Mapping the knowledge domain of green procurement: a review and bibliometric analysis

The goal of green procurement, also called green purchasing, is to reduce waste and improve operational efficiencies to enhance sustainability. Although this practice has gained importance in recent years and garnered significant scholarly attention, there is a lack of bibliometric studies evaluating the green procurement field. To close this gap, we leverage bibliometrics to comprehensively summarize the literature and identify existing research hotspots and trends. Specifically, we employ bibliometric tools to analyze keywords, identify influential authors, universities, and research areas, and reveal the most important publications in terms of citations. The analysis shows that sustainable development, sustainability, green supply chain management, and green public procurement are core topics related to green procurement. The co-citation analysis further reveals five important research clusters in the literature, namely green public procurement, green supply chain management, green supplier selection and evaluation of green performance, networked sustainable procurement, and green procurement in the construction sector. This study makes a contribution to the green procurement literature by summarizing this quickly growing field and providing timely guidance as to future research directions.