Research Trends on Climate Change and Circular Economy from a Knowledge Mapping Perspective

Abstract

The circular economy (CE) has been proposed as a potentially significant catalyst to enhance the current response to the global climate crisis. The objective of this study was to investigate the scientific literature of the research between climate change and CE adopting a knowledge mapping approach. Based on a total of 789 peer-reviewed publications extracted from Scopus, we found that research on climate change and CE is continually growing and interdisciplinary in nature. Europe notably leads scientific production. Keyword evolution shows that CE has been influenced by more lines of research than climate change. We also found that waste management is the CE approach most associated with climate change, mitigation is the climate action most impacted by CE, and food is the most reported greenhouse gas (GHG)-emitting material. However, there are knowledge gaps in the integration of the social dimension, the promotion of climate change adaptation, and the association of sustainable development goal (SDG) 13. Finally, we identified four potentially valuable directions for future studies: (i) CE practices, (ii) bioeconomy, (iii) climate and energy, and (iv) sustainability and natural resources, in which carbon recovery technologies, green materials, regional supply chains, circular agriculture models, and nature-based solutions are promising themes.