Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Wheels Within Wheels: Mapping the Genealogy of circular Economy using Machine Learning

  • Original Paper
  • Published:
Circular Economy and Sustainability Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

The literature on circular economy (CE) is growing significantly. Although the concept emerged in the 1970s, it is only very recently that it has gained interest in the scientific community. However, little is known about its genealogy, how the international community was formed, and how concepts were approached and developed by mobilizing different theoretical approaches, especially in humanities and social sciences. This study fills this gap by shedding light on the recent developments in the field from a regional perspective. We used computer-assisted methods (natural language processing, topic modeling, geoparsing, scientometrics, and computational linguistics) on textual data to capture the field’s framework evolution, highlight main topics, identify key drivers, map the geography of knowledge production, and scrutinize the numerous types of the spatial proximities waved between its actors. To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to trace the geographic genealogy of CE using large-scale textual data to produce in-depth knowledge regarding the spatiotemporal genesis of the field by unpacking how closed-loop systems are analyzed across regions, worldwide.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1
Fig. 2
Fig. 3
Fig. 4
Fig. 5
Fig. 6
Fig. 7

Similar content being viewed by others

Notes

  1. For this study, we used a python version of 3.11 on a MacBook Pro with 16 GB of RAM and i7 quadcore processor. Code execution time was estimated to 42.469 s. Notice that the timeframe includes only (i) reading the data, (ii) cleaning the data, (iii) augmenting the data, and (iv) extract topics from the corpora.

References

  1. Wackernagel M, Rees W (1998) Our ecological footprint: reducing human impact on the earth, vol. 9. New society publishers, Gabriola

  2. Heinberg R (2007) Peak everything. Gabriola Island, Gabriola

  3. Loiseau E et al (2016) Green economy and related concepts: an overview. J Clean Prod 139:361–371

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Jacobs M (2013) Green growth. The handbook of global climate and environment policy, pp 197–214

  5. Morseletto P (2020) Targets for a circular economy. Resour, Conserv Recycl 153:104553. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2019.104553

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. Geissdoerfer M, Savaget P, Bocken NMP, Hultink EJ (2017) The circular economy – a new sustainability paradigm? J Clean Prod 143:757–768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2016.12.048

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. Ramakrishna S, Hu W, Jose R (2022) Sustainability in numbers by data analytics. Circ Econ Sust Aug. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00201-w

    Article  Google Scholar 

  8. Hachaichi M (2022) Cities: Allocating climate change responsibilities at planetary scale. Urban Clim 46:101329. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2022.101329

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Ramakrishna S, Pervaiz M, Tjong J, Ghisellini P, Sain MM (2022) Low-carbon materials: genesis, thoughts, case study, and perspectives. Circ Econ Sust 2(2):649–664. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00135-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Hachaichi M, Baouni T (2021) Virtual carbon emissions in the big cities of middle-income countries. Urban Clim 40:100986. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.uclim.2021.100986

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. Hachaichi M, Egieya J (2022) Water-food-energy nexus in global cities: solving urban challenging interdependencies together. In Rev, preprint. https://doi.org/10.21203/rs.3.rs-1956052/v1

  12. Hachaichi M, Kazak JK, Baouni T (2020) Evaluating City Carbon Carrying Capacity: How many people can Algiers sustain?. Algerian Journal of Environmental Science and Technology 6(3)

  13. Hachaichi M (2022) Reshaping modern urban models with the global environmental ceiling: What, When, How, and Why? - preprint

  14. Ramakrishna S, Jose R (2022) Principles of materials circular economy. Matter 5(12):4097–4099. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.matt.2022.11.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  15. Hachaichi M (2019) The carbon footprint model as a plea for cities towards energy-transition: the case of Algiers-Algeria. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.2702586

  16. Hachaichi M, Baouni T (2020) Downscaling the planetary boundaries (Pbs) framework to city scale-level: De-risking MENA region’s environment future. Environ Sustain Indic 5:100023. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indic.2020.100023

    Article  Google Scholar 

  17. Tan J, Tan FJ, Ramakrishna S (2022) Transitioning to a circular economy: a systematic review of its drivers and barriers. Sustainability 14(3):3. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14031757

    Article  Google Scholar 

  18. Blomsma F, Brennan G (2017) The emergence of circular economy: a new framing around prolonging resource productivity. J Ind Ecol 21(3):603–614. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12603

    Article  Google Scholar 

  19. Kirchherr J, Reike D, Hekkert M (2017) Conceptualizing the circular economy: an analysis of 114 definitions. Resour Conserv Recycl 127:221–232. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2017.09.005

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. Zhu Q, Geng Y, Lai K (2010) Circular economy practices among Chinese manufacturers varying in environmental-oriented supply chain cooperation and the performance implications. J Environ Manage 91(6):1324–1331. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2010.02.013

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Bourdin S, Galliano D, Gonçalves A (2021) Circularities in territories: opportunities & challenges. Eur Plan Stud 30(7):1183–1191. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2021.1973174

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. De Pascale A, Arbolino R, Szopik-Depczyńska K, Limosani M, Ioppolo G (2021) A systematic review for measuring circular economy: the 61 indicators”. J Clean Prod 281:124942. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.124942

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Balland PA, Boschma R, Frenken K (2022) Proximity, innovation and networks: a concise review and some next steps. Handbook of Proximity Relations, pp 70–80

  24. Rejeb A, Rejeb K, Zailani S, Kayikci Y, Keogh JG (2022) Examining knowledge diffusion in the circular economy domain: a main path analysis. Circ Econ Sust. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00189-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  25. Tapia C, Bianchi M, Pallaske G, Bassi AM (2021) Towards a territorial definition of a circular economy: exploring the role of territorial factors in closed-loop systems. Eur Plan Stud 29(8):1438–1457. https://doi.org/10.1080/09654313.2020.1867511

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Schöggl J-P, Stumpf L, Baumgartner RJ (2020) The narrative of sustainability and circular economy - a longitudinal review of two decades of research. Resour, Conserv Recycl 163:105073. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.resconrec.2020.105073

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Khitous F, Strozzi F, Urbinati A, Alberti F (2020) A systematic literature network analysis of existing themes and emerging research trends in circular economy. Sustainability 12(4):1633. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12041633

    Article  Google Scholar 

  28. Goyal S, Chauhan S, Mishra P (2021) Circular economy research: a bibliometric analysis (2000–2019) and future research insights. J Clean Prod 287:125011. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.125011

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. Chowdhary KR (2020) Natural language processing. In Fundamentals of Artificial Intelligence, K. R. Chowdhary, Ed. New Delhi: Springer India, 603–649. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-81-322-3972-7_19

  30. Vayansky I, Kumar SAP (2020) A review of topic modeling methods. Inf Syst 94:101582. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.is.2020.101582

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Gelernter J, Balaji S (2013) An algorithm for local geoparsing of microtext. GeoInformatica 17(4):635–667. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10707-012-0173-8

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. Grishman R (1986) Computational linguistics: an introduction. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge

  33. Cuyala S (2016) The spatial diffusion of geography: a bibliometric analysis of ECTQG conferences (1978–2013). Cybergeo: Eur J Geogr https://doi.org/10.4000/cybergeo.27671

  34. Kirchherr J (2022) Bullshit in the sustainability and transitions literature: a provocation. Circ Econ Sust. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-022-00175-9

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Kneese AV (1988) The economics of natural resources. Popul Dev Rev 14:281–309. https://doi.org/10.2307/2808100

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Lieder M, Rashid A (2016) Towards circular economy implementation: a comprehensive review in context of manufacturing industry. J Clean Prod 115:36–51. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2015.12.042

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Yuan Z, Bi J, Moriguichi Y (2006) The circular economy: a new development strategy in China. J Ind Ecol 10(1–2):4–8. https://doi.org/10.1162/108819806775545321

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. MacArthur E (2013) Towards the circular economy. J Ind Ecol 2(1):23–44

    Google Scholar 

  39. Morseletto P (2020) Restorative and regenerative: exploring the concepts in the circular economy. J Ind Ecol 24(4):763–773. https://doi.org/10.1111/jiec.12987

    Article  Google Scholar 

  40. Raes J, van Ast L (2020) Financing circularity: demystifying finance for circular economies. UNEP Finance Initiative, Geneva

  41. Brydges T (2021) Closing the loop on take, make, waste: investigating circular economy practices in the Swedish fashion industry. J Clean Prod 293:126245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.126245

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Mihai F-C et al (2022) Plastic pollution, waste management issues, and circular economy opportunities in rural communities. Sustainability 14(1):20. https://doi.org/10.3390/su14010020

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  43. Korhonen J, Honkasalo A, Seppälä J (2018) Circular economy: the concept and its limitations. Ecol Econ 143:37–46. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.06.041

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Sharma S, Basu S, Shetti NP, Aminabhavi TM (2020) Waste-to-energy nexus for circular economy and environmental protection: recent trends in hydrogen energy. Sci Total Environ 713:136633. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.136633

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  45. Gallego-Schmid A, Chen H-M, Sharmina M, Mendoza JMF (2020) Links between circular economy and climate change mitigation in the built environment. J Clean Prod 260:121115. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.121115

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Invernizzi DC, Locatelli G, Velenturf A, Love PED, Purnell P, Brookes NJ (2020) Developing policies for the end-of-life of energy infrastructure: coming to terms with the challenges of decommissioning. Energy Policy 144:111677. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.enpol.2020.111677

    Article  Google Scholar 

  47. Merli R, Preziosi M, Acampora A (2018) How do scholars approach the circular economy? A systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 178:703–722

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Maaß O, Grundmann P (2018) Governing Transactions and interdependences between linked value chains in a circular economy: the case of wastewater reuse in Braunschweig (Germany). Sustainability 10(4):1125. https://doi.org/10.3390/su10041125

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Alamerew YA, Kambanou ML, Sakao T, Brissaud D (2020) A multi-criteria evaluation method of product-level circularity strategies. Sustainability 12(12):5129. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12125129

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. Bassi AM, Bianchi M, Guzzetti M, Pallaske G, Tapia C (2021) Improving the understanding of circular economy potential at territorial level using systems thinking. Sustain Prod Consum 27:128–140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.spc.2020.10.028

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Euopean Commission (2020) New circular economy action plan. European Commission - European Commission. https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_20_420 (accessed May 20, 2022)

  52. Wijkman A, Skånberg K (2015) The circular economy and benefits for society. Club of Rome

  53. Karimzadeh M, Pezanowski S, MacEachren AM, Wallgrün JO (2019) GeoTxt: a scalable geoparsing system for unstructured text geolocation. Trans GIS 23(1):118–136. https://doi.org/10.1111/tgis.12510

    Article  Google Scholar 

  54. Blei DM (2012) Probabilistic topic models. Commun ACM 55(4):77–84. https://doi.org/10.1145/2133806.2133826

    Article  Google Scholar 

  55. Falush D, Stephens M, Pritchard JK (2003) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data: linked loci and correlated allele frequencies. Genetics 164(4):1567–1587

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  56. Pritchard JK, Stephens M, Donnelly P (2000) Inference of population structure using multilocus genotype data. Genetics 155(2):945–959. https://doi.org/10.1093/genetics/155.2.945

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  57. Huang B (Ed) (2017) Comprehensive geographic information systems (1st edition)

  58. Blondel VD, Guillaume J-L, Lambiotte R, Lefebvre E (2008) Fast unfolding of communities in large networks. J Stat Mech 2008(10):P10008. https://doi.org/10.1088/1742-5468/2008/10/P10008

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Dugué N, Perez A (2015) Directed Louvain : maximizing modularity in directed networks,” Université d’Orléans, Research Report. Accessed: Jul. 16, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://hal.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01231784

  60. Traag VA, Waltman L, van Eck NJ (2019) From Louvain to Leiden: guaranteeing well-connected communities. Sci Rep 9(1)Art. no. 1. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-019-41695-z.

  61. Ueno K (2001) Current status of home electric appliances recycling in Japan. J Jpn Inst Energy 80:1100-1107

  62. Dajian Z (2004) Towards a closed-loop materials economy. Chin J Popul Resour Environ 2(1):9–12. https://doi.org/10.1080/10042857.2004.10677342

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. Nikolaou IE, Jones N, Stefanakis A (2021) Circular economy and sustainability: the past, the present and the future directions. Circ Econ Sust 1(1):1–20. https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-021-00030-3

    Article  Google Scholar 

  64. Govindan K, Hasanagic M (2018) A systematic review on drivers, barriers, and practices towards circular economy: a supply chain perspective. Int J Prod Res 56(1–2):278–311. https://doi.org/10.1080/00207543.2017.1402141

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Sassanelli C, Rosa P, Rocca R, Terzi S (2019) Circular economy performance assessment methods: a systematic literature review. J Clean Prod 229:440–453. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.05.019

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  66. Cosgrove WJ, Rijsberman FR (2014) World water vision: making water everybody’s business. London: Routledge https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315071763

  67. Gleeson T et al (2020) The water planetary boundary: interrogation and revision. One Earth 2(3):223–234. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.oneear.2020.02.009

    Article  Google Scholar 

  68. Davidson DJ (2019) Exnovating for a renewable energy transition. Nat Energy 4(4):256. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41560-019-0369-3

  69. Rehman A, Ma H, Ozturk I, Ulucak R (2022) Sustainable development and pollution: the effects of CO2 emission on population growth, food production, economic development, and energy consumption in Pakistan. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29(12):17319–17330. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16998-2

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. World Bank (2022) Cities and GDP. World Bank. https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/urbandevelopment/overview (accessed May 20, 2022)

  71. Wang N, Lee JCK, Zhang J, Chen H, Li H (2018) Evaluation of urban circular economy development: an empirical research of 40 cities in China. J Clean Prod 180:876–887. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2018.01.089

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Olabi AG (2019) Circular economy and renewable energy. Energy 181:450–454. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.energy.2019.05.196

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Rodriguez-Anton JM, Rubio-Andrada L, Celemín-Pedroche MS, Alonso-Almeida MDM (2019) Analysis of the relations between circular economy and sustainable development goals. Int J Sust Dev World 26(8):708–720. https://doi.org/10.1080/13504509.2019.1666754

    Article  Google Scholar 

  74. Ferronato N, Rada EC, Gorritty Portillo MA, Cioca LI, Ragazzi M, Torretta V (2019) Introduction of the circular economy within developing regions: a comparative analysis of advantages and opportunities for waste valorization. J Environ Manag 230:366–378. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2018.09.095

    Article  Google Scholar 

  75. De Meo P, Ferrara E, Fiumara G, Provetti A (2011) Generalized Louvain method for community detection in large networks. In 2011 11th International Conference on Intelligent Systems Design and Applications 88–93. https://doi.org/10.1109/ISDA.2011.6121636

  76. SverkoGrdic Z, KrstinicNizic M, Rudan E (2020) Circular economy concept in the context of economic development in EU countries. Sustainability 12(7):3060. https://doi.org/10.3390/su12073060

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Christis M, Athanassiadis A, Vercalsteren A (2019) Implementation at a city level of circular economy strategies and climate change mitigation – the case of Brussels. J Clean Prod 218:511–520. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2019.01.180

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Esa MR, Halog A, Rigamonti L (2017) Developing strategies for managing construction and demolition wastes in Malaysia based on the concept of circular economy. J Mater Cycles Waste Manag 19(3):1144–1154. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10163-016-0516-x

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Pavel S (2018) Circular economy: the beauty of circularity in value chain,” Social Science Research Network, Rochester, NY, SSRN Scholarly Paper 3396260. Accessed: May 30, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://papers.ssrn.com/abstract=3396260

  80. Dagilienė L, Varaniūtė V, Bruneckienė J (2021) Local governments’ perspective on implementing the circular economy: a framework for future solutions. J Clean Prod 310:127340. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.127340

    Article  Google Scholar 

  81. OECD () Development co-operation recorded in national budgets. Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Paris. Accessed: Jul. 21, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/development/development-co-operation-report-2017/development-co-operation-recorded-in-national-budgets_dcr-2017-graph35-en

  82. Sarvajayakesavalu S (2015) Addressing challenges of developing countries in implementing five priorities for sustainable development goals. Ecosyst Health Sustain 1(7):1–4. https://doi.org/10.1890/EHS15-0028.1

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. Belmin C, Hoffmann R, Pichler P-P, Weisz H (2022) Fertility transition powered by women’s access to electricity and modern cooking fuels. Nat Sustain 5(3)Art. no. 3. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41893-021-00830-3

  84. Tucho GT, Kumsa DM (2020) Challenges of achieving sustainable development goal 7 from the perspectives of access to modern cooking energy in developing countries. Front Energy Res 8. Accessed: Jul. 22, 2022. [Online]. Available: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/https://doi.org/10.3389/fenrg.2020.564104

Download references

Acknowledgements

The authors would like to thank Dr. Fabien Nadou for his suggestions and comments on the previous version of the article.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Université Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, Sciences Po Grenoble, Pacte, 38000, Grenoble, France

    Mohamed Hachaichi

  2. EM Normandy Business School, Métis Lab, Caen, France

    Sébastien Bourdin

Authors
  1. Mohamed Hachaichi
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Sébastien Bourdin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Contributions

M. Hachaichi: study design, data collection, analysis, article writing. S. Bourdin: study design and supervision.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Mohamed Hachaichi.

Ethics declarations

Ethical Approval and Consent to Participate

Not applicable.

Consent for Publication

Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Annex

Annex

Fig. 8

Fig. 8
figure 8

Model’s scores {log-likelihood and perplexity} with different {\(k\)} values

Full size image

Fig. 9

Fig. 9
figure 9

Most discussed topics within the circular economy

Full size image

Table 3

Table 3 Selected independent variables by indicator name, metric, and source
Full size table

Table 4

Table 4 Growth rates of circular economy themes from 2019 to 2021
Full size table

Rights and permissions

Springer Nature or its licensor (e.g. a society or other partner) holds exclusive rights to this article under a publishing agreement with the author(s) or other rightsholder(s); author self-archiving of the accepted manuscript version of this article is solely governed by the terms of such publishing agreement and applicable law.

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Hachaichi, M., Bourdin, S. Wheels Within Wheels: Mapping the Genealogy of circular Economy using Machine Learning. Circ.Econ.Sust. 3, 2061–2081 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00260-7

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s43615-023-00260-7

Keywords

Search

Navigation