• Energy Research

Abstract Low-carbon economy has played an important role in green energy economics in last two decades. The number of studies conducted on low-carbon economy has increased steadily since 1990 and now in a fast-growing stage of its academic articles’ production life cycle. An increasing number of scholars have paid their attentions to low-carbon economy research. Hence, the low-carbon economy has been an important and popular topic in the past 30 years as evidenced by numerous papers in journals listed in several subject categories in the Web of Science (WoS) online database. This research reviewed more than 14,000 bibliographic records from the Science Citation Index and Social Science Citation Index of WoS. In this work, paper citations, subject categories, cited journals, top countries, productive institutes, authors, cited references and publications’ citations or research collaborations are analysed from published literature. We have found that the top three productive journals in low-carbon economy research are Energy Policy, Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews and Journal of Cleaner Production. The U.S. has an apparent advantage in the quantity and quality of low-carbon economy research. In addition, the U.S. is in the centre of international collaboration networks, including two top productive institutes, which summarized as University of California Berkeley and Carnegie Mellon University accordingly. An overall trend of the developing analysis of low-carbon economy research can provide a clear knowledge map and deep understanding of academic research on low-carbon economy.

Abstract This paper aims to use soft systems methodology (SSM) to identify management support system opportunities for managing energy and utility usage in textile manufacturing processes. It presents an approach based on SSM to analyze the complex situation of developing an effective energy and utility management support system (EUMSS). This involves the identification of the scope of the system and user requirements, conceptual modeling of complex problem situations, identification of actors and decision processes, and information-needs modeling. The current study pioneers the examination of the application of SSM to the development of a novel EUMSS and contributes to the body of information systems knowledge in the context of EUMSS design. There appears to be limited academic research in the field of energy and utility system development and, in particular, in the area of EUMSS design, and none in the area of the application of SSM to EUMSS design. In addition, the modeling process could be beneficial if EUMSS design ideas could be widely shared and discussed. The identified scope and system requirements can serve as a guideline for designing and developing an effective EUMSS for textile processing.