3.2. Sustainability in specific regions
31 articles discuss sustainability aspects for specific regions. A region is typically a country, but may include a larger region or two specific countries that are compared. For example, Boons and Mendoza (2010) discuss the definition of sustainability concerning palm oil production in Colombia and the Netherlands. Some studies use country-level statistical data to compare sustainability aspects between countries; see e.g. Andersson and Lindroth (2001), Bello et al. (1999), Gaughran et al. (2007) on ecological footprint, and Proops et al. (1999) on degrees of sustainability.
Many articles that address sustainability in specific regions are concerned with a specific industry or a few specific industries. Table 3 displays the articles that study explicit combinations of industry and region. The vast majority of these articles are quite recent; all except two are from 2008 and later. This indicates that industry/country analyses are a recent phenomenon; no less than six studies are from 2011. Therefore, this may be a stream of literature that will continue to expand. There are six studies on the oil, gas and bio-fuel industries in seven different countries or regions. However, the aspects that are highlighted in each study differ between the studies. This reduces the possibility to compare countries. Three more industries have more than one country study on that specific industry; these are automobile, food and textile. Still, in general there are few specific studies on specific industries in specific regions. However, the studies reported here form a baseline for further comparative studies.