Exploring the Knowledge Structure and Development of ESG in Real Estate: A Bibliometric Approach

ESG, which denotes Environmental, Social, and Governance, constitutes a vital factor that affects the business operations and outcomes of various sectors and industries across the globe. The real estate industry is experiencing a rapid transformation that necessitates the incorporation of ESG into its fundamental practices and values. On the one hand, ESG enables real estate players to align their strategies and operations with global market developments and norms. On the other hand, ESG responds to the expectations and preferences of all the stakeholders, who are increasingly concerned about long-term sustainability. However, the existing literature has not yet established ESG in real estate as a holistic and stand-alone industry and research framework. Many studies have examined the environmental (E) factors, but the definitions of the social (S) and governance (G) factors remain unclear and are often mixed with corporate social responsibility (CSR). This study proposes ESG as a novel and holistic research framework for the real estate industry and conducts a bibliometric analysis of 28 bibliographic metadata retrieved from Scopus and the Web of Science following the PRISMA workflow. Clarifying the knowledge structure of ESG in real estate-related literature, this analysis presents the development trends and opportunities for future research from five perspectives: 1) overall development trend of scientific publications; 2) country performance; 3) world collaborative networks; 4) theoretical fundamentals (cited references and citations); and 5) thematic analysis.