Sustainability meets innovation in the retail sector: a bibliometric analysis

In today’s business landscape, sustainability and innovation are the primary drivers of value across all industry sectors, including retail. The successful integration of sustainability and innovation involves understanding the synergy between these elements and exploring avenues for innovating and developing sustainable business models. Understanding the link between innovation, sustainability and retail is crucial for retailers to stay competitive, benefiting both the environment and the business. Considering that the stream of literature produced so far is growing at a remarkable speed, a quantitative approach based on bibliometric analysis through VOSviewer and SciMAT was adopted to address the topic of sustainability and innovation in retail. In total, 354 papers extracted from the WoS database were considered valid for the final analysis. The study makes a conceptual and methodological contribution to the field, systematising the results of existing studies and providing useful indications for their further development. From a managerial perspective, the outcomes can provide valuable information to manufacturers and retailers seeking to adopt sustainable innovations and reshape their overall strategies and operations.