Theoretical research on circular economy and sustainability trade-offs and synergies: A bibliometric analysis

Circular economy (CE) and sustainability are interrelated, without being exchangeable. While sustainability tries to reconcile the management of productive resources with their increasing consumption, CE aims to make the productive process more efficient, reducing, reusing and recycling the results of the productive process as much as possible. The aim of this paper is to find out the systemic structure of interactions between sustainability and CE, through the analysis of the existing literature from 2004 to 2021. For this purpose, a computational literature review and content analysis method of CE strategies and Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) in the existing scientific literature has been conducted. It shows that there is a positive impact of the synergy between CE strategies and certain SDGs. All this has led to inclusion in the formulation of policies and strategies, although there is still potential to legislate an even more sustainable framework.