, in the Science Index-Expanded.

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3.2. Existence of research critical mass

Fig 1 shows the regression model for the period 2015–2020, the last year with complete records consolidated in the Web of Science. The results obtained show significant growth in the number of studies on SDGs, with an R 2 adjustment greater than 96%. The exponential nature of the model shows that a ‘critical mass’ is consolidating around the research on this topic, as proposed by the Law of Exponential Growth of Science over Time [ 76 ], which in some way gives meaning to this research and to obtaining derived results.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.g001

3.3. Establishment of concentrations

In accordance with Lotka’s Law, 22,336 authors were identified of the 5,281 articles under study. From this author set, 136 (≈sqrt (22,336)) are considered prolific authors with a contribution to nine or more works. However, a second restriction, even more demanding, is to identify those prolific authors who are also prolific in contemporary terms. Although SDG studies are recent, the growth production rates are extremely high. As previously shown, for the period 2015–2020, 64% of the publications are concentrated between 2019–2020. Based on this second restriction, for 3,400 articles of the 5,281 articles published in 2019 and 2020, and a total of 15,120 authors, only eight prolific authors manage to sustain a publication number that equals or exceeds nine articles. These authors are listed and characterized in Table 2 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t002

The analysis shown in Table 2 highlights the University of Washington’s participation in health issues with Murray and Hay (coauthors of eight articles in the period 2019–2020), who are also important in the area of health for the prolific authors Yaya and Bhutta. The environmental SDGs mark a strong presence with Abhilash, Leal-Filho and Kalin. The affiliation of Abhilsash (Banaras Hindu University) is novel, as it is not part of the classic world core in knowledge production that is largely concentrated in the United States and Europe. It is worth noting that other prolific authors belong to nonmainstream knowledge production world areas, such as Russia or Pakistan. Professor Alola also deserves mention; not only is he the only contemporary prolific author producing in the area of economics, but he is also producing knowledge in Turkey.

In the same way, at the journal level, the potential establishment of concentration areas and determination of a deep discussion nucleus are analysed using Bradford’s law.

With a percentage error of 0.6%, between the total journal number and the total journal number estimated by the Bradford series, the database shows a core of 18 journals (2%) where one in three articles published are concentrated (see Table 3 ).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t003

Regarding the number of contributions by journal, Sustainability has the largest number of studies on SDGs, in which 689 (13%) of the 5,281 articles studied are concentrated. The Journal of Cleaner Production, indexed to WoS categories related to Environmental SDGs, is the second most prominent journal, with 2.7% participation of the articles (147). Both journals are followed by the multidisciplinary journal Plos One, with 2.2% of the total dataset. In terms of impact factor, the 60 points of the health journal The Lancet are superlative in the whole, which in the other cases ranges between 2.000 and 7.246. As shown in Table 4 , we have developed a “Prominence ranking” by weighting article production by impact factor. This metric shows The Lancet, with only 40 articles on SDGs, as the most relevant journal, followed by Sustainability, which becomes relevant due to the high number of publications (689) despite an impact factor of 2.576. These journals are followed by the Journal of Cleaner Production with 147 articles and an impact factor of 7.246.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t004

3.4. Thematic coverage

Concerning the thematic coverage, Fig 2A and 2B show a diversity of 7,003 Keyword Plus® (KWP), consistently connected to a total of 7,141 KWP assigned by Clarivate as metadata to the set of 5,281 articles studied, which presents a strong concentration in a small number of terms (red colour in the heat map generated with VOSviewer version 1.6.16).

a) Keywords Plus® heatmap and b) heat map zoom to highlight the highest concentration words, data source WoS, 2020.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.g002

Based on this result, a concentration sphere with 85 KWP (= sqrt (7,141)) is established according to Zipf’s Law, which is presented in 50 or more articles out of the total of 5,281. Moreover, a central concentration sphere of 9 KWPs (= sqrt (85)) can be found, with keywords present in a range of 178 to 346 articles out of a total of 5,281. These nine pivotal keywords are all connected in terms of co-occurrence (associated by Clarivate two or more to the same article) and within papers with an average number of citations in WoS that vary from 9.27 to 16.69, as shown in Table 5 . The nine most prominent key words in relation to the study of the SDGs are health, climate change, management, impact, challenges, governance, systems, policy and framework. These terms already suggest some of the themes around which the debate and research in this area revolves.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t005

The prominence of these keywords is obtained by combining the level of occurrence and average citations (see Table 5 ): on the one hand, the occurrence or number of articles with which the KWP is associated (e.g., Management, 346) and, on the other hand, the average citations presented by the articles associated with these words (e.g., Framework. 9.27). The final score (prominence) mixes both concepts, given the product of the occurrences and the average citations of each KWP in proportion to the mean values (e.g., (330 * 16.69)/(246 * 11.96) = 1.9).

3.5. Relations within the academic contributions

The coupling-citation analysis using VOSviewer identifies the 5,281 articles under study, of which only those found in the h-index as a whole have been considered (the h-index in the database is 81, as there are 81 articles cited 81 or more times). The bibliographic coupling analysis found consistent connections in only 73 of these articles, gathered in seven clusters. Such clusters and unconnected articles are represented in Fig 3 .

Data source WoS. 2020.

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In simple terms, discrimination belonging to one cluster or another depends on the total link number that an article has with the other 80 articles based on the use of the common references. Table 6 specifies the articles belonging to the same publication cluster in relation to Fig 3 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t006

Bibliographic coupling analysis can also be used to link the seven clusters that use common references with the field document title (TI), publication name (SO), Keyword Plus-KWP (ID), and research areas (SC). This allows the identification of the main topics of each cluster. As shown in Table 7 , cluster 1 (red) concerns environmental and public affairs; cluster 2 (green), health; cluster 3 (blue), economics; cluster 4 (yellow), health–the burden of disease; cluster 5 (violet), economics–Kuznets curve; cluster 6 (light blue), energy; and cluster 7 (orange), soil—land.

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t007

3.6. Outstanding contributions in the field

The cocitation analysis identified a total of 232,081 references cited by the 5,281 articles under study. It suggests taking as references to review those that present 44 or more occurrences in the database (232,081/5,281). This method results in 34 articles that have been used as main inputs for the scientific production under analysis, cited between 44 and 504 times. A result worth highlighting is that one in three of these documents corresponds to reports from international organisations, such as the United Nations (UN), United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), United Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF), United Nations Fund for Population Activities (UNFPA), World Bank Group (WB) or World Health Organization (WHO). However, it is also possible to identify 21 peer-reviewed scientific contributions. These papers are identified in detail in Table 8 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.t008

The cocitation analysis yields the degree of relationship of these 21 most cited research articles. It is how such references have been used simultaneously in the same article. Fig 4 displays this information (to help readers, it has also been included in Table 8 , centrality in 21 column).

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.g004

According to the relationship level in the most cited article’s selection, the graph ( Fig 3 ) has been clustered in three colours: cluster 1 in red colour groups the highest articles proportion (9) published between 2013 and 2017 in 7 journals. These journals present an impact factor (IF) quite heterogeneous, with values ranging from 2.576 (Sustainability) to 60.39 (Lancet) and indexed in one or more of the following WoS categories: Environmental Sciences (4 journals), Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (4), Environmental Studies (2), Development Studies (1), Medicine, General & Internal (1), Multidisciplinary Sciences (1) and Regional & Urban Planning (1). Three of these articles are cited 130–150 times in the 5,281-article dataset and, at the same time, show a connection centrality of 95–100% with the other 20 articles in the graph, implying a high level of cocitation. The other two clusters group six articles each. The articles of cluster 2 (green colour) are included in a widespread WoS category set: Environmental Sciences (3 journals), Geosciences, Multidisciplinary (2), Ecology (1), Economics (1), Energy & Fuels (1), Environmental Studies (1), Green & Sustainable Science & Technology (1), Materials Science, Multidisciplinary (1), Meteorology & Atmospheric Sciences (1) and Multidisciplinary Sciences (1). The research of Nilsson [ 101 ] was used as a reference in 176 of the 5,281 articles under study, showing a centrality of 100%. This great connection level is also featured in another less cited article [ 17 ] published in Earth’s Future. Finally, cluster 3 (blue) highlights six articles concentrated in three highly cited journals in the WoS categories: Medicine, General & Internal (Lancet) and Multidisciplinary Sciences (Nature and Science), whose IFs range from 41.9 to 60.4. In general, they are articles less connected (cocited) to the set of 21, with centralities of 30–90%. Two of these articles were referenced 140 times or more, although one was published in 2009. Thus, cluster 3 concentrates the references mainly in journals on environmental issues with scientific-technological orientation, as well as classic and high-impact WoS journals (The Lancet, Nature and Science). It is worth noting that some of these top journals may not be listed in Table 4 as they are not included in the Bradford’s nucleus, due to their comparatively low number of contributions published.

Finally, continuing with the thematic study, a cross-citation analysis was developed. Considering only the 81 articles that are part of the h-index of the total set of 5,821 articles under study, the citations that are presented among this elite article set are explored using VosViewer. The cross-citation analysis detects existing relationships between 37 of these 81 articles. Once the directionality of the citations has been analysed, a directed temporal graph is generated using Pajek 64 version 5.09, which is presented in Fig 5 .

https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.g005

Fig 5 shows how these 37 highly cited articles are related to each other (the number after the name is the publication year), considering that some of these articles are cited as references in other articles in this set. The relationships between the articles in Fig 5 are complex and should be understood under a temporal sequence logic in the citation between two articles. However, some trends can be highlighted.

On the one hand, some contributions stand out for their centrality. Lim et al. [ 102 ] is connected with eight of the 37 articles (21.6%) on citing relationships, as is Fullman et al. [ 27 ], which relates to seven of the 37 articles (18.9%). Both authors researched health issues and are also coauthors of nine articles of the dataset under study. On the other hand, according to the SDG segmentation proposed, Hajer et al. [ 19 ] and Le Blanc [ 12 ] are recognized as seminal articles in social SDGs, since they contribute to the production of other subsequent articles in the set of 37. On the other hand, in health matters, seminal articles are Norheim et al. [ 103 ] and You et al. [ 104 ], two articles published in The Lancet whose citations also contribute to the production of the set introduced as Fig 5 .

4. Discussion

The main purpose of this paper was to develop a critical and comprehensive scientometric analysis of the global academic literature on the SDGs from 2015 to 2020, conducted using the WoS database. The attained results have made it possible to comprehend and communicate to the scientific community the current state of the debate on the SDGs, thus offering insights for future lines of research.

To achieve the objectives, the present study analysed a broad spectrum of 5,281 articles published in 1,135 WoS journals. A first aspect that is striking is the great diversity of topics addressed in these studies, which reflects the multidimensionality of the SDGs. Despite this, more than half of the articles are concentrated in two JCR-WoS categories (Environmental Sciences and Green Sustainable Science Technology), a percentage that exceeds 80% if the categories Environmental Studies and Public Environmental Occupational Health are added. Thus, on the one hand, the size of the body of literature and the broad spectrum of topics more than covers the four perspectives of analysis that are relevant in research on the SDGs, according to Hajer et al. [ 19 ]: planetary boundaries, the safe and just operating space, the energetic society and, last, green competition. However, on the other hand, results also highlight a strong focus on the environmental aspects of the SDGs, which undoubtedly concentrate the most contributions.

The Sustainable Development Goals constitute an area of research that has experienced exponential scientific growth, a tendency already suggested by previous studies [ 81 , 105 ], thus complying with the fundamental principles of Price’s law [ 76 ], which suggests the need for this exponential growth to manifest a continuous renewal of knowledge on the subject under study. The results of this study highlight a significant increase in the number of articles published in the last two years, given that six out of ten articles were published in 2019 or 2020. This tendency confirms how the SDGs continue to arouse great interest in the scientific community and that the debate on the interpretation of sustainable development is still open and very present in academia.

The variety of knowledge areas from which science can approach the SDGs demonstrates the different avenues that exist to address different research questions and their multidimensional nature, as anticipated by Pradhan et al. [ 17 ], a dispersion not far from the traditional fields of knowledge or the conventional dimensions of sustainability. Investigating the reasons for this dispersion in academic research on the SDGs may be a topic of great interest, as anticipated by Burford et al. [ 47 ] and Le Blanc [ 12 ], since understanding the phenomenon of development can only be achieved if the main challenges, both current and future, can be viewed holistically and comprehensively. Along these lines, Imaz and Eizagirre [ 106 ] state that the complexity of the study of the SDGs is undoubtedly marked by their aspiration for universality, by their broad scope encompassing the three basic pillars of sustainable development (economic development, environmental sustainability and social inclusion) and by their desire for integration, motivated by the complexity of the challenges and by the countless interlinkages and interdependencies.

This natural multidimensionality of the SDGs calls for strong cooperation and collaboration between researchers, universities, and countries. In this sense, the scientometric analysis provides good news, as more than a hundred prolific authors (defined as those authors who have published nine or more articles on this topic) have been identified, although these are reduced to eight in contemporary terms (2019 or 2020). This select group of eight authors who lead research and publishing on the SDGs (sometimes with dual or triple affiliations) produce knowledge for universities and research centres both in the global north and the global south: Canada, the U.S., the UK, Germany, Pakistan, Turkey, India, Benin, Russia and Cyprus. The protagonist role played by research institutes in countries in the north has already been acknowledged by previous studies [ 81 , 105 ]. However, the emergence of top scholars producing academic knowledge from developing countries is a more recent tendency, which underscores the pertinence of this analysis.

A closer look at the academic and research curricula of these authors leads to the conclusion that the study of the SDGs does not constitute a final field of research at present. These researchers come from very heterogeneous disciplines, so their approach to the SDGs is also multidisciplinary. To illustrate it with an example, the most cited article by Professor Abhilash of Banaras Hindu University (the most published contemporary prolific author along with Christopher Murray of the University of Washington), with 363 WoS citations in February 2021 alone, is on the use and application of pesticides in India.

In more concrete terms, following Wu et al.’s [ 23 ] classification as a frame of reference, the eight most prolific contemporary authors approach the SDG research problem from two main domains, one of an environmental nature (Abhilash, Leal-Filho, Alola and Kalin) and the other related to health (Murray, Yaya, Bhutta, and Hay). The most common journals where these authors publish on environmental issues are the Journal of Cleaner Production, Higher Education, Water and Science of the Total Environment. Health researchers, on the other hand, tend to publish mainly in the journals of the BMC group, The Lancet and Nature.

This wide diversity of academic fora can be clarified with the application of Bradford’s laws, which identified a core of 18 journals that bring together the debates and academic discussions about the SDGs. It is worth noting that the 18 journals that form the core are distributed in 16 different thematic areas or WoS categories: Development Studies; Ecology; Economics; Education & Educational Research; Engineering, Environmental; Environmental Sciences; Environmental Studies; Green & Sustainable Science & Technology; Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism; International Relations; Medicine, General & Internal; Multidisciplinary Sciences; Public, Environmental & Occupational Health; Regional & Urban Planning; and Water Resources. On the one hand, this wide dispersion in terms of areas of knowledge suggests that research on the SDGs can be studied from different approaches and disciplines, which opens up a wide range of possibilities for researchers from different branches of scientific knowledge, as well as an opportunity for multidisciplinary collaborations. On the other hand, this heterogeneity might also hinder the communication and dissemination of learning from one field to another. The cross-citation analysis provided in Fig 5 suggests this possibility, as seminal works are related to thematic disciplines more than to the seminal contributions identified in Table 8 .

In this sense, it is interesting to analyse the top-cited articles in the database, as they provide a clear picture of the field of knowledge. One-third of these contributions are provided by international institutions, such as the United Nations Development Program or the World Bank, which provide analyses of a normative nature. This prevalence reflects some weaknesses in the academic basis of the analysis of the SDGs as a whole from a scientific approach, an idea reinforced when the most cited papers are analysed. In fact, only six papers have reached more than 100 citations by contributions included in the database [ 4 , 12 , 24 , 29 , 101 , 107 ]. Not only were these papers largely published before the approval of the SDGs themselves, but half of them are editorial material, inviting contributions but are not evidence-based research papers. Highlighting the nature of the most cited contributions does not diminish their value but does speak to the normative approach that underlies the analysis of the SDGs when addressed not individually but as an overall field of research.

Regarding topics and themes of interest, the scientometric analysis carried out in this research identified a strong concentration around a small number of terms, as represented in a heat map ( Fig 2A and 2B ). All these topics constitute a potential source of inspiration for future research on the subject.

Through an analysis of the main keywords, it can be seen that the studies focused on the traditional areas of health and climate change. However, these keywords also provide new elements for discussion, as they uncover some other areas of study that have been highlighted by the literature. First, the appearance of the term Management as one of the main keywords reveals the importance that researchers give to the role of business in achieving the SDGs, as already suggested by Scheyvens et al. [ 49 ] and Spangenber [ 22 ]. Second, the need to address new governance processes and to seek global solutions, as suggested by authors such as Sachs [ 4 ], underscore the keywords Governance, Policy and Framework, all aspects deemed crucial for the achievement of the SDGs and the 2030 Agenda [ 108 ]. Finally, other keywords such as Impact, Challenges or Systems are a clear example of the complexity and interdependencies that exist in research on the SDGs, considered an essential aspect by Griggs et al. [ 13 ] or Le Blanc [ 12 ]. The attained results highlight some of the connections between different domains of sustainable development by identifying categories and themes that are highly related in the groupings that emerge from the bibliographic coupling analysis.

In general terms, the holistic vision of development embodied by the SDGs has drawn the attention of very different disciplines, fields and areas of scientific knowledge. However, seven major areas of research have emerged: environmental and public affairs, health, economics, health-burden of disease, economics-Kuznets curve, energy and soil-land. These areas are not far removed from the current paradigm of sustainable development, where poverty or inequality are problems that are not exclusive to developing countries [ 5 , 6 ]. Thus, emerging issues that mainly affect first world countries, including urban planning, the impact of activities such as hospitality, sport or tourism, or education for development, are starting to stand out with increasing intensity, which continues to open new avenues for future research.

In short, the results of the scientometric analysis have provided a systematized overview of the research conducted in relation to the SDGs since the approval of the 2030 Agenda. Among other things, the critical analysis has identified the main trends with respect to the number of publications, the most relevant journals, the most prolific authors, institutions and countries, and the collaborative networks between authors and the research areas at the epicentre of the debate on the SDGs. As Olawumi and Chan [ 105 ] already acknowledged, the power research networks applied to the study of the SDGs offer valuable insights and in-depth understandings not only of key scholars and institutions but also about the state of research fields, emerging trends and salient topics.

Consequently, the results of this work contribute to the systematic analysis of scientific research on the SDGs, which can be of great interest for decision-making at the governmental level (e.g., which research to fund and which not to fund), at the corporate level and at the level of research centres, both public and private. Furthermore, the scientometric analysis carried out may provide clues for academics regarding future lines of research and topics of interest where the debate on the SDGs is currently situated.

5. Conclusions, limitations and future research lines

As could not be otherwise, all research in the field of social sciences has a series of limitations that must be clearly and transparently explained. The two most relevant in this study are the following.

First, although the study of the SDGs is a recent object of research, the rate of publication is growing exponentially, such that scientific knowledge is renewed practically in its entirety every two years. The only articles that escape this scientometric obsolescence are those with a high number of citations (h-index). This circumstance generates a temporal limitation in terms of the conclusions obtained in the present investigation, conclusions that should be revised periodically until the growth of publications stabilizes by adopting a logistic form, as recommended by Sun and Lin [ 109 ].

Second, the articles used as the basis for this research were restricted to those published in the JCR-WoS. This decision was made for two main reasons. On the one hand, the limitation was to eliminate potential distortions that could occur as a result of the constant growth of journals that are incorporated annually into other databases, such as ESCI-WoS (Emerging Sources Citation Index). On the other hand, it is impossible to compare impact indices if integrating other databases such as Scopus.

We are aware of these limitations, which for developing a more selective analysis imply assuming the cost of less coverage in exchange.

Regarding future lines of research, the analysis highlights how the study of the SDGs is failing to balance their economic, social and sustainability components, as it still maintains an overall focus on environmental studies.

This suggests the urgency of increasing studies on social SDGs, key topics on the 2030 Agenda including equity (SDGs 4, 5 and 10), social development (SDGs 11 and 16) and governance (SDG 17). These topics are part of the public discourse and currently a source of social pressure in many latitudes, but they are still research areas that are necessary to deepen.

Economic sustainability studies are more present, but highly concentrated, in health economics, as previously acknowledged by Meschede [ 81 ]. Academic research on the SDGs against poverty (SDG 1) and hunger (SDG 2) has not achieved such a prominent place as health. Even less so, the economics of technological development (SDGs 8 and 9), which are recognized as crucial for economic development.

Finally, the environmental SDGs do not achieve a balance among themselves either. Academic research has prioritized action for climate (SDG 13) and industrial and human consumption, mainly water (SDG 6) and energy (SDG 7). New research should be developed in the area of land (SDG 15), life under the sea (SDG 14) and sustainable production (SDG 12).

Supporting information

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https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0265409.s001

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• 9. Nations United. Transforming our world: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development. New York, NY, USA: United Nations; 2015.

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Collection  06 March 2024

Sustainability Top 100 of 2023

This collection highlights the most downloaded* sustainability research papers published by Scientific Reports in 2023. Featuring authors from around the world, these papers highlight valuable research from an international community.

You can also view the journal's overall Top 100 or the Top 100 within various subject areas . *Data obtained from SN Insights, which is based on Digital Science’s Dimensions.

Urban intelligent assistant on the example of the escalator passenger safety management at the subway stations

• Man Tianxing
• Alexander Vodyaho
• Yulia Shichkina

The persistence of cognitive biases in financial decisions across economic groups

• Kai Ruggeri
• Sarah Ashcroft-Jones
• Friederike Stock

A framework for multi-sensor satellite data to evaluate crop production losses: the case study of 2022 Pakistan floods

• Faisal Mueen Qamer
• Sawaid Abbas
• Sunil Thapa

ChatGPT in education: global reactions to AI innovations

• Tim Fütterer
• Christian Fischer
• Peter Gerjets

Modeling transformational policy pathways on low growth and negative growth scenarios to assess impacts on socioeconomic development and carbon emissions

• Jonathan D. Moyer

Application of non-degradable waste as building material for low-cost housing

• Siswanti Zuraida
• Bart Dewancker
• Romi Bramantyo Margono

The post-conflict expansion of coca farming and illicit cattle ranching in Colombia

• Paulo J. Murillo-Sandoval
• John Kilbride
• Robert E. Kennedy

A large-scale comparison of human-written versus ChatGPT-generated essays

• Steffen Herbold
• Annette Hautli-Janisz
• Alexander Trautsch

Life cycle environmental impact assessment for battery-powered electric vehicles at the global and regional levels

• Hongliang Zhang

Increased probability of hot and dry weather extremes during the growing season threatens global crop yields

• Matias Heino
• Pekka Kinnunen
• Matti Kummu

Socioeconomic inequality in awareness, treatment and control of diabetes among adults in India: Evidence from National Family Health Survey of India (NFHS), 2019–2021

• Suraj Maiti
• Shamrin Akhtar
• Sanjay K. Mohanty

Monetization in online streaming platforms: an exploration of inequalities in Twitch.tv

• A. Houssard
• R. Gallotti

The collaborative role of blockchain, artificial intelligence, and industrial internet of things in digitalization of small and medium-size enterprises

• Abdullah Ayub Khan
• Asif Ali Laghari
• Shahid Karim

Deepfakes and scientific knowledge dissemination

• Christopher Doss
• Jared Mondschein
• Conrad Tucker

On the forecastability of food insecurity

• Pietro Foini
• Michele Tizzoni
• Elisa Omodei

Impact of air pollution on running performance

• Marika Cusick
• Sebastian T. Rowland
• Nicholas DeFelice

Studying the effect of self-selected background music on reading task with eye movements

• Yueyuan Zheng

Environmental pressures and pesticide exposure associated with an increase in the share of plant-based foods in the diet

• Emmanuelle Kesse-Guyot
• Benjamin Allès
• Julia Baudry

NSF Fellows’ perceptions about incentives, research misconduct, and scientific integrity in STEM academia

• Siddhartha Roy
• Marc A. Edwards

A methodological tool for sustainability and feasibility assessment of indoor vertical farming with artificial lighting in Africa

• Ivan Paucek
• Emanuele Durante
• Francesco Orsini

A comparative analysis of human and AI performance in forensic estimation of physical attributes

• Sarah Barrington

Effects of light and noise pollution on avian communities of European cities are correlated with the species’ diet

• Federico Morelli
• Piotr Tryjanowski
• Yanina Benedetti

Sustainability transition for Indian agriculture

• Kamal Kumar Murari
• Subash Sasidharan

Sustainable education and youth confidence as pillars of future civil society

• Alberto Biancardi
• Annarita Colasante
• Idiano D’Adamo

A longitudinal experiment demonstrates that honey bee colonies managed organically are as healthy and productive as those managed conventionally

• Robyn M. Underwood
• Brooke L. Lawrence
• Margarita M. López-Uribe

An integrated analysis of air pollution and meteorological conditions in Jakarta

• Teny Handhayani

Designing plant–transparent agrivoltaics

• Eric J. Stallknecht
• Christopher K. Herrera
• Erik S. Runkle

The role of higher education and civic involvement in converting young adults' social responsibility to prosocial behavior

• Nikša Alfirević
• Maja Arslanagić-Kalajdžić

Measuring accessibility to public services and infrastructure criticality for disasters risk management

• Mersedeh Tariverdi
• Miguel Nunez-del-Prado
• Jun Rentschler

The impact of digital transformation on the total factor productivity of heavily polluting enterprises

• Yinying Wei

Countries’ vulnerability to food supply disruptions caused by the Russia–Ukraine war from a trade dependency perspective

• Zhengyang Zhang
• Meshal J. Abdullah
• Xianlai Zeng

Morpho-physiological and biochemical response of wheat to various treatments of silicon nano-particles under drought stress conditions

• Muhammad Aown Sammar Raza
• Bilal Zulfiqar
• Muhammad Habib-ur-Rahman

Measure and spatial identification of social vulnerability, exposure and risk to natural hazards in Japan using open data

• Theo Raduszynski
• Muneyoshi Numada

Political ideology and moral dilemmas in public good provision

• Laura C. Hoenig
• Ruthie Pliskin
• Carsten K. W. De Dreu

Exploring COVID-19 conspiracy theories: education, religiosity, trust in scientists, and political orientation in 26 European countries

• Piotr Jabkowski
• Jan Domaradzki
• Mariusz Baranowski

Yield, growth development and grain characteristics of seven Quinoa ( Chenopodium quinoa Willd.) genotypes grown in open-field production systems under hot-arid climatic conditions

• Mabrouka Oustani
• Smail Mehda
• Haroun Chenchouni

Effect of nutrition intervention on cognitive development among malnourished preschool children: randomized controlled trial

• Baby S. Nayak
• Suneel C. Mundkur

The impacts of mining on soil pollution with metal(loid)s in resource-rich Mongolia

• Václav Pecina
• David Juřička
• Renata Komendová

Identifying links between monsoon variability and rice production in India through machine learning

• Christopher Bowden
• Timothy Foster

A soil productivity system reveals most Brazilian agricultural lands are below their maximum potential

• Lucas T. Greschuk
• José A. M. Demattê
• Nícolas Augusto Rosin

Macroeconomic dynamics in a finite world based on thermodynamic potential

• Éric Herbert
• Gaël Giraud
• Christophe Goupil

Effects of probiotic and synbiotic supplementation on ponderal and linear growth in severely malnourished young infants in a randomized clinical trial

• Sharika Nuzhat
• S. M. Tafsir Hasan
• Tahmeed Ahmed

A hybrid deep learning framework for air quality prediction with spatial autocorrelation during the COVID-19 pandemic

• You-Gan Wang

Assessing impact of agroecological interventions in Niger through remotely sensed changes in vegetation

• Vikalp Mishra
• Ashutosh S. Limaye
• Arif Rashid

GIS-based hydrodynamic modeling for urban flood mitigation in fast-growing regions: a case study of Erbil, Kurdistan Region of Iraq

• Andam Mustafa
• Michał Szydłowski
• Hasan Mohammed Hameed

Root exudate-derived compounds stimulate the phosphorus solubilizing ability of bacteria

• Hugo A. Pantigoso
• Daniel K. Manter
• Jorge M. Vivanco

The effect of coconut coir substrate on the yield and nutritional quality of sweet peppers ( Capsicum annuum ) varieties

• Roger B. Tuckeldoe
• Mdungazi K. Maluleke
• P. Adriaanse

Food Taboo and associated factors among pregnant women attending antenatal clinics at Bahir Dar City, North West Ethiopia, 2021: cross-sectional study

• Meseret Abere
• Abebaw Gedef Azene

Sex/gender and socioeconomic differences in modifiable risk factors for dementia

• Anouk F. J. Geraets
• Anja K. Leist

Data-driven decarbonisation pathways for reducing life cycle GHG emissions from food waste in the hospitality and food service sectors

• I Kit Cheng
• Kin K. Leong

Application of image processing and transfer learning for the detection of rust disease

• Fereshteh Shahoveisi
• Hamed Taheri Gorji
• Fartash Vasefi

Feasibility of patch-type wireless 12-lead electrocardiogram in laypersons

• Sunyoung Yoon
• Won Chul Cha

Gender inequality in cum laude distinctions for PhD students

Remote sensing imagery detects hydromorphic soils hidden under agriculture system

• Fellipe A. O. Mello
• Heidy S. Rodríguez-Albarracín

Toward surface defect detection in electronics manufacturing by an accurate and lightweight YOLO-style object detector

• Jyunrong Wang
• Huafeng Dai
• Rongsheng Lu

The international role of education in sustainable lifestyles and economic development

• Xiangdan Piao
• Shunsuke Managi

Lifetime prevalence and treatment of mental disorders in Saudi youth and adolescents

• Yasmin Altwaijri
• Alan E. Kazdin
• Edward De Vol

Modelling and simulation of waste tire pyrolysis process for recovery of energy and production of valuable chemicals (BTEX)

• Ali Taghvaie Nakhjiri
• Shahin Sarkar

Nutrient supply from marine small-scale fisheries

• Daniel F. Viana
• Jessica Zamborain-Mason
• Christopher D. Golden

Metal-tolerant and siderophore producing Pseudomonas fluorescence and Trichoderma spp. improved the growth, biochemical features and yield attributes of chickpea by lowering Cd uptake

• Abdallah M. Elgorban
• Subhan Danish

Towards reducing chemical usage for weed control in agriculture using UAS imagery analysis and computer vision techniques

• Ranjan Sapkota
• John Stenger
• Paulo Flores

Railway infrastructure maintenance efficiency improvement using deep reinforcement learning integrated with digital twin based on track geometry and component defects

• Jessada Sresakoolchai
• Sakdirat Kaewunruen

Factors affecting digital technology access in vocational education

• Akhmad Habibi
• Sofyan Sofyan
• Amirul Mukminin

Growth response of kale ( Brassica oleracea ) and Nile tilapia ( Oreochromis niloticus ) under saline aqua-sandponics-vegeculture system

• Fahad Kimera
• Muziri Mugwanya
• Hani Sewilam

Young generations’ hopelessness perpetuates long-term conflicts

• Béatrice S. Hasler
• Oded A. Leshem
• Eran Halperin

Spatial and deep learning analyses of urban recovery from the impacts of COVID-19

• Shuangjin Li
• Junyi Zhang

Poverty from fetal life onward and child brain morphology

• Yuna Koyama
• Andrea P. Cortes Hidalgo
• Henning Tiemeier

Quantifying generational and geographical inequality of climate change

• Jonas Küpper
• Inga Labuhn

Protective effects of chitosan based salicylic acid nanocomposite (CS-SA NCs) in grape ( Vitis vinifera cv. ‘Sultana’) under salinity stress

• Mohammad Ali Aazami
• Maryam Maleki
• Gholamreza Gohari

A natural whitening alternative from upcycled food waste (acid whey) and underutilized grains (millet)

• Kiruba Krishnaswamy

Inclusion unlocks the creative potential of gender diversity in teams

• Balázs Vedres
• Orsolya Vásárhelyi

Designing an integrated blockchain-enabled supply chain network under uncertainty

• Ardavan Babaei
• Majid Khedmati
• Erfan Babaee Tirkolaee

Measuring the relationships between various urban green spaces and local climate zones

• Vlaďka Kirschner
• Karel Macků

Ecological sustainability and high-quality development of the Yellow River Delta in China based on the improved ecological footprint model

• Zhongyong Wei

The nature of protein intake as a discriminating factor of diet sustainability: a multi-criteria approach

• Hafsa Toujgani
• Joséphine Brunin

Diverse types of expertise in facial recognition

• Alice Towler
• James D. Dunn
• David White

Spinach ( Spinacia oleracea ) as green manure modifies the soil nutrients and microbiota structure for enhanced pepper productivity

• Ryeong-Hui Kim
• Setu Bazie Tagele
• Jae-Ho Shin

Digital twin-based multi-level task rescheduling for robotic assembly line

Lifelong nnU-Net: a framework for standardized medical continual learning

• Camila González
• Anirban Mukhopadhyay

Evaluation of end-of-life vehicle recycling system in India in responding to the sustainability paradigm: an explorative study

• Altaf Hossain Molla
• Hilal Shams
• Mohd Nizam Ab Rahman

Industrial upgrading and its influence on green land use efficiency

• Jifeng Chang

Detecting the socio-economic drivers of confidence in government with eXplainable Artificial Intelligence

• Loredana Bellantuono
• Flaviana Palmisano
• Roberto Bellotti

DTUMOS, digital twin for large-scale urban mobility operating system

• Hyeokju Yeon

Reading, singing, and storytelling: the impact of caregiver-child interaction and child access to books and preschool on early childhood development in Ghana

• Shamsudeen Mohammed
• Agani Afaya
• Alhassan Sibdow Abukari

An African perspective on the Water-Energy-Food nexus

• Gareth B. Simpson
• Graham P. W. Jewitt
• Jessica Badenhorst

Multi-objective integrated optimization study of prefabricated building projects introducing sustainable levels

• Junlong Peng
• Xiangjun Liu

A maximum entropy approach for the modelling of car-sharing parking dynamics

• Simone Daniotti
• Bernardo Monechi
• Enrico Ubaldi

Neurophysiological markers of emotion regulation predict efficacy of entrepreneurship education

• Pablo Egana-delSol
• Xiaoxiao Sun

Social media analysis reveals environmental injustices in Philadelphia urban parks

• Matthew Walter
• Benjamin E. Bagozzi
• Pinki Mondal

Assessment of nutritional status using anthropometric index among older adult and elderly population in India

• Junaid Khan
• Aparajita Chattopadhyay
• Subhojit Shaw

Biofortification of mungbean ( Vigna radiata L. (Wilczek)) with boron, zinc and iron alters its grain yield and nutrition

• Salwinder Singh Dhaliwal
• Vivek Sharma
• Akbar Hossain

The impact of small-scale green infrastructure on the affective wellbeing associated with urban sites

• Pablo Navarrete-Hernandez
• Kate Laffan

Estimating urban spatial structure based on remote sensing data

• Masanobu Kii
• Tetsuya Tamaki
• Atsuko Nonomura

Recycling micro polypropylene in modified hot asphalt mixture

• Daniela Laura Buruiana
• Puiu Lucian Georgescu
• Viorica Ghisman

Prevalence and factors associated with severe undernutrition among under-5 children in Bangladesh, Pakistan, and Nepal: a comparative study using multilevel analysis

• Mohammad Rocky Khan Chowdhury
• Md Shafiur Rahman
• Manzur Kader

Estimating excess mortality due to female genital mutilation

• Arpita Ghosh
• Heather Flowe
• James Rockey

Prediction model for the compressive strength of green concrete using cement kiln dust and fly ash

• Emad S. Bakhoum
• Arsani Amir
• Mohamed Adel

Uncovering spatial and social gaps in rural mobility via mobile phone big data

• Zhengying Liu
• Pengjun Zhao
• Tingting Kang

Genetic variation and characterization of Bambara groundnut [ Vigna subterranea (L.) verdc.] accessions under multi-environments considering yield and yield components performance

• Vincent Ishola Esan
• Grace Oluwasikemi Oke
• Timothy Oyebamiji Ogunbode

Effects of Al 2 O 3 , SiO 2 nanoparticles, and g -c 3 n 4 nanosheets on biocement production from agricultural wastes

• Essam M. Abdelsalam
• Mohamed Samer
• Yasser A. Attia

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Approximately 200 years ago, the total population of the Earth was less than one billion. According to the UN, as of 2017 the human population has reached a staggering 7.7 billion. (UN, 2015) Between 1900 and 2000, humanity saw a dramatic increase in its population from 1.5 to 6.1 billion. As the global population continues to balloon, one major issue that is looming overhead the human species is overpopulation. By 2050 the world population will reach to 10 billion people; […]

Sustainability, Starting with Businesses

Sustainability is the ball to the Earths chain, it is something that we need to help humanity, along with every other creature on this planet, survive and also protect the Earth. Sustainability is where Humans can sustain themselves without harming the planet, or at least have the biggest effect on the planet than Earth herself. There are ways that we, as a whole, can change to help reduce the carbon footprint that we so greatly have increased over the years. […]

Sustainability in Water Supply

The theory of water's origin may be debated, but the versatility of water is recognized as vital to human life. Innumerable theories have been proposed about how water was acquired on the earth's surface over the last 4.6 billion years (Robert, "The Origin of Water on Earth," 2001). The significance of water extends beyond everyday survival, serving as an environmental lifeline for numerous species and habitats. Water provides humans with the opportunity to maintain balanced health, support agricultural labor, and […]

Globalization and Automation

Introduction Globalization and Automation are referred to as two megatrends which are influencing the workers' job in industrialized countries. Both types of workers such as blue collar and white collar workers are influenced by it, however, the impact on white collar workers is higher as millions of laborers are being migrated from one country to other for getting jobs. The migration of workers has assisted the countries to eliminate the poverty in developing countries. The globalization and automation also assisted […]

The Sustainability of Bottled Water

Water is a valuable resource that all living things including human beings require in order to survive. It is believed that the realities of the environment will soon hit us to an extent of making us change the behavior regarding the costly use of resources (Earle, 2009). The changes are most likely going to affect the manner in which we use water and hence cause alterations both in quantity and water usage. Privatization of water resources as well as selling […]

Foreign Aid and Micro-entrepreneurship Microfinance Sustainability and Complementary Programs

Cross-borrowing enables clients to collect more money from various institutions without close inspection, and the number of applicants for microfinance has rocketed due to cross-borrowing. This has caused new problems for the microfinance sector. The purpose of achieving self-financial sustainability did not have a positive outcome. Because of the poor portfolios of the clients, MFIs could not demand repayment of the debts from the borrowers. Cross-borrowing also deteriorated the financial situation of the poor and trapped them in the cycle […]

Factors Influencing Sustainability of Electronic Manufacturing Company in Laguna

The 5S program is a technique originated in Japan and was introduced by Takashi Osada in 1980. 5S is consist of five phases from Japanese words: Seiri (sort), Seiton (set in order), Seiso (shine), Seiketso (standardize) and Shitsuke (sustain). 5S is a step by step process of housekeeping to achieve a safe, clean and organized environment in the work area involving the employees with a commitment to sincerely implement and practice housekeeping. When the workplace is unorganized and dirty, the […]

What is Sustainability in Business?

The first aspect business looks when thinking about sustainability is the operational aspect and saving cost as it is easy to measure.Most of the resource we are using are non-renewable resources,from our energy need to the consumption of oil.But all these resources are bound to get over in the future.There is a term called peak oil,after which production of oil reduces due to reduce reserves.There is already an alert for helium gas which is used in many areas like filling […]

Overpopulation and Climate Change

In the article Overpopulation and Climate Change Arthur H. Westing tells us that the in 1970, the greenhouse gas emission was beyond the sustainability level of the atmosphere and at that time the worlds population was 3.7 million and today it is 6.9 million. In the mean time emission from fossil fuel increased from 14 billion tons to 29 billion tons. Despite the growing awareness of climate change. In the article, Arthur H. Westing gives us the idea to divide […]

JOR Study on the Emerging Trend of Green-Banking and Environment-Sustainability through PSBSIN India

ABSTRACT The problem related to the environment, the maintenance of ecological balance and environmental-sustainability have become topics of debate throughout the world. Both organizations and consumers have understood the importance of the environment for the survival of human beings. The banking sector plays an important role in the economic growth of a nation. Given that public sectors banks (PSBs) are among one of the main sources of financing for commercial projects, they can play an important role in promoting environmental-sustainability […]

Sustainability Community Engagement and Diversity Inclusion Review BA

Introduction: Southern Company is an energy holding company that produces and sells electricity through various southern power subsidiaries. It's headquarters is located in Atlanta, GA and the company has been a part of the Fortune 500 list for 24 years. It's current rank is 126, up 19 spots from its ranking in 2017. The CEO is Thomas A. Fanning and he is in charge of 31,344 employees. Southern Company operates 11 regulated utilities serving an estimated 9 million people in […]

Managing Sustainability Development

Executive summary Sustainable development practices for any organization have to be informed by the goals of the company. For Vodafone Company in New Zealand, the goals of the company are to produce quality cell phones, conserve the environment and encourage young people to work hard and be responsible citizens. The project will be undertaken to evaluate how the company can improve efficiency in operations and at the same time maintain the profit margin as it stands. The company is thus […]

Ethics, Sustainability and CSR

The article by Julia Wolf on stakeholder pressure explores the relationship between supply chain management and sustainable corporate performance, taking a critical look at the Nestle campaign in relation to these factors. The article examines supply chain management and the influence of external forces. It also discusses the relationship between supply chain control and stakeholders' perceptions of an organization. It highlights how stakeholder pressure and supply chain management contribute towards achieving sustainable performance (Wolf, 2013). The paper covers several theories, […]

Milton Friedmen and CSR

Social responsibility can be viewed as a vital aspect of people's lives across the globe. Lately, it has also become one of the major increasing concerns in the business world. As a result, interactions between businesses, society, and government have greatly developed. In addition, the standard view of a business's social responsibility holds that it should involve actions that maximize its profit according to Milton Friedman. Contrasting to this view is the socioeconomic outlook of social responsibility which believes that […]

Sustainability in Focus: the Evolution of Waste Management in Augusta

The city of Augusta, known for its rich history and the iconic Augusta National Golf Club, faces a challenge common to many growing urban areas: effective waste management. As populations grow and urban landscapes expand, cities like Augusta must adapt and evolve their waste disposal strategies to meet the increasing demands while also addressing environmental concerns. This essay explores the multifaceted approach of Augusta's waste management system, examining its current practices, the challenges it faces, and the strides being made […]

Sustainability of Excessive Consumption: Untangling the Web of Excesses

As a brain scientist with a penchant for unraveling the intricacies of human behavior, the concept of overconsumption emerges as a captivating subject. In delving into the realm of overconsumption, we embark on a journey through the neural pathways that govern our desires, societal norms that shape our consumption patterns, and the environmental ramifications of our insatiable appetites. At its core, overconsumption is more than a mere imbalance between wants and needs; it represents a complex interplay of psychological, cultural, […]

An Important Role of Globalization

Recently, globalization has played an important role in the national market economies of various countries. It not only enhances economic integration but also motivates trade liberalization. However, many debates still exist regarding the "side effects" of globalization on the development of countries. Therefore, globalization is a controversial issue that consistently receives significant attention from governments around the world. Firstly, according to Chernotsky & Hobbs (2018), globalization is defined as a political, economic, and cultural exchange among nations that enhances trade […]

Water Pollution in China

The challenge of rising water pollution in China poses a huge threat to existing water bodies that greatly benefit indigenous people, industries, and government. This water pollution was the result of effluents from large industrial areas, which drained the chemicals of rivers and other related streams. The escalating impasse of China's water pollution requires quick and practical measures aimed at protecting a few uncontaminated water bodies and stopping further pollution of those already polluted. These efforts will help protect aquatic […]

About the Walt Disney Company

From its 1923 beginnings in animation to the magical resorts today, The Walt Disney Company, or simply Disney, is an international icon where "imagination has no age" (Disney, 2018; Perez, 2013, para. 15). Disney and its subsidiaries comprise cruise lines, media networks, studio entertainment, streaming services, and world-renowned theme parks in 45 countries (Disney, 2018). The Walt Disney Company employs nearly 200,000 employees around the globe, as well as an executive team and board of directors at its headquarters in […]

Climate Change: Environmental Protection Agency

Global warming, often referred to as climate change is used to describe the rise in average surface temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and its oceans, a change that is believed to be permanently changing the Earth's climate. There is a great debate amongst many as to whether global warming is real( some call it a hoax). There is a broad-based agreement within the scientific community that climate change is real. The U.S Environmental Protection Agency, the National Aeronautics and Space […]

The Theory of Planned Behavior

The natural environment in Iran faces severe threats such as desertification, degradation of forests and rangelands, land use change, declining groundwater table, landslides, etc. (Geravandi et al., 2012; Ravanbakhsh Sangjoei, 2013; Mesgaran et al., 2017). Ecological pressure in agricultural production spaces, frequent use of land, inappropriate and destructive use of water resources, and reduction of the efficiency of the underlying factors of production (water and land) are all signs of agricultural instability in Iran (Afrakhteh et al., 2013). Based on […]

Implementation of the Environmental Disclosure Requirement in Australian Service Industry

The issue of environmental conservation has been a primary subject in many countries across the world. Concerns raised in respect to the subject often stem from the negative effects environmental pollution has demonstrated worldwide. Over the previous decades, a wealth of literature has surfaced from the social accounting sector, indicating a continuous growth in the extent of social disclosure appearing in corporate annual reports. Specifically, the level of environmental disclosures has consistently increased compared to past decades. In Australia, for […]

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The Top 30 Global Sustainability Research Papers in 2019

In 2019, record-high global temperatures and climate change took central stage in global news headlines, culminating with a declaration from more than 11,000 scientists from around the world that a climate emergency exists on Earth. This declaration got people talking on social media and in the news, more so than any other scientific publication in 2019.

Altmetric annually ranks the 100 scientific papers that glean the most media attention as a simple measure of what sparks public interest. In 2019, they examined over 62 million media mentions of 2.7 million research articles. The altmetric score does not measure the calibre of the research or researcher.

At Future Earth, we used the list to identify the top 30 global sustainability articles. We were guided by the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), which recognize that eradicating poverty in all its forms and dimensions, combating inequality within and among countries, preserving the planet, creating sustained, inclusive and sustainable economic growth, and fostering social inclusion are linked to each other and are interdependent.

Taking a closer look at the top five, the rising threat posed by climate change (SDG 13) was a central concern in 2019 as reflected by this year’s top two papers. The health of our oceans (SDG 14) and global terrestrial biodiversity (SDG 15) also find their way into the top five, with the third ranked paper discussing increasing vulnerability to sea level rise and coastal flooding, while the fourth ranked paper examines the potential of global reforestation to mitigate the effects of climate change. Rounding out the top five, a global study between 1990-2017 analyzed the health effects linked to dietary risks (SDG 3). Together, these papers reflect the many connections among natural and human systems by highlighting just how important the life supporting SDGs (6, 13, 14, and 15) are to supporting healthy, equitable, and sustainable livelihoods on Earth.

Of the top 30, nearly half of the global sustainability articles are concerned with climate change, with another third related to health, nutrition, and climate. Papers discussing biodiversity and plastics also make their way onto the list.

Read on for the full top 30 of 2019 and see earlier lists here (January – April 2019 ), here (May – August 2019 ) and here (2018 in review) .

The top 30 global sustainability articles in 2019, by Altmetric score:

• World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency (November 2019) BioScience . Altmetric score: 10,966
• Climate tipping points too risky to bet against (November 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 8556
• New elevation data triple estimates of global vulnerability to sea-level rise and coastal flooding (October 2019) Nature Communications . Altmetric score: 7,135
• The global tree restoration potential (July 2019) Science . Altmetric score: 6,356
• Health effects of dietary risks in 195 countries, 1990–2017: a systematic analysis for the Global Burden of Disease Study 2017 (April 2019) The Lancet . Altmetric score: 5,868
• Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers (April 2019) Biological Conservation . Altmetric score: 5,438
• Food in the Anthropocene: the EAT-Lancet Commission on healthy diets from sustainable foods (February 2019) The Lancet . Altmetric score: 4,561
• Committed emissions from existing energy infrastructure jeopardize 1.5°C climate target (August 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 4,434
• Concerns of young protesters are justified (April 2019) Science . Altmetric score: 4,349
• Global warming impairs stock-recruitment dynamics of corals (April 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 4,121
• Eat less meat: UN climate-change report calls for change to human diet (August 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 3,861
• No evidence for globally coherent warm and cold periods over the preindustrial Common Era (July 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 3,898
• Decline of the North American avifauna (October 2019) Science . Altmetric score: 3,368
• Earth system impacts of the European arrival and the Great Dying in the Americas after 1492 (March 2019) Quaternary Science Reviews . Altmetric score: 3,290
• Spending at least 120 minutes in a week in nature is associated with good health and wellbeing (June 2019) Scientific Reports . Altmetric score: 3,249
• Permafrost collapse is accelerating carbon release (April 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 3,014
• The Global Syndemic of Obesity, Undernutrition, and Climate Change: The Lancet Commission Report (February 2019) The Lancet . Altmetric score: 2,973
• How fast are the oceans warming? (January 2019) Science . Altmetric score: 2,882
• Acceleration of ice loss across the Himalayas over the past 40 years (June 2019) Science Advances . Altmetric score: 2,767
• The 2019 report of the Lancet Countdown on health and climate change: ensuring that the health of a child born today is not defined by climate change (November 2019) The Lancet . Altmetric score: 2,752
• 40 years ago, scientists predicted climate change. And hey, they were right (July 2019) The Conversation . Altmetric score: 2,724
• Ice sheet contributions to future sea level rise from structured expert judgment (May 2019) PNAS . Altmetric score: 2,620
• Dissecting racial bias in an algorithm used to manage the health of populations (October 2019) Science . Altmetric score: 2,584.
• International humanitarian norms are violated in Hong Kong (December 2019) The Lancet . Altmetric score: 2,538
• Four decades of Antarctic Ice Sheet mass balance from 1979-2017 (January 2019) PNAS . Altmetric score: 2,494
• Urban Nature Experiences Reduce Stress in the Context of Daily Life Based on Salivary Biomarkers (April 2019) Frontiers in Psychology . Altmetric score: 2,312
• Plastic Teabags Release Billions of Microparticles and Nanoparticles into Tea (September 2019) Environmental Science and Technology . Altmetric score: 2,305
• White and wonderful? Microplastics prevail in snow from the Alps to the Arctic (August 2019) Science Advances . Altmetric score: 2,253
• Arthropod decline in grasslands and forests is associated with landscape-level drivers (October 2019) Nature . Altmetric score: 2,240
• Nudging out support for a carbon tax (May 2019) Nature Climate Change . Altmetric score: 2,190

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80 sustainability research topics for students to explore green campus issues

You’re planning your thesis, paper or capstone? You want to do a student research project with impact. We have outlined a range of sustainability research topics for you. The list specifically focuses on how to green your campus . Take action to make your university more sustainable!

Our list of sustainability research topics helps students investigate green campus issues.

Sustainability research topics: Education

Some sustainability research topics on education for sustainable development :

• What are the strengths and weaknesses of different definitions of sustainability education? Which definition could your university adopt?
• To what extent is sustainability education already implemented in the curriculum of your university?
• What are the strengths and limitations of advancing sustainability education within your curriculum?
• Where does your university stand with regards to sustainability education compared to other institutions of higher education?
• What is the demand among students for more, different or better sustainability education?
• How can existing sustainability projects on campus be used for educational purposes, e.g. visit solar cells on rooftops as part of engineering classes?

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• What definition of sustainability research should your university embrace?
• To what extent is sustainability research already practised at your university?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of the institution’s sustainability research portfolio compared to other institutions of higher education?
• What are the drivers of and barriers to sustainability research at your university?
• How could sustainability research help students to study sustainability issues on campus and inform practical change projects?
• What are the opportunities and costs associated with promoting sustainability research? What could a plan of action look like to strategically advance it?

Some sustainability research topics on community engagement and awareness:

• What are the perceptions of and attitudes towards sustainability by students and staff?
• What are ways to promote sustainable lifestyles among students?
• To what extent are students and staff aware of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) ?
• How aware are students and staff about the institution’s sustainability ambitions?
• What are the benefits and disadvantages of approaches to communicate the university’s sustainability efforts better?
• What are the challenges to involve students and staff in the university’s sustainability efforts?
• Which ways to increase the engagement of the campus community exist, for example by organising sustainability events ?

For inspiration, read our post on 10 projects to engage students on the SDGs .

Explore sustainability topics for research papers on different issues related to greening campus operations:

• What are the opportunities and costs of improving the building insulations to save energy?
• What lighting systems exist on the market that are more energy efficient?
• What would a business case look like to install a new lighting system?
• Where are the main consumers of energy on campus?
• What innovative energy technologies are developed at the institution itself? To what extent could those be directly installed and tested in buildings?
• What lux values are sufficient for work and study places so that places are appropriately lit without wasting too much electricity?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of different sustainable building standards?
• Which building standards would be most appropriate to inform the institution’s sustainable building policy?
• What are the costs and benefits associated with different types of green roofs?
• On which buildings could green roofs be installed?
• To what extent are catering and food products certified as organic or fair trade food?
• How much and why do students attach importance to organic and fair trade products sold in the cafeteria?
• How can students and employees be made more aware of the multiple benefits – e.g. health, environment, economics – of sustainable (organic, fair trade, local) food ?
• How much are students willing to pay for more organic or fair trade products?
• What types and amounts of waste are produced by whom and where at the institution?
• How did waste streams develop over the last years?
• What are innovative practices in reducing waste going to landfill or incineration? How could those be applied?
• What are the costs and benefits associated with waste recycling ?
• What options exist to switch from paper-based to more digital forms of working and studying to reduce paper consumption?
• What are the environmental, economic, and social benefits and disadvantages of different options to advance more digital working and studying?

More sustainability research topics on campus operations:

Biodiversity

• What species live at different campus locations?
• To what extent do students, faculty and staff value this biodiversity?
• What are ways to enhance biodiversity on campus?

Greenhouse-gase (GHG)

• What are the pros and cons of different GHG accounting standards?
• Which standard should the institution use to develop a GHG emissions inventory ?
• Where are GHG emissions released at the institution?
• How big is the institution’s GHG footprint?

Procurement

• What does sustainable procurement mean in the context of a university?
• How is procurement currently organised? To what extent are sustainability criteria already applied in tenders?
• To what extent could the university implement sustainability criteria that go beyond the legal minimum to advance the environmental, economic and social benefits of tenders?
• What are the largest consumers of water?
• What is the direct and indirect water-footprint of the institution?
• What are opportunities and costs to reduce water usage?

Transportation and mobility

• How do students and staff currently travel to the university and as part of their study or work?
• What is the environmental impact of these travel behaviours? How could the impact be reduced?
• What best practices exist among companies and other institutions of higher education to reduce staff travel or incentivize different travel behaviours?

Behaviour change

• What is the potential to reduce resource consumption through behaviour change?
• What are the best practices of behaviour change interventions at institutions of higher education?
• To what extent could these projects be also applied at your university?

Sustainability research topics on governance, strategy and reporting

Sustainability research topics on governance issues:

• What does sustainability mean for institutions of higher education?
• How does a comprehensive concept of a sustainable institution of higher education look like?
• How could the university’s long-term sustainability vision look like? How could this vision be realized through a roadmap?
• What are innovative ways to develop sustainability strategies for a university through a bottom-up approach?
• What ethical imperatives would demand that institutions of higher education care for their impact on the planet, people and profit?
• What are the responsibilities of institutions of higher education to contribute to global challenges, such as poverty, gender inequality, and climate change?

Monitoring and reporting

• What data is important to monitor the institution’s environmental impact? How can this data be collected and analysed?
• What are the advantages and disadvantages of different sustainability reporting standards?
• Which sustainability reporting standards should the university adhere to?
• What are efficient ways to organize sustainability reporting within the organization?
• What is the best way to communicate results among students, staff and outside actors?
• What are the strengths and weaknesses of different methodologies (e.g. payback or Net Present Value) to calculate the financial costs and benefits of sustainability investments?
• Which methodology should the institution apply?
• To what extent could sustainability projects be financed through a revolving loan fund?
• What are the possibilities to involve outside organizations through energy contracting?
• What subsidies are available at the European, national and city level to develop a green campus?
• How could the university use these financing options to advance its energy transition?
• What are approaches to integrate negative externalities into the accounting schemes of the university?
• What would be the opportunities, benefits and risks associated with establishing an energy company that’s owned by the university?
• What are the best practices to finance energy efficiency and renewable energy projects at public institutions around the world?
• How can incentive schemes be changed so that energy end-users directly benefit from reductions in energy usage?

We hope this list inspired you to find a sustainability topic for research papers.

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74 Corporate Sustainability Essay Topic Ideas & Examples

🏆 best corporate sustainability topic ideas & essay examples, 👍 interesting topics to write about corporate sustainability, 📝 good essay topics on corporate sustainability.

• Nike Company’s Governance and Sustainability The move has enabled the company to develop innovative shoe designs that are in high demand in the market. The overall goal is to come up with innovative procedures that can improve Nike’s competitive edge […]
• Toyota Motor Corporation’s Sustainability With regards to Toyota Motor Corp, the company identified hundreds of substances and chemicals that the suppliers must not use in their manufacturing process. We will write a custom essay specifically for you by our professional experts 808 writers online Learn More
• The Nestle Company’s Environmental Sustainability Efforts What I like about Nestle’s environmental sustainability efforts: Nestle’s environmental sustainability efforts are concise and clear towards the company’s sustainability plans, that is, clear goals and objectives which are time bound. The company’s sustainability efforts […]
• Starbucks’ Corporate Sustainability Starbucks is a suitable company to be used in the study of corporate sustainability due to its policies and practices on the topic.
• Corporate Sustainability by Jonathan Atwood The main objective of this move is to mitigate the problem of shortages of natural resources such as water, oil, animal-based resources, and coal among others, and promote healthy living and avoid extreme weather for […]
• Zara Company’s Sustainability and Innovation For instance, when the authors describe the success of the Zara model, they attribute it not only to innovation, but also to observation of standards and operating on low cost. The firm should be cautious […]
• Environmental Sustainability Audit: The Oman Environmental Services Holding Company The government used to handle the task of waste management in the Sultanate but with the establishment and legalization of Be’ah, the task of such is delegated to the said company.
• Emirates NBD Bank’s Corporate Sustainability Due to the awareness of the importance of the customers’ time and the tight connection between the length of wait and the level of customer satisfaction, Emirates NBD can secure and maintain its position as […]
• Corporate Sustainability Worldview and Tax Avoidance This proposal introduces the plan of a research project devoted to the association between a company’s adherence to corporate sustainability reporting and tax avoidance trends. Define and research the concept of corporate sustainability reporting within […]
• Corporate Sustainability in Muslim Economies Study by Khattak Therefore, Khattak proposes to analyze the role of institutional quality as the mediator of a causal link between sustainable behavior and financial performance.
• Ethical Sustainability of 3M Company The management, who immediately responds to the complaints of their female employees in an emphatic manner and makes sure that the offenders receive punishment, develops a bond between themselves and the staff.
• Potential Impact of Sustainability on Corporate Financial Performance The Emirates Global Aliminium remains one of the biggest companies in the UAE that are not part of the oil and gas industry.
• Kimberly-Clark Corporation’s Sustainability Goals The plastic film material used to package a lot of Kimberly-Clark’s products is the primary source of landfill waste originating in the company.
• The Law and Application of Corporate Sustainability in Saudi Arabia The concept of corporate sustainability is escalating in Saudi Arabia. The researcher will review available literature to obtain preliminary information on the law and application of corporate sustainability in Saudi Arabia.
• Amanco Company: Sustainability Scorecard The formulation of the ‘Triple Bottom Line’ scorecard in Amanco was done at the corporate level, but the stakeholders are not shown to have been involved in any part of the formulation.
• Volkswagen Company’s Sustainability and Governance The most relevant theory, in this case, is corporate social responsibility which embodies the care for stakeholders and reveals the complexity of interrelations between society and a corporation.
• Corporate Sustainability, Communication, and Ethics The article fails to demonstrate the shortcomings of sustainability to the corporate world in terms of cost. The author offers a triangulation of both theory and practice to interpret a situation in the organization.
• Infosys Company’s Outsourcing and Sustainability Outsourcing helps to gain access to a market of highly talented individuals that are striving to achieve a career, thus dedicating time and effort to the company’s project.
• Nokia Company’s Sustainability in Competitive Market To this end, the research will highlight the context of the research, the purpose of the research, relevance of the study, research areas, and structure of the proposal.
• Business Ethics: Managing Corporate Citizenship and Sustainability What is the main conclusion of this text? What are the strengths of the argument presented in this text?
• The Abu Dhabi Police Corporate Sustainability The influence of some external factors is present; nevertheless, the internal structure of this organization and the principles of its functioning primarily influence the nature of any changes that are being implemented and how these […]
• Business Sustainability in the Corporate World Third, both the environmental and social enhancements usually result in the increased productivity and efficiency of the operations, and, in the long run, decrease the amount of the required resources.
• Corporate Sustainability Management in Australia Therefore, the report analyzes the urban situation, community attitudes to the environmental state of the urban area, resource management, policy development, and recommends probable solutions The findings entail the urban form in Australia, community attitudes, […]
• Starbucks Corporation Sustainability Practices The company has encouraged various sustainability practices in order to reduce the impacts of its operations on the environment. The company has continued to champion the best ideas and practices towards a sustainable environment.
• Procter & Gamble Company Sustainability The Procter & Gamble Company attempts to reduce the impact of their activities on the environment. Furthermore, they encourage clients to speak about possible problems, because, in this way, the corporation can improve the quality […]
• Westpac Company’s Sustainability Journey In 2010, the organization announced the expansion of the sustainability program to bring on board other cities such as Redfern and Waterloo.
• Corporate Sustainability Management: Toyota Australia The main strategies, which should be implemented within the company, are the development of the sustainable car design with references to using materials that are more efficient; the improvement of a supply chain; the focus […]
• Corporate Philanthropy and Business Sustainability It may also be targeting the environment in which the organization operates through the improvement of the natural resources of the area that the organization operates in.primarily, corporate philanthropy can be undertaken through various means, […]
• Sustainability Strategies Employed at the Coca-Cola Company Corporate social responsibility is also a major part of the sustainable programs that the Coca-Cola Company tried to work out with the community that they are in.
• Sustainability in Canada and the Impact of Coca-Cola Company on Environmental Protection This paper is an in-depth analysis of sustainability in Canada and the impact of the Coca-Cola Company on environmental protection. In addition to this, the Canadian government has established the Canadian Environmental Sustainability Indicators, which […]
• Assouplir Company’s Sustainability Plan The main aim of undertaking this process is that it enhances the experiences of the guests and also drives the value of the company.
• Business Sustainability CSR, Corporate Objectives, and Strategic Intent CSR is achieved by ensuring sustainability of all the three aspects of a business. However, the economical aspect of a business is highly likely to be ignored.
• Wells Fargo Company, Its Profitability, Sustainability and Moving Forward The company has been ranked as the 41st in relation to revenue in the United States. The other weakness of the company is in relation to bad mortgages.
• Google Company Future Sustainability This growth prompted the company’s founders to redefine the company’s mission and goals because there was a strong need for the company to stay true to its initial mission and goal, as opposed to fragmenting […]
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• Corporate Sustainability Reporting: Opportunities and Challenges in a Post-transition Country
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• Corporate Sustainability Reporting Practices in India: Myth or Reality
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• The Link Between Corporate Sustainability and Managerial Competencies
• Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility: Creating Business, Society, and the Environment Value
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• Relationship Between Business Model Innovation, Corporate Sustainability, and Organisational Values
• Holonic Crisis Handling Model for Corporate Sustainability
• How the Market Value Corporates Sustainability Performance
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• Managing Corporate Sustainability With a Paradoxical Lens: Lessons From Strategic Agility
• Measuring Corporate Sustainability and Environmental, Social, and Corporate Governance Value Added
• Organizational Change and Corporate Sustainability in an Economic Crisis
• Planetary Boundaries: Ecological Foundations for Corporate Sustainability
• The Business Case for Corporate Sustainability: Literature Review and Research Options
• The Relationships Between Corporate Greening and Corporate Sustainability
• The Opportunities and Challenges for a General Definition of Corporate Sustainability
• Toward Moral Responsibility Theories of Corporate Sustainability and Sustainable Supply Chain
• Triple Bottom Line Reporting on Corporate Sustainability
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• Welfare and Capital-Theoretic Foundations of Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Sustainability
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187 Sustainability Topics For Research Papers In 2023

If you are a student of environmental science or even technology, sustainability is a very important topic for your research papers. These topics help you study the impact of mankind on the environment and different options that are available to prevent further deterioration of the planet. There is a lot of scope for research on this subject, making it one of the most common topics for dissertation or thesis writing. Here is a list of some of the best environmental sustainability research topics that will help you get started on your research paper and project.

The topics below are practical and easy because you can find a lot of information about them. Whether you are writing an informative or argumentative paper, these topics are the perfect starting point for you.

Environmental Sustainability Research Topics

These sustainability research topics are suitable for in-depth data and analysis. They are ideal for lengthy writing assignments.

• Draw a comparison between different non-profit groups that are dedicated to improving sustainability.
• Can custom sustainable designs for classrooms improve learning?
• Is adding better natural lighting a sustainable way of saving on energy costs in large organizations?
• What are the different technological innovations that are focused on reducing environmental pollution?
• Does veganism help protect the environment?
• Are hand dryers instead of paper towels a good idea for public restrooms?
• How is pollution related to a country’s GDP?
• Why do developing nations find it difficult to start recycling programs?
• What are some political challenges that the environment faces globally?
• Is American politics affecting the environment?
• What are the benefits of choosing a vegan diet?
• Do developed countries have the responsibility of helping third-world nations become more sustainable?
• Are your current local environmental policies effective enough?
• Should high schools and colleges ban the use of plastic?
• How does food consumption affect the environment?
• Why is Sweden so different from other countries when it comes to protecting the environment?
• What are some technological advancements that help us reduce waste?
• Why have we failed to reduce food wastage across the globe?
• Is better recycling technology the solution to reducing waste in landfills?
• How are plastic straws a threat to the environment of the Earth?
• Can increased taxes items meant for single-use reduce waste from piling up in landfills?
• Why do some states succeed in banning plastic bags while others fail?
• How is overpopulation related to pollution?
• In the next fifty years, how will the population impact the environment?
• Do we have enough natural resources to support the exploding population across the globe?
• What role does the government play in improving food resources?

Easy Sustainability Topics For Research

These sustainability topics for research are commonly used by students because they are practical in terms of research and the availability of data.

• Is banning plastic a suitable solution to reduce environmental pollution?
• What are the options available to make cutlery sustainable?
• Should metros ban the use of plastic straws completely?
• Why is our ecosystem so dependent on sea life?
• Does any carbon footprint come from farm animals and how?
• Why is it the need of the hour to prevent waste from being dumped into oceans?
• How does getting fair-trade certificates to benefit university campuses?
• Why should we increase the consumption of local produce?
• How does supporting local businesses improve sustainability?
• Should food donation programs be imposed in cities?
• How has the emergence of farmers’ markets helped various communities?
• Is buffet-style dining beneficial or harmful for efforts toward sustainability?
• How can taxes be used to improve sustainability efforts?
• How can leftovers from hotels and restaurants be disposed of sustainably?
• What are the various benefits of food programs for the community?
• Explain the process of growing vegan produce and its effect on the environment
• How have sustainability efforts been affected globally as a result of the pandemic?
• Is zero-waste living ideal?
• What does sustainability mean in the 21st century?
• How is supporting local food markets sustainable?
• How does the greenhouse effect change as a result of less meat consumption?
• Does eating red meat improve the quality of the air?
• What are some benefits of switching to a plant-based diet?
• Should school cafeterias increase the options for vegan food?
• How do slaughterhouses impact the environment negatively?
• What if all restaurants switched to buffet-style meals?

Best Sustainability Topics For Research Papers

Looking for sustainability topics for research that can ensure better grades. Here is a list of some of the best topics on sustainability that you can choose from.

• Give a detailed plan for a sustainable restaurant.
• Why do large cities struggle with reducing air pollution?
• Should cities make it mandatory to reduce food waste in community gardens?
• What are some of the primary benefits of improving public transportation systems?
• Should rainwater harvesting become compulsory for large buildings?
• Has technology benefited or harmed the environment?
• Will reducing our dependence on technology help sustain the environment?
• Are smaller classrooms beneficial or harmful to the environment?
• How has the pandemic affected the environment positively?
• What is the negative impact of the pandemic on the environment?
• Can reducing the number of school days improve sustainability efforts?
• How do school campuses contribute to environmental deterioration? How can it be reduced?
• What are the best ways to teach children about non-renewable and renewable resources?
• What are some immediate changes that you can make in your life to become more sustainable?
• Create a detailed sustainability plan for your family
• Can maintaining a constant temperature at home reduce energy costs? Support your argument with data.
• Chart out a detailed zero-waste living plan that can be implemented easily.
• What is the relationship between community health and the environment?
• Case studies of the impact of pollution on the health of people.
• How do developing nations improve their access to water resources?
• Can government policies truly help the environment?
• Will creating better public spaces like riverbeds and parks improve sustainability?
• What are some measures that can be used to improve access to clean water in developing nations?
• What are some measures taken by Denmark to reduce food waste?
• Discuss Sweden’s efforts to use waste for heating and energy.
• How can we reduce pollution and improve the quality of care at the same time?

Environmental Research Topics for College Students

These sustainability topics for research papers are perfect for college students as they are most relevant and extremely interesting as well.

• What are the best ways to deal with medical waste?
• How has awareness about recycling improved sustainability efforts?
• Is global warming false as some world leaders claim?
• What are some ecological challenges that the US will face in the coming decades?
• Will green universities improve students’ mental health?
• How can growing your food help in improving sustainability?
• What are the best measures that communities can take to prevent waste
• What are the best ways to use landscaping sustainably?
• Is gardening around the house a good way of improving the quality of air amidst growing pollution rates?
• Should fireworks be banned?
• How can we raise cattle sustainably?
• How is the fashion industry impacting the environment?
• Discuss the importance of sustainable fashion in the world we live in.
• How can community gardens help cities become more sustainable?
• How can you measure the success of a smart city by the well-being of its inhabitants?
• What are smart cities? Can you provide examples?
• How can digitization be used to pursue a sustainability agenda?
• What are the various ecological dimensions of sustainability?
• Should governments provide more grants for research on sustainability?
• Discuss some sustainable measures that we can learn from our ancestors.
• What is the impact of America’s withdrawal from the Paris Climate Agreement?
• What are the Paris Climate Agreement and its important terms?
• How can changing policies from a macro level to a micro level improve sustainability efforts?
• What are the best measures taken by the UN to improve sustainability?
• Greta Thunberg: The poster child of climate change or a publicity stunt?
• The most impactful environmentalists over the last decade.

Sustainability Topics for All Levels

These sustainability research paper topics are perfect for you whether you are writing a high school paper or a college paper. They are versatile and easy to compile.

• How will our carbon footprint impact the generations to come?
• What are the different types of sustainability?
• What does sustainability education mean?
• How can your school or college improve its regulations to make the campus sustainable?
• Are there any sustainability programs that have been implemented in your school or college?
• Do solar panels on buildings help reduce energy costs?
• What are the benefits of including sustainability education in the school curriculum?
• How does non-plastic waste in the oceans impact the environment?
• How to prevent the greenhouse effect from agriculture?
• Should governments support and invest in more solar technologies?
• How can a home become energy efficient with solar energy?
• How does an improved ventilation system improve sustainability?
• What are the measures taken by modern schools and colleges in improving sustainability?
• How can modern classrooms make use of natural light for better sustainability?
• How can we save on energy by setting systems off when they are still idle.
• What are the various benefits of changing classroom timings to optimize the use of natural lighting?
• Is it possible to apply a game theory to manage challenges with sustainability?
• What is the difference between biocapacity and carbon footprint in various regions?
• What are some challenges faced by companies when it comes to conserving energy?
• Can you name some environmental groups that have been most effective in cleaning up plastic from the oceans and how they have achieved their goals?
• What are some positive effects of reducing computer screen brightness?
• Name some countries with the poorest environmental laws?
• A case study of the most sustainable nations in the world.
• The effect of plastic on the environment in detail.
• What are some effective measures of saving water?
• A study of oil spills and their effect on marine life over the last decade.

Environmental Project Topics

Have an environmental sustainability topic due? This sustainability topics list is all you need to present projects that grab the attention of your audience.

• What are some barriers and drivers of sustainability research?
• How does on-campus sustainable research help increase practical solutions for environmental sustainability?
• Provide a business case to install new lighting systems
• What are some lighting systems available today that are most sustainable?
• Needs luxury led to an unsustainable environment?
• What are the benefits of using electric cars?
• The most impactful evidence to prove that global warming is real.
• Do political agendas suppress sustainability efforts? How?
• What are some of the major threats of climate change?
• The importance of teaching children about sustainability
• What are some of the most common examples of wasteful living that you see around you?
• The relationship between undernutrition, obesity, and climate change.
• Why has ice loss across the Himalayas become rapid over the last 40 years?
• How quickly are we depleting natural resources?
• How does the medical industry contribute to global warming?
• What is the Lancet Countdown on climate change and health?
• Does climate change impact the health of newborn children?
• How has industrialization helped and harmed the environment?
• The use of heating and cooling systems and their impact on the environment.
• The harmful impact of the film industry on the environment
• Celebrities who have successfully endorsed anti-climate change campaigns
• KFC and the Amazon Rainforests: What was the chaos about?
• How has the fast-food industry impacted the environment?
• The contribution of the aviation industry toward global warming
• What is a carbon tax and how can it help improve efforts towards sustainability?
• Write about the development of waste streams over the last few decades.
• Are newspapers viable in times of sustainability?
• The importance of enhancing biodiversity to reduce environmental deterioration.
• Can improving safety regulations for cyclists contribute to sustainability?
• What are some of the most sustainable multi-national companies? Discuss their strategies.

Sustainable Development Topics

Development is a very important topic for research paper writing for students of environmental studies. Here are some sustainability topics for research related to development to help you get started.

• How has economic globalization impacted the environment?
• What is the relationship between autocracy, democracy, wars, and natural resources?
• How does a finite environmental capacity impact political and economic development?
• Changing human behavior and the use of natural resources.
• Adaptation and mitigation policies to solve environmental issues.
• The difference between the approach of a political institution and market-based requirements towards sustainability.
• How has the automobile industry taken steps towards sustainability?
• What are some effects of Green Technology on the economy?
• What is the advantage of using Green Technology in organizations?
• A detailed study of the Global Environmental Sustainability Framework to technology.
• How can digitization be used to improve awareness about sustainability?
• Is it practical to implement Green technology in developing countries? What are the best measures that can be taken?
• How can construction become sustainable?
• How can Green Thinking help improve sustainability?
• What is the perception of green energy and sustainability in multinational organizations?
• What are some sustainability policies that have helped developing nations?
• The impact of digitization on sustainability
• What are the current trends in Green Technology?
• Should builders receive incentives for constructing sustainable structures?
• Incentives for sustainability in industrial settings.
• The most effective option for disposing of electronic waste.
• How advancement in medical technology has impacted the environment
• The relationship between motorsports and the environment.
• Do large public events like concerts and sports events impact sustainability?
• The impact of styrofoam cups on the environment.
• Advancements in technology have contributed to sustainability.
• Scientists who have contributed effectively towards sustainability.

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