Circular Economy: an analysis of state-of-theart to identify a re-search agenda

Abstract

In the last decade's new models of development considering the integration between the economic and ecological systems have appeared in response to the scarcity of resources and environmental impacts; the circular economy is one of these models. Although it is possible to find extensive literature on the subject, mainly in the last decade, the concept still lacks theoretical deepening. This article aims to and characterize the literature on the circular economy, published from 2008 through 2019 at the scientific bases Science Direct, Scopus and Web of Science.To achieve this goal, an integrative literature review was conducted, based on the Methodi Ordinatio Protocol, considering 2,661 papers from Web of Science, Science Direct and Scopus databases. The findings demonstrated the main characteristics of the papers published in the period considered for this ILR, showing the prominent authors, the distribution of the papers over the year, the central countries and journals of the publications, and the primary methods. In addition, we identified a research agenda with many topics until not addressed. The contribution of this study lies in the analysis of the main characteristics of the international literature on the circular economy, published in journals with impact factors, as well as identifying a research agenda that can help researchers, practitioners and other stakeholders in the area.