The smart sustainable city (SSC) is a concept created in response to problems and challenges arising from rapid urbanization. This is a relatively new term that is developing dynamically, which is confirmed by the growing number of publications over recent years. For this reason, this article presented an up-to-date comprehensive bibliometric analysis to describe and assess the scientific landscape of smart and sustainable cities literature. The analysis was based on two bibliographic sources—the Web of Science Core Collection and the Scopus database. It covers publications on the SSC, as well as documents describing the smart city (SC) and the sustainable city (SuC) concepts separately. VOSviewer and Biblioshiny were selected as software tools for the bibliometric analysis. Based on the descriptive bibliometric analysis, quantity and quality indicators were determined separately for the SC, SuC, and SSC concepts, while the network analysis mapped and covered the level of multi-faceted scientific cooperation in the field of the SSC research. The analysis results were intended to familiarize scholars and practitioners with the most prolific authors, sources, institutions, and countries in the analyzed scientific field, to identify the most influential research channels and impact from authors, sources, countries, and research topics, to determine major clusters of the SSC research and also to provide valuable information for further investigation.

The achievement of climate neutrality and eco-economic decoupling requires explicit measures to reduce greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions and to implement circular economy (CE) principles in practice. The energy sector is of particular importance in meeting these challenges because it exerts a substantial environmental impact. Therefore, it is extremely important to determine how essential GHG and CE issues are for companies operating in the energy sector. This can be reflected in corporate strategies, but it can also be disclosed to the public in sustainability reports. For this reason, this article presents a comprehensive analysis of sustainability reports based on the latest GRI Standards published by companies representing the energy sector in the European Union to determine the existence, quality, and specificity of reporting GHG and CE issues. The research results demonstrate that sustainability reports from the energy sector companies tend to focus more on GHG issues. They rarely point to actions related to CE, including actions enabling a reduction in GHG emissions, as those with high priority. In addition, declarations from the analyzed companies regarding intentions related to GHG and CE issues at the strategic level find a rather poor reflection in the description of specific actions in this area or in demonstrating appropriate indicators at the operational level. Considering the indicators included in the reports, the analyzed companies insufficiently describe the methods they use to gather, compile, and analyze information on the effectiveness of actions taken to address GHG and CE issues. As for the identification of potential determinants of the quality of reporting GHG and CE issues, the research results indicate that it is mostly influenced by external assurance and the report option. Sustainability reports submitted for external assurance and reports with the comprehensive option are significantly more developed than other types of reports. However, the clarity of reports with the core option is higher compared to the comprehensive group. In addition, it was indicated that the clarity of stand-alone reports is higher compared to other types of reports.

Due to the growing academic interest in social innovation, there is a need for a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of the structure and evolution of this research field. So far, there have been very few in-depth studies in this area. In addition, the number of publications in this domain grows dynamically year by year. For this reason, it was assumed that the existing research needs expansion and updating. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive bibliometric analysis aiming to identify research patterns and trends in the scientific literature on social innovation. Descriptive and performance analyses as well as research field mapping based on network analyses were performed. The most productive authors, sources, academic organizations, and countries in the social innovation literature were indicated. Moreover, the most influential authors and publications in the analyzed research field were determined. Furthermore, the evolution of social innovation research and the scientific collaboration in this area were shown and characterized. The analysis results were intended to show academics and practitioners an up-to-date, comprehensive picture of the multidisciplinary and multifaceted phenomenon of the research on social innovation.

This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) of research on strategic positioning of companies and the measurement of greenwashing in sustainability reporting. Its main aim is to synthesize and organize the existing literature, identify key research gaps, and outline directions for future studies. Drawing on a rigorous content analysis of 88 studies, we delineate strategic typologies of greenwashing in sustainability reporting and examine content-analysis-based measurement approaches used to detect it. Our SLR shows that most strategic typologies draw on theories such as legitimacy theory, impression management theory, signaling theory, and stakeholder theory. Several studies adopt a four-quadrant matrix with varying conceptual dimensions, while others classify strategic responses to institutional pressures along a passive–active continuum. However, the evidence suggests that to assume that companies uniformly pursue sustainability reporting strategies is a major oversimplification. The findings also indicate that the literature proposes a variety of innovative, content-analysis-based approaches aimed at capturing divergences between communicative claims and organizational realities—most notably, discrepancies between disclosure and measurable performance, and between symbolic and substantive sustainability actions, as well as the identification of selective or manipulative communication practices that may signal greenwashing. Analytical techniques commonly focus on linguistic and visual cues in sustainability reports, including tone (sentiment and narrative framing), readability (both traditional readability indices and machine learning–based textual complexity measures), and visual content (selective emphasis, imagery framing, and graphic distortions). We also synthesize studies that document empirically verified instances of greenwashing and contrast them with research that, in our view, relies on overly simplified or untested assumptions. Based on this SLR, we identify central theoretical and methodological priorities for advancing the study of greenwashing in sustainability reporting and propose a research agenda to guide future research.

The European Union has adopted very ambitious climate and energy goals for the coming years. The key prerequisite to successfully achieve these goals seems to be extensive support and adequate commitment of the member states and their citizens to the implementation of the clean energy transition and climate neutrality measures. Therefore, this study presents a comprehensive analysis aiming to identify the factors determining the EU citizens’ attitudes towards the European Energy Union priorities. The analysis was based on representative data obtained from residents of twenty-seven EU countries using a Eurobarometer survey. The collected data were subjected to a comparative analysis and binary logistic regression. The research results demonstrated that the support for specific energy policy priorities varies significantly depending on different perceptions of the EU citizens and was affected by a number of demographic variables. It was indicated that perceiving the environment, climate and energy as the most important issues from the perspective of an individual, a country and the EU significantly affects attitudes towards energy policy priorities. However, this mostly concerned the awareness of the importance of these issues at the EU level. Individuals who supported a common energy policy among the EU member states were more likely to point to green energy priorities, whereas guaranteeing low energy prices for companies and consumers seemed less important for them. It was remarkable that the reduction of energy consumption was indicated as an energy policy priority by respondents expecting both more and less decision-making at the European level in the field of environmental protection. People with a right-wing orientation were the most likely to support the competitiveness of the EU’s industry, while individuals with a leftist ideology showed the strongest tendency to opt for environmental protection. Furthermore, gender, occupation and the place and country of residence emerged as very important determinants of attitudes towards the European Energy Union priorities, whereas age and the educational level were predictors in very few cases only.

The circular economy (CE) concept is now gaining increasing attention and it is being widely explored as a promising path to sustainable development. CE implementation requires extensive activities needed for the transition from the linear to the circular model and suitable tools to support decision-makers in setting adequate goals and monitoring the effects of undertaken actions. Considering the need for research on effective CE performance evaluation, this article presents a comprehensive analysis and comparison of CE indicators available at the micro level. Based on a systematic literature review, 19 such CE indicators were identified. The indicators were assessed and compared using the Delphi methodology. The suitability of each metric for a comprehensive evaluation of CE performance was analyzed taking account of the criteria related to analytical opportunities and potential application of CE indicators, together with the criteria related to organizational and operational issues of practical application of CE indicators. The usefulness of CE indicators for practical implementation in companies was determined from a managerial perspective, with particular emphasis on supporting the decision-making process. The comparison of CE indicators presented in this article is intended to facilitate the choice of a specific metric depending on the company’s needs and on the possibilities of its application.