The circular economy umbrella: Trends and gaps on integrating pathways

Among scholars, politicians and practitioners, the term “circular economy” (CE) has become increasingly familiar, but the concept comes from different epistemological fields and there is still a lack of consensus and convergence in the literature. This paper investigates the trends and gaps on the pathways convergence of the circular economy literature. The research method is a combination of semantic analysis, bibliometrics, networks and content analysis in a systematic literature review. The sample is composed of 327 articles extracted from the Web of Science and Scopus database. The results point out the lack of consensus on terminologies and definitions, thus, based on semantic analysis, a definition is proposed. In addition, the literature shows two main clusters, with different backgrounds, of different leading research groups in distinctive geographic regions. One cluster focuses on ecoparks and industrial symbiosis, mostly in the context of China. The second cluster is concerned with supply chains, material closed loops and business models.