The grey system theory has been widely used in the field of sustainable development research. Based on the research literatures on the application of grey system theory to economic development, environmental protection and social inclusion from 2011 to 2021 collected by databases of Web of Science (SCI), Scopus and Science Direct and systematically sorted them out, this paper has summarized the application of grey system methods such as grey relational analysis model, grey prediction model, grey clustering evaluation model and grey decision-making model in the study of sustainable development. According to the results, in recent years, the applied literatures of grey system method in sustainable development research shows a rapid growth trend, and the application range is all over the fields of sustainable development, with nearly half of them published on top international journals in the field of sustainable development. Many articles, with topics of great signifi‐ cance, adoption of advanced and applicable grey system methods and models, and valuable research results from the exploration of the poor information data, have received great attention and are cited numerously.