---
title: "Sustainability research: papers, trends and top journals"
description: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “sustainability” appeared in 1,267 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (363), economics (282) and operations research (252)."
url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainability
markdown_url: https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainability.md
license: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)
share_text: "From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “sustainability” appeared in 1,267 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (363), economics (282) and operations research (252). (as of 2026-11-03)"
data_url: https://scholar4ai.com/data/rankings.json
updated: 2026-11-03T18:03:37+09:00
window: 2026-10-05 to 2026-11-03
source: OpenAlex (CC0)
---

# Papers on “sustainability”

Research on “sustainability” in the 480 tracked journals: papers per year and category, the journals, institutions and countries publishing it, the keywords studied with it and its most-cited papers. It is not among the most frequent keywords of the last 30 days, so this page has no list of its latest papers.

Back to the ranking: https://scholar4ai.com/rankings/keywords.md

## Key findings

- From 2017 to 2026 (so far), the keyword “sustainability” appeared in 1,267 papers in the tracked journals, most of them in management (363), economics (282) and operations research (252).
- 218 of them were published in 2025, against 66 in 2017.
- Since 2023, the institutions with the most of these papers were Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (14), Copenhagen Business School (11) and University of Johannesburg (9).
- The journals publishing most of them were Technological Forecasting and Social Change (32), Resources Policy (32) and Computers & Industrial Engineering (31).
- The most-cited of them is “1 Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management objectives” (International Journal of Information Management, 2017), with 2,150 citations.

## Papers per year

*Papers per publication year and category*

| Category | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 (so far) |
|---|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|---:|
| [Management](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/management.md) | 27 | 16 | 22 | 26 | 37 | 33 | 47 | 49 | 48 | 58 |
| [Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/economics.md) | 18 | 21 | 19 | 26 | 29 | 27 | 34 | 51 | 33 | 24 |
| [Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/operations-research.md) | 9 | 11 | 8 | 22 | 24 | 25 | 38 | 37 | 45 | 33 |
| [Marketing](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/marketing.md) | 3 | 3 | 5 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 11 | 12 | 17 | 8 |
| [Finance](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/finance.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 0 | 12 | 9 | 33 | 12 |
| [Information Systems](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/information-systems.md) | 1 | 2 | 3 | 5 | 8 | 4 | 11 | 11 | 9 | 5 |
| [Tourism and Hospitality](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/tourism-and-hospitality.md) | 3 | 2 | 5 | 4 | 2 | 9 | 6 | 7 | 11 | 8 |
| [AI](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/ai.md) | 3 | 3 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 5 | 3 | 10 | 14 | 7 |
| [Accounting](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/accounting.md) | 0 | 0 | 4 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 2 | 5 | 2 | 6 |
| [Higher Education and Research](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/higher-education-and-research.md) | 0 | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 2 | 2 | 2 |
| [Health Economics and Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/health-economics-and-policy.md) | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| [Statistics](https://scholar4ai.com/categories/statistics.md) | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 1 | 0 |
| All categories | 66 | 62 | 66 | 92 | 115 | 118 | 170 | 194 | 218 | 166 |

## Where the papers come from

*Journals with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Journal | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 32 |
| 2 | [Resources Policy](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/resources-policy.md) | 32 |
| 3 | [Computers & Industrial Engineering](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/computers-industrial-engineering.md) | 31 |
| 4 | [Finance research letters](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/finance-research-letters.md) | 25 |
| 5 | [Annals of Operations Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/annals-of-operations-research.md) | 22 |
| 6 | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 14 |
| 7 | [Journal of Business Ethics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-ethics.md) | 13 |
| 8 | [International Journal of Hospitality Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-hospitality-management.md) | 13 |
| 9 | [Ecological Economics](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/ecological-economics.md) | 13 |
| 10 | [Industrial Marketing Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/industrial-marketing-management.md) | 12 |

*Institutions with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Institution | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/centre-national-de-la-recherche-scientifique.md) | 14 |
| 2 | [Copenhagen Business School](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/copenhagen-business-school.md) | 11 |
| 3 | [University of Johannesburg](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-johannesburg.md) | 9 |
| 4 | [University of Tehran](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-tehran.md) | 9 |
| 5 | [University of Twente](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/university-of-twente.md) | 9 |
| 6 | [Delft University of Technology](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/delft-university-of-technology.md) | 8 |
| 7 | [NEOMA Business School](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/neoma-business-school.md) | 8 |
| 8 | Excelia Business School | 7 |
| 9 | [Hong Kong Polytechnic University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/hong-kong-polytechnic-university.md) | 7 |
| 10 | [Lebanese American University](https://scholar4ai.com/institutions/lebanese-american-university.md) | 7 |

*Countries with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Country | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | China | 112 |
| 2 | United States | 89 |
| 3 | United Kingdom | 87 |
| 4 | Italy | 83 |
| 5 | France | 76 |
| 6 | India | 67 |
| 7 | Spain | 62 |
| 8 | Germany | 52 |
| 9 | Australia | 50 |
| 10 | Canada | 45 |

*Keywords with the most papers, since 2023*

| # | Keyword | Papers |
|---:|---|---:|
| 1 | [circular economy](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/circular-economy.md) | 42 |
| 2 | [digital transformation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/digital-transformation.md) | 40 |
| 3 | [research trends](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/research-trends.md) | 37 |
| 4 | [artificial intelligence](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/artificial-intelligence.md) | 35 |
| 5 | [innovation](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/innovation.md) | 34 |
| 6 | [supply chain resilience](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/supply-chain-resilience.md) | 33 |
| 7 | [blockchain](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/blockchain.md) | 30 |
| 8 | [Industry 4.0](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/industry-4-0.md) | 29 |
| 9 | [Sustainable Development Goals](https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainable-development-goals.md) | 28 |

## Most-cited papers

*Most-cited papers since 2017*

| # | Citations | Per month | Title | Journal | Published | Authors |
|---:|---:|---:|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 2,150 | 20.1 | [1 Blockchain’s roles in meeting key supply chain management objectives](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijinfomgt.2017.12.005) | [International Journal of Information Management](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/international-journal-of-information-management.md) | 2017-12-12 | Nir Kshetri |
| 2 | 831 | 10.0 | [The digital revolution in the travel and tourism industry](https://doi.org/10.1007/s40558-019-00160-3) | [Information Technology & Tourism](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/information-technology-tourism.md) | 2019-11-27 | Tonino Pencarelli |
| 3 | 785 | 8.0 | [When food systems meet sustainability – Current narratives and implications for actions](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2018.08.011) | [World Development](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/world-development.md) | 2018-09-11 | Christophe Béné, Peter J. M. Oosterveer, Léa Lamotte et al. |
| 4 | 599 | 8.2 | [The role of digital innovation in knowledge management systems: A systematic literature review](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2020.09.042) | [Journal of Business Research](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/journal-of-business-research.md) | 2020-10-09 | Assunta Di Vaio, Rosa Palladino, Alberto Pezzi et al. |
| 5 | 577 | 5.3 | [Unlocking the circular economy through new business models based on large-scale data: An integrative framework and research agenda](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.techfore.2017.09.010) | [Technological Forecasting and Social Change](https://scholar4ai.com/journals/technological-forecasting-and-social-change.md) | 2017-09-21 | Charbel José Chiappetta Jabbour, Ana Beatriz Lopes de Sousa Jabbour, Joseph Sarkis et al. |

## Cite this page

Scholar4AI. (2026). Papers on “sustainability”. Journal and Conference Research Rankings. Retrieved November 3, 2026, from https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainability

```bibtex
@misc{scholar4ai-keywords-sustainability,
  author = {{Scholar4AI}},
  title = {Papers on “sustainability”},
  year = {2026},
  howpublished = {\url{https://scholar4ai.com/keywords/sustainability}},
  urldate = {2026-11-03},
  note = {Journal and Conference Research Rankings; data from OpenAlex (CC0); licensed CC BY-NC 4.0}
}
```

License: CC BY-NC 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).