A fundamental structural transformation that must occur to break global temperature rise and advance sustainable development is the green transition to a low-carbon system. However, dismantling the carbon lock-in situation requires substantial investment in green finance. Historically, investments have been concentrated in carbon-intensive technologies. Nonetheless, green finance has blossomed in recent years, and efforts to organise this literature have emerged, but a deeper understanding of this growing field is needed. For this goal, this paper aims to delineate this literature’s existing groups and explore its heterogeneity. From a bibliometric coupling network, we identified the main groups in the literature; then, we described the characteristics of these articles through a novel combination of complex network analysis, topological measures, and a type of unsupervised machine learning technique called structural topic modelling (STM). The use of computational methods to explore literature trends is increasing as it is expected to be compatible with a large amount of information and complement the expert-based knowledge approach. The contribution of this article is twofold: first, identifying the most relevant articles in the network related to each group and, second, the most prestigious topics in the field and their contributions to the literature. A final sample of 3275 articles shows three main groups in the literature. The more mature is mainly related to the distribution of climate finance from the developed to the developing world. In contrast, the most recent ones are related to climate financial risks, green bonds, and the insertion of financial development in energy-emissions-economics models. Researchers and policy-makers can recognise current research challenges and make better decisions with the help of the central research topics and emerging trends identified from STM. The field’s evolution shows a clear movement from an international perspective to a nationally-determined discussion on finance to the green transition.

The diversification of biomass resources is key to the transition towards a bioeconomy. Acrocomia spp., a neotropical genus of palms, is an example of plants’ diversity potential for a sustainable bioeconomy. Acrocomia’s adaptability to environments outside rainforests, its specific fruit properties and high yields has generated the interest of researchers and entrepreneurs, triggering its introduction as a multipurpose oil crop. Developing sustainability-oriented and knowledge-based acrocomia value webs requires a collaborative, systems approach from the outset. Fostering an inter- and transdisciplinary dialogue on acrocomia through a participatory workshop with both academic and non-academic actors contributed to this endeavor. This allowed the identification of priorities, knowledge gaps, and stakeholder roles, and served as the basis for the co-creation of a research and development roadmap. Key steps for the introduction of acrocomia include intertwined technical aspects relating to the development of planting material, cultivation systems, processing technologies and applications, market entry, and value web governance aspects. A broad collaboration among scientists, the public and private sectors, farmers, and civil society, is required for the development of acrocomia value webs. The incorporation of sustainability and a consideration of context in the design and development phases are fundamental to fostering the sustainable performance of acrocomia value webs.

Objective: We aim to answer four questions. First, with the increasing number of publications, is there a concentration in specific subjects, or on the contrary, a dispersion, amplifying the span of themes related to entrepreneurship? Second, is there a hierarchy of subjects, in the sense that some of them constitute the “core” of entrepreneurship? Third, are they connected with other established research areas? Finally, it is possible to identify papers that are influential, acting as hubs in the cluster’s formation? Method: We developed an original version of the computational procedure proposed by Shibata et al (2008), which allows us to understand the diversity of the different sub-areas of the topic investigated, reducing the need for specialist supervision. Originality / Relevance: We developed and applied a method to capture the formation and evolution of research areas in entrepreneurship literature, via direct citation networks, allowing us to understand the iteration between the different research sub-areas. Results: The dispersion is a feature of entrepreneurship as field research, with a hierarchy between research areas, indicating an emergent organization in the expansion processes. We concluded that research on entrepreneurship consists of specialization, that is, by application in niches.

Global warming and increasing environmental pollution have become global concerns that, coupled with the scarcity of traditional forms of energy, have motivated the implementation of more sustainable production systems, such as biorefineries. This is because biorefineries are capable of integrating technologies and processes in a single facility, generating biofuels, value-added chemicals, and energy. Thus, the aim of the study was to investigate the bioproducts and emergent technologies surrounding the processing of corn into bioethanol and refined oil. A bibliometric analysis he was carried out in order to construct and evaluate prospective scenarios related to corn biorefineries. An analysis of the proposed layouts highlighted flexibility in the production process, given that one raw material could be transformed into various bioproducts. Thus, the results presented provide a bibliographic foundation for future studies on integrating residues-processes-products in corn processing. The reason for this is that the technological routes presented could be considered incremental innovations to develop a biorefinery, which takes place gradually, given that highly integrated biorefineries are highly complex.

During the 2000s and 2010s, the growth in sugar and ethanol production stimulated the expansion of sugarcane in new regions of Brazil, reducing the concentration in the state of São Paulo. This paper aims to investigate whether the rise in sugarcane production in peripheral areas has led to the growth of knowledge capabilities. In order to consider regional asymmetries, the article uses the differentiated knowledge base (DKB) approach in association with regional innovation systems (RIS) and core-periphery relations. Data on formal employment and scientific research on the Central-South region are analyzed from 2003 to 2017. The results show that there are limits to the diffusion of sugarcane knowledge as an important part of knowledge production remains concentrated in the regions of early growth in São Paulo.