IMPACTS OF ENVIRONMENTAL INCENTIVES ON SUSTAINABILITY: RESEARCH PROGRESS, HOTSPOTS, AND FUTURE PERSPECTIVES

Sustainability is fundamental to preserving Earth's delicate ecosystems and ensuring a livable planet for the next generation.A comprehensive understanding of environmental incentives is necessary to develop effective strategies that encourage individuals, industries, and governments to adopt sustainable practices, which in turn promote a cleaner world and minimize environmental problems such as climate change, biodiversity loss, and resource depletion.To effectively address environmental issues and advance toward our shared future objectives, it is crucial to gain a comprehensive understanding of current research patterns concerning environmental incentives and their relationship to sustainability.To gain in-depth understanding on environmental incentives on sustainability, this is the first systematic study to analyze how knowledge is structured, research trends, and emerging topics in this field.This study examined 9,014 documents appearing in the Web of Science Core Collection based on bibliometric analysis aided by visual and social networks and various research metrics.We found that environmental incentives and sustainability research have increased consistently over the past few decades.China ranks first with 606 publications, followed by the United States with 499 publications.In terms of institutions, the University of California System and the Chinese Academy of Sciences ranked first and second, respectively.China's National Natural Science Foundation was the leading funding agency.Environmental management, environmental performance, and sustainable development were prominent keywords.This implies that environmental and balanced practices can contribute to a sustainable environment.This study also highlighted that environmental incentives play a key role in achieving sustainable development goals.It provides a foundation for future research aimed at improving sustainability by implementing environmental incentives.