The relevance of circular economy to environmental science has led to a notable increase of research works during the last few years. It is very important to know the evolution of the publications that relate these two concepts, as well as the main areas of knowledge in which these investigations are framed. The purpose is to understand and highlight the state of art of circular economy and the role and relationship of the environment. Bibliometric analysis allows to evaluate developments in knowledge on a specific subject and assesses the scientific influence of researches and sources. This paper analyses the worldwide research dynamics on circular economy in the period from 2006 to 2017. A bibliometric analysis of 743 articles was completed. The most productive journals in this field were Journal of Cleaner Production. The five most productive countries were China, United Kingdom, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany. Works on the circular economy and environment has considerable potential and it is open to research fields as sustainability or industrial production. The findings of this study could prove useful for studies into environmental circular economy, as they show a global sight of this line of study. Thus, the article represents a contribution to identify the main trends in circular economy research and environment and, from there, propose future research initiatives.

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In recent years, the topic of sustainability has gained prominence in many retail sectors. Sustainability is a key element for retailers, who have seen that sustainable development could become an important source of competitive advantage. The purpose of this work is to highlight state of the art sustainability in retailing, for which a bibliometric analysis has been carried out using Web of Science online and Scopus database. Our findings show the most influential countries, journals, authors, and areas of knowledge interested in the topic. By using a fractional counting method to analyze co-occurrence of the author’s keywords, this paper identifies the most frequent terms and seven clusters. This article represents a contribution by identifying the main trends in sustainability and retail research and proposes future research initiatives, such as: analyze under which conditions the sustainability initiatives give better results to retailers; selection of suppliers and supply chain management; evaluate different types of sustainable products; store sustainable management; sustainability actions and retailers image; how to communicate the sustainability actions of retailers; how sustainability actions influence different types of brands; and international and cross-cultural analysis.

Since the eighties, the concern for sustainability has been increasing from several dimensions and depending on different socio-economic, political, geographical and cultural factors. In the last few years, local development has incorporated the concept of sustainability, as part of the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals strategy, highlighting the relevance of this process. The purpose of this research is to show the state of the art of this subject, for what a bibliometric analysis has been carried out based on the two most important online databases: Web of Science and Scopus. This article identifies the latest trends that characterize the concept of sustainable local development, where resilience is the new perspective to include in the variables that influence the development of territories. The results show a positive trend in this field of research, with both the number of articles published and citations increasing exponentially in the last ten years. In addition, the analysis of keywords has shown a tendency towards terms such as resilience, rural tourism or ecological agriculture. In essence, the concept has reached such a point that it is necessary to establish new mechanisms that soften and even negate the economic disruption caused by globalization.

This work represents a contribution by showing the state of the art of research on rural tourism and development, identifying trends and proposing future lines and topics of research. Rural tourism and its influence on the economic development of rural areas has been an important and dynamic area of research since 2004. For this purpose, a quantitative bibliometric analysis of the 892 documents related to this topic contained within the Web of Science Core Collection has been carried out. Results show that studies on rural tourism mainly focus on Spain, Romania, and China. However, the most prolific authors are from Portugal, China, the United Kingdom, and the United States. There is a notable lack of studies focused on countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America, mainly due to political and religious factors. Rural tourism is also an important and emergent sector, particularly in countries like Romania and China.