Narrow Results

Recent studies in literature on eco-innovation have adopted a systematic approach, rather than taking advantage of what the iMetrics method — different types of information studies such as bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics — can contribute to the understanding of how knowledge increases and develops in a particular field. This chapter contributes to filling this gap by completing what other studies have already revealed. Our contribution adds information about the evolution in research on eco-innovation and the distinct nature of the knowledge generated by most important countries in the field. In this chapter, through the examination of scientific papers indexed in the Web of Science and Scopus databases, an analysis of co-keywords was undertaken through the use of Social Network Analysis. These results indicated that: (a) eco-innovation was related to environment, management, and engineering; (b) evolution in the field moved toward a practitioner context, a factor which is shown in the changes of the most important keywords; and (c) mapping the science in this field is contextual, depicting the structural characteristics of different countries. These results may be of interest to researchers, practitioners, and policy makers. In particular, researchers can make interesting contacts and detect gaps for future research; practitioners can find institutions and researchers to work with; and policy makers can use the differences between knowledge patterns in the different countries for decision-making.

The synonymic use of sustainable innovation types obstructs the impact of increasingly disperse research on sustainable innovation, environmental innovation, eco-innovation, and green innovation. To identify the meaning and contributions of each innovation type over time, we apply co-word analysis as a bibliometric technique to 1,985 papers, analysing the evolution of motor, emergent and basic themes for each type. For environmental innovation, the focus has shifted from environmental regulations and policies to patents and inventions with an environmental impact, while in sustainable innovations the societal impact of technology adoption has become a driver. Green innovation increasingly concerns environmental technology and its management, whereas eco-innovation studies aspects related to efficiency and decision making. Clear distinctions among sustainable innovation types will increase the impact of this expanding body of research and make it more available to managers and policymakers.