Web of Science Scientometrics on the Energy Efficiency of Buildings to Support Sustainable Construction Policies

Abstract

A variety of strategies intended to support environmentally friendly and resource-efficient building processes comprise sustainable construction policies. The limited number of bibliometric analyses in the field may hinder the ability to assess the efficacy and impact of research efforts, impede the potential for collaboration, and even limit the dissemination of best practices. Therefore, the present study aims to analyze the impact of published data on the topic of energy efficiency of buildings using the Web of Science core collection database. We perform a bibliometric analysis and science mapping research that assesses significant parameters for the field. A total of 28,555 papers were analyzed using the VOSviewer program. The data was divided into two periods to determine the evolution of trends in this field. The most prolific countries in this field were China, the United States, and England. Following the analysis of the collaboration maps, it was determined that there is a strong collaborative relationship between these countries in the development of papers. The most prolific papers of the first period were published in Energy Policy and Energy and Buildings, which also ranked first in the second period, followed by Energies. It was observed that the most frequent terms used in literature searches in the field differ according to the periods analyzed. In the beginning, the most frequent term was “energy efficiency and performance”, and between 2011 and 2023, the terms “applied energy” and “renewable and sustainable energy” increased considerably with technological development. The results of this research demonstrate the significant and expanding scientific interest in this area and serve as a valuable asset for researchers studying the energy efficiency of buildings.