Green Brand Equity: A Systematic Literature Review and Future Research Agenda Using a Two-layer Analytical Approach

Despite growing scholarly interest in and the importance of green brand equity (GBE), systematic literature reviews that integrate performance analysis with framework-based content analysis remain scarce. This study conducts a systematic literature review of GBE using a two-layer analytical approach, supported by Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) for transparent review reporting, Theory–Context–Characteristics–Method (TCCM) for outcome-oriented content analysis and future research development, and Planning, Operationalizing, Writing, Embedding, and Reflecting (POWER) as a complementary quality-oriented framework. The first layer employs performance analysis of 490 Scopus-indexed documents, while the second layer performs an in-depth TCCM-based content analysis of 90 articles published in A* and A-ranked journals according to the ABDC 2022 Journal Quality List. The performance analysis reveals the field’s growth trajectory, and four key themes are identified through bibliographic coupling. The analysis identifies 23 theoretical lenses, with signalling theory, the stimulus–organism–response framework and stakeholder theory being the most prominent. GBE research is geographically concentrated in Asia, particularly China and India, while South America and Africa remain underrepresented. GBE research primarily focuses on hospitality/tourism, retail/FMCG and electronics sectors. Quantitative methods dominate the field, whereas multi-criteria decision-making, qualitative and mixed methods are less frequently applied. This study identifies theoretical and methodological gaps and proposes future research directions based on the TCCM framework. It may also be among the first to systematically integrate performance analysis with the TCCM and POWER frameworks in the GBE domain, offering a structured foundation for advancing future research.