This study focuses on the carbon footprint of the coal supply chain, reviews 1,059 academic publications. This study combines quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze the bibliometric features, knowledge structure, and research trends of the literature on carbon footprint of the coal supply chain. Research output in this field has grown steadily over recent decades and the leading authors primarily come from China, the United States, and Turkey. These publications shows interdisciplinary characteristic, including environmental science, energy science, economics, and engineering. Analyzing high-frequency keywords in existing literature reveals five clusters, including factors affecting carbon emissions, carbon emission reduction in the coal industry, energy structure optimization, carbon emission reduction technologies, and carbon emission reduction policies. Finally, hotspot topic analysis suggests that the environmental impact of the coal supply chain, policy-driven green transformation of the coal supply chain, and the impact of low carbon transformation on the coal supply chain are likely future research directions.
Tong et al. (Thu,) studied this question.