Circular Economy Strategy and Waste Management: A Bibliometric Analysis in Its Contribution To Sustainable Development, Towards A Post COVID-19 Era

Abstract

A descriptive analysis of 416 documents was performed using bibliometric techniques, in order to gather existing knowledge in circular economy (CE) focusing on waste management (2007–2020). The results of this study indicate that annual scientific production increased 94% in the last five years; highlighting the countries of Italy, Spain, United Kingdom, China, Brazil and India. The conceptual analysis indicates strong linkage between CE and sustainable production, waste management and recycling. Emerging research trends evolved from processes and industry oriented approach (2017), towards waste management, recycling and circular economy (2019) and sustainable development and urban solid waste (2020). Through intellectual analysis, schools of thought were identified, where the most influential authors such as Wang, Ghisellini, Zhang and the European Commission with the greatest connection with other authors stand out. Results found denote the challenge represented by the implementation of comprehensive policies in CE, in addition to measure its contribution to sustainable development. The above, being a key alternative for green recovery in response to current COVID-19 pandemic.