Trends in Environmental Management Systems Research. A Content Analysis

Abstract Environmental Management Systems (EMS) represent a solid opportunity for companies that voluntarily undertake a path towards the adoption of environmental protection policies. Many studies investigated the link between EMS and improvement of environmental performance, demonstrating how the adoption of an international standard as ISO 14000 or EMAS guarantees the company an improvement in its performance and an increase in transparency towards stakeholders. However, scientific research in this field reflects the strong variability due to the breadth and diversity of sectors in which the two international standards can be adopted. The aim of this work is to analyse, through textual statistics and text mining methods, the trends that characterize scientific production, highlighting most debated topics useful for developing new research perspectives in this research field.