Sustainability, Eco-Labelling, and Export Performance: A Combined Narrative Review and Bibliometric Mapping of Scopus-Indexed Literature

Abstract

Sustainability has become a strategic, though conditional, determinant of export performance. Eco-labelling, ESG adoption, and environmental regulation are generally associated with improved export outcomes through expanded market access, green innovation, and lower financing costs. However, these effects are not uniform: several studies find that compliance costs and regulatory stringency reduce export volumes or discourage export participation, while others report nonlinear (U-shaped or N-shaped) relationships that depend on institutional quality and regulatory intensity. To establish how this relationship has been studied and to map the intellectual structure of the underlying research field, this study combines two complementary approaches: a narrative review based on the close analysis of individual research papers on sustainability and export performance, and a bibliometric analysis of 1,557 English-language journal articles indexed in Scopus (2000–2025), using the bibliometrix package in R. Co-occurrence and thematic mapping reveal two interlinked clusters, one centered on sustainability in international trade and the other on export performance, with environmental economics, climate change, and innovation emerging as prominent themes. Overall, the findings clarify both the direction of the sustainability–export relationship and the structure of the research examining it, providing a basis for future empirical and comparative work.