Carbon Policy, ESG Adoption, and Industrial Marketing: A Bibliometric Analysis of an Empirically Empty Integrative Space

Abstract

The extent to which academic literature aligns with the rapid regulatory changes introduced by the Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive and the phased implementation of the European Sustainability Reporting Standards remains uncertain, particularly regarding the integration of carbon policy regulation, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) adoption, and industrial marketing strategies. To address this question, 2,370 peer-reviewed records harmonized across six search streams in OpenAlex (2004–2025) were examined. These records were retrieved using openalexR, analyzed with the Bibliometrix R package, and visualized with VOSviewer. The study employed five sequential analytical layers: performance metrics, co-citation networks, bibliographic coupling with sensitivity testing, keyword co-occurrence, and thematic mapping. The four-cluster coupling solution was validated through cluster stability analysis (Adjusted Rand Index = 0.575; Normalized Mutual Information = 0.638), yielding four structural rather than numerical findings. First, the intersection of carbon policy, ESG, and industrial marketing yielded no records under the harmonized vocabulary. Second, when ESG is excluded, the carbon–marketing relationship is represented by only eight records, indicating that ESG is an essential, non-bypassable mediating construct. Third, the Western Balkans account for only 4.8% of the global emerging-economy ESG corpus, with Albanian ESG-related scholarship comprising just 0.06% of that body (one record in 1,773) and 0.21% of the consolidated corpus (five records in 2,370). Finally, geographic specialization has advanced more rapidly than specialization in marketing strategies. Seven independent observations support the observed separation between carbon and marketing, indicating that this gap is structural rather than artefactual. These findings underscore the need for integrative research models that are both theoretically justified and contextually overdue, particularly in the underrepresented research environment of the Western Balkans. By establishing this gap through convergent bibliometric evidence rather than interpretation, the review offers a structural foundation and a research agenda for integrative models that link carbon policy pressure, ESG adoption, corporate reputation, green innovation, and industrial marketing strategy in manufacturing in emerging economies.