Circular economy, degrowth and green growth as pathways for research on sustainable development goals: A global analysis and future agenda

Luis Jesús Belmonte-Ureña, José Antonio Plaza-Úbeda, Diego Vazquez-Brust and Natalia Yakovleva

Ecological Economics, 2021, vol. 185, issue C

Abstract: Using bibliometric techniques, we evaluate the contribution of current academic research to the advancement of sustainable development agenda as expressed in the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) targets . We focus on four knowledge domains highly relevant to the ethos of sustainable development, each with a distinct approach, to finding a balance between ecological and economic systems when it comes to development: “Circular Economy” (CE), “Degrowth” (DG), Green Growth” (GG), and research specifically addressing sustainable development goals that we refer to as “SDG Research” (SDGR). We evaluate two dimensions: scope – the extent to which the full range of UN Sustainable Develpment (SD) Agenda 2030 topics expressed in targets and indicators for each SDG are explored; and intensity- the quantity of research focusing on each SDG. Our analysis demonstrates that the four knowledge domains examined: CE, DG, GG and the emerging domain labelled SDGR, have made important contributions to research related with the 17 UN SDGs. However, these contributions are heterogeneous with important differences according to the SDGs. We find that academic research does not fully align with the policy agenda, identifying several gaps. The disparate coverage of SDGs priorities by academics may compromise the progress and implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Agenda 2030.

Keywords: Sustainable development goals; Circular Economy; Degrowth; Green Growth; Sustainability; Bibliometric analysis (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (35)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800921001087
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:185:y:2021:i:c:s0921800921001087

DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2021.107050

Access Statistics for this article

Ecological Economics is currently edited by C. J. Cleveland

More articles in Ecological Economics from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().