Circular Economy and Economic Development in the European Union: A Review and Bibliometric Analysis

The potential of animal manure management pathways toward a circular economy: a bibliometric analysis

Improper disposal of animal waste is responsible for several environmental problems, causing eutrophication of lakes and rivers, nutrient overload in the soil, and the spread of pathogenic organisms. Despite the potential to cause adverse ecological damage, animal waste can be a valuable source of resources if incorporated into a circular concept. In this sense, new approaches focused on recovery and reuse as substitutes for traditional processes based on removing contaminants in animal manure have gained attention from the scientific community. Based on this, the present work reviewed the literature on the subject, performing a bibliometric and scientometric analysis of articles published in peer-reviewed journals between 1991 and 2021. Of the articles analyzed, the main issues addressed were nitrogen and phosphorus recovery, energy generation, high-value-added products, and water reuse. The energy use of livestock waste stands out since it is characterized as a consolidated solution, unlike other routes still being developed, presenting the economic barrier as the main limiting factor. Analyzing the trend of technological development through the S curve, it was possible to verify that the circular economy in the management of animal waste will enter the maturation phase as of 2036 and decline in 2056, which demonstrates opportunities for the sector's development, where animal waste can be an economic agent, promoting a cleaner and more viable product for a sustainable future.

Evaluating the Transition of the European Union Member States towards a Circular Economy

This paper presents the assessment of the European Union member states in terms of the circular economy (CE) targets, using a combination of the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) method and factor analysis. This approach fills in the existing knowledge gap by providing an innovative methodology of an objectivised comparative evaluation of the degree of implementation of the CE principles by the EU countries. Assessing countries’ performance in achieving the goals of the circular economy is a challenge due to the lack of a generally accepted methodology, the multitude of indicators, and the insufficient data. Countries may be compared in a narrow way, according to single indicators, but a more holistic synthetic assessment of countries is also needed to determine their position against each other. In such cases, DEA may be successfully used. The study resulted in the identification of two clusters of countries with similar profiles of relative efficiency in the CE goals’ implementation. It was concluded that the position of a particular country in achieving the CE aims was strongly correlated its GDP per capita. Moreover, factor analysis showed that many CE indicators are strongly correlated with each other and may be aggregated into five meta-indicators (factors): Recycling rate of general waste, Waste production, Jobs and investments, Recycling rate of special waste, and Circular material use rate. In addition to simple rankings and indication of benchmarks, the article offers a novel concept of technology competitors which was used to group units competing for positions in the ranking.

Bibliometric Analysis for Working Capital: Identifying Gaps, Co-Authorships and Insights from a Literature Survey

From a financial perspective, working capital represents the liquidity of firms that makes them able to deal with short-term liabilities in current assets (inventories, receivables accounts, and net financial resources). However, this concept is also considered in scientific literature as, among other meanings, stock of productive capital, or variables costs. Considering the importance of working capital in a firms’ dynamics, the principal objective of this study is to highlight the main gaps and insights in literature concerning working capital and to suggest future research. For this purpose, bibliometric analysis was carried out through bibliographic information from both the Web of Science Core Collection and from the Scopus for the topic of “working capital”. These data were first worked through bibliometric approaches, considering the VOSviewer and Gephi software and later surveyed through a literature review. As the main insights, it is worth highlighting that there are several gaps in related literature, where the most worrying is the weak reference to sustainability or sustainable development concepts. Finally, the majority of the networked research was focused on just a few authors, organizations, and countries.

Circular Economy for a Sustainable Agri-Food Supply Chain: A Review for Current Trends and Future Pathways

The current agri-food supply chain is affected by different problems such as food loss and waste generation along the supply chain, and the circular economy offers a possibility to enhance and optimize the production and consumption to seek to a sustainable paradigm. The circular economy can be a winning approach to intervene and moderate the impacts generated in the agri-food sector, proposing actions and solutions to readmit wastes and by-products in the productive chain. The aim of this work was to perform a literature review coupled with a bibliometric analysis, using VOSviewer software, on the circular economy model in the agri-food sector, with particular relevance to the reuse and valorisation of wastes and by-products. Results showed that the topic is of particular relevance in the scientific community, and the concept is continuously evolving. Europe plays a leading role in the research, thanks to the involvement of the Member States, policy makers and stakeholders. Nevertheless, some aspects such as the development of a new economic circular model and some limitations of the current policies deserve further investigation.

Urban Strategies Enabling Industrial and Urban Symbiosis: The Case of Slovenia

Industrial symbiosis (IS) recognizes the exchange of waste resources and by-products between companies that do not normally cooperate in resource exchange; on the other hand, urban symbiosis (UrS) recognizes the use of solid waste in cities as input sources for industries that do not normally accept these sources. It is difficult to realize both in a pre-planned process, and there are few successful initiatives based on the exchange of waste and energy. The main objective of this research is to find out whether there are urban strategies that support the emergence, existence and development of IS and/or UrS in Slovenia. National documents, networks, projects, programs, and national statistical sources were examined. The Integrated Sustainable Urban Development Strategies (ISUSD) for eleven cities and municipalities were reviewed against ten selected indicators. The main findings are that there is intense awareness raising on IS and UrS, and adequate overall legislative support, aligned with EU legislation. Nevertheless, there has been surprisingly less waste conversion to energy recovery since 2010. The reuse of by-products either for energy or new products is non-existent or negligible. Selected main urban strategies for cities in Slovenia are far from setting more concrete guidelines for the development of IS and/or UrS. In the future, more successful integration of IS and UrS is possible in the context of regeneration development of brownfield sites.