A bibliometric analysis of the literature on circular economy and sustainability in maritime studies

Abstract

Over the last decade, many academics, practitioners, and policy-makers have focused on the notion of circular economy (CE) as a way to operationalize sustainable development. There is, however, a shortage of review studies that reflect the evolution and status of CE with respect to sustainability in the maritime industry. The purpose of this study is to conduct a bibliometric analysis of the development of CE in research on sustainable maritime processes/operations in the maritime industry. To accomplish this, the study uses citation analysis (publication distribution, productive journals, cross-country collaborations), co-occurrence analysis of the subject categories, co-citation analysis, and keyword frequency analysis. To collect data, the study utilizes the Web of Science database. Such software packages as CiteSpace, Histcite, and VOSviewer are used to analyze the data collected. The results clarify that, in the maritime industry, CE is a micro-level sub-set of sustainability. Furthermore, the literature has mainly focused on waste management and life-cycle assessment as measures of CE 1.0 and CE 2.0, respectively. Assessing circularity in terms of R-imperatives highlights that "recycle," "remanufacture," "recover," and "reduce" are widespread practices of circularity in the maritime industry. Shipping companies should evaluate the possibility of implementing CE by realizing shorter loop R-imperatives such as "refuse," "reduce," "reuse," and "repair." Scholars must further explore underdeveloped R-imperatives such as "refuse," "refurbish," "repurpose," and "remine" in the maritime industry.

Keywords: Bibliometric analysis; Circular economy; Sustainability; The maritime industry.

Fig. 1

Overall research framework

Fig. 2

Publication trends in relation to CE and SM studies from 1970 to 2021. The data in 2021 were collected from January 1 to December 20

Fig. 3

Co-authorship network map of the countries from 1970 to December 2021

Fig. 4

Seven clusters of the documents in the co-citation network based on 1-year slices (WoS data from 1970 to December 2021). The size of each node is proportional to the co-citation frequency of the publications. The color of the cluster border indicates the average publication year of the cluster. Warm colors show that a given cluster is newer, whereas the cold colors represent older clusters

Fig. 5

A timeline view of the 7 clusters of document co-citations from 1970 to 2021 based on 1-year slices. Note: The node sizes are proportional to the total co-citation frequency of the documents. Node colors indicate different years. Similarly, the color of each cluster label illustrates the average year of the cluster in question. Warm colors represent newer clusters, whereas cold colors show older ones

Fig. 6

Network diagram of the keyword co-occurrences showing the relationships between CE and other concepts between 2018 and 2022

Fig. 7

Future directions of research exploring various aspects of circularity in the maritime industry