The European Union recognizes environmental sustainability and innovation as key drivers
of economic growth, competitiveness, and environmental protection. To monitor progress
in this area, the European Commission launched the Eco-Innovation Index in 2011, managed
by the Directorate-General for Environment (DG ENV). The index tracks the performance
of EU Member States in eco-innovation, evaluates their contributions to sustainable
development, and helps to identify best practices and lagging regions to support evidence-based
policymaking. This study, conducted in connection with the December 2024 update of
the index, analyzes the evolution of eco-innovation research in the scientific literature
over the past 25 years. Using bibliometric analysis with the Biblioshiny application,
the study examines data from Scopus and Web of Science to identify key trends and
developments in the field. The results reveal the growing importance of the topic,
the three periods of research, and highlight the most influential journals in eco-innovation
research. It sheds light on the geographically fragmented collaborative networks among
authors (led by Spain, China, Italy and Slovakia), and traces the evolution of thematic
areas over time. It is clear that research should move towards more practical applications,
as the theoretical foundations have been developed in recent years. These insights
offer valuable guidance for companies, SMEs, policymakers, and future scholars by
mapping influential contributions, emerging research directions, and potential policy
applications. It is inevitable to keep an eye on the economic part and based on the
literature we can state that economic development and eco-innovation should go hand-in-hand.
