What Are the Scholars’ Concerns about Circular Economy? A Comparative Research between China and the World

Abstract

In the past 20 years, the theory and technology of circular economy have developed rapidly around the world. And there has been a proliferation of scholars' publications on the topic. However, circular economy seems to act as an umbrella concept, different scholars from different countries have not reached a unified consensus on this topic. We examine the circular economy body of literature with a systematic approach based on the core journals listed in China National Knowledge Infrastructure and Web of Science and Scopus databases with “circular economy” as the unique subject search term over the period of 2000–2019, to provide an exhaustive comparative analysis of the topic with rigorous and reproducible research criteria. We mainly study the following issues. Which countries, which scholars, which institutions and which journals are more interested in the circular economy over the years? What are the research hotspots closely related to the circular economy? What is the synergy between academic research and regional policy? Combined with China's five-year plan, what are the research topics related to circular economy in each time period? How do these topics evolve? What is the future development trend of circular economy? Results show that:

1) China has been playing an important role in the whole development process of circular economy. After 2014, other European countries, such as the United Kingdom and Italy, are highlighted and the number of international literatures has grown exponentially.

2）Yong Geng and Xu Xiao are the most productive authors in worldwide and China respectively.

3) Delft University of Technology and School of Management in Tianjin University are the major research institutes in worldwide and China respectively.

4) Journal of Cleaner Production and Ecological Economy are the major periodicals that pay the most attention to circular economy in worldwide and China respectively.

5) Sustainable development, recycling, ecology and People’s Republic of China (who is treated as a research object) are the common research hotspots in worldwide and China. Besides, the international researches focus more on waste management and efficiency evaluation, while Chinese researches focus more on ecological civilization and resources.

6) The phase change of hotspots in the study is consistent with stage characteristics of the practice of circular economy development overall. However, academic research lags behind national policies and regulations slightly in most cases in China. The research topics related to circular economy are constantly evolving, and research topics in China are appeared later than the international, but with the rapid development of the circular economy in China, the gap is shrinking.

7) Before the 13th Five-Year Plan, China focused on the theory and framework of circular economy at the meso and macro level, and its research field focused on industrial enterprises, while the international focused on specific production and life at a micro level.

8) Ecological civilization, cleaner production, industrial symbiosis, international cooperation and the world community, municipal solid waste, and market-mechanism will be the future development focus of circular economy.

Keywords: circular economy, worldwide and China, comparative research, hotspots, topics