Analysis of studies in the field of sustainable logistics with visual mapping

Abstract

In contemporary society, the notion of "sustainability" is progressively assuming significance due to the mounting issues of global warming, drought, uncontrolled industrialization, and insufficient government regulations pertaining to these matters. This research aims to examine the literature on sustainability in logistics from 2007 to 2021, utilizing the VOSviewer visual mapping method. In this direction, a review of recent publications in the relevant field was conducted to determine the terms for searching, leading to the inclusion of concepts such as "green logistics," "sustainable logistics," "environmental logistics," and "ecological logistics" in the search query within the Web of Science database. The search yielded a total of 881 publications. The analysis revealed that the highest number of publications (133 publications) was observed in 2019 and the most frequently employed keyword was "green logistics". Furthermore, the author with the most publications and highest number of citations was found to be "Syed Abdul Rehman Khan" with 814 citations. Concerning the countries' contributions, China emerged as the leading nation with 271 publications. China also claimed the highest number of citations among the countries examined.