The Sustainability Gap in Robotics: A Large-Scale Survey of Sustainability Awareness in 50,000 Research Articles

TL;DR

This large-scale survey analyzes nearly 50,000 robotics research papers to assess the extent of sustainability awareness and motivation, revealing significant gaps between potential and actual emphasis on sustainability and SDGs.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive quantitative analysis of sustainability mentions and SDG alignment in robotics research literature.

Findings

Sustainability mentions are below 2% in papers.

Explicit SDG references are below 0.1%.

Less than 5% of papers are explicitly motivated by sustainability.

Abstract

We present a large-scale survey of sustainability communication and motivation in robotics research. Our analysis covers nearly 50,000 open-access papers from arXiv's cs.RO category published between 2015 and early 2026. In this study, we quantify how often papers mention social, ecological, and sustainability impacts, and we analyse their alignment with the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The results reveal a persistent gap between the field's potential and its stated intent. While a large fraction of robotics papers can be mapped to SDG-relevant domains, explicit sustainability motivation remains remarkably low. Specifically, mentions of sustainability-related impacts are typically below 2%, explicit SDG references stay below 0.1%, and the proportion of sustainability-motivated papers remains below 5%. These trends suggest that while the field of robotics is advancing rapidly, sustainability is not yet a standard part of research framing. We conclude by proposing concrete actions for researchers, conferences, and institutions to close these awareness and motivation gaps, supporting a shift toward more intentional and responsible innovation.