Framing the evolution of the “environmental strategy” concept: Exploring a key construct for the environmental policy agenda

Abstract

In this paper, we develop a quantitative review of the evolution of the concept of environmental strategy. We show how it has formed the backbone of the development of firm strategy and the natural environment as a research tradition and how consensus regarding it has evolved in the academic community during the stages of its historical evolution. We us co-word analyses to address changes in the structure of its definitional landscape and how it has evolved through the analysis of centrality of its core and periphery keywords. Furthermore, we develop, by the first time, a cluster analysis to identify the main definitional factors behind definitions along the two periods analyzed. Finally, four propositions for future development and a consensual definition of environmental strategy are proposed.