A review of multi-factor footprints: a bibliometric perspective

With the global concern for environmental issues, studies of footprints, especially multi-factor footprints, have received great attention worldwide. This study aims to offer an overview of this research domain of multi-factor footprints, based on a sample of relevant literature published from 1992 to 2023, and to analyze the research trends, basic characteristics, and research hotspots of multi-factor footprints through bibliometrics. This study not only sorts out multiple combinations of common objects of research and main research methods, but also analyzes the information on the countries and authors with a large number of publications by using VOSviewer and CiteSpace, and carries out keyword co-occurrence, clustering, and burst analyses to uncover the evolution of the research hotspots. Finally, this study concludes that multi-factor footprint research has great potential for development, the combination of carbon footprint and water, energy, and other footprints provides a more comprehensive and deep perspective for assessing environmental impacts, diverse research methods drive breakthroughs, and the research hotspots have been extended to interdisciplinary and multiple fields. This study offers scholars a literature review of research perspectives in the field of multi-factor footprints and provides a reference for future research directions.