Mapping the research landscape: a bibliometric study on green entrepreneurship and sustainability

Abstract Green entrepreneurship has evolved into a transformative force connecting innovation, economic success, and environmental responsibility in response to increasing global environmental problems and growing awareness on sustainable development. This study employs bibliometric analysis to examine the academic literature in this area over the past ten years, from 2014 to 2024 as this decade witnessed the major developments in sustainability like UN SDGs and ESG regulations. This study examined 480 peer reviewed journal articles extracted from the Scopus database published between 2014 and 2024 in the field of research on green entrepreneurship and sustainability. By utilizing tools like VOS viewer and Bibliometrix (R Package), the study maps keyword co-occurrences and bibliographic coupling networks, examines publication trends, analyze the most relevant authors, sources, affiliations, and nations. The key objective of the study is to map intellectual structure and thematic evolution of the research. With an annual growth rate of 29.85%, the findings indicate a notable increase in scholarly interest after the implementation of the UN SDGs and also identify a significant worldwide cooperation, specifically between Asian and European institutions. The key publication sources are journals such as Sustainability (Switzerland) and the Journal of Cleaner Production. Through thematic analysis the study shows how research has evolved from broad themes like sustainable development and entrepreneurship to specific fields like circular economy, digitization, and sustainability transitions. The existing studies have concentrated on specific features and time periods of green entrepreneurship research, however there is a lack of a comprehensive bibliometric assessment which analyzes the structural, geographic and thematic evolution over the span of a decade. This study fills this gap by presenting a comprehensive picture of the growth and direction of the field. By disclosing the structural dynamics of green entrepreneurship research, highlighting gaps, and providing recommendations for further investigation, this study gives useful information to academics, practitioners, and legislators.