The recently published paper allow the authors, Valeria Ferreira, Laia Pié and Antonio Terceño, to identify publications in the fields of economics and business management, related to implemented policies, strategies, case studies, indicators and the business models of companies that seek a more sustainable path

Valeria Ferreira, Laia Pié and Antonio Terceño have published the paper “A Systematic Literature Review of Bio, Green and Circular Economy Trends in Publications in the Field of Economics and Business Management” in the Sustainability Open Access Journal. Sustainability  is an international, cross-disciplinary, scholarly, peer-reviewed and open access journal of environmental, cultural, economic, and social sustainability of human beings. All three authors are part of the research group Mercats i Anàlisi Financera (MAF) of the URV.

This work is part of the Valeria’s thesis project, that aims to analyse the economic, social and environmental impact of Bioeconomy in different sectors. Her main objective is to explore the publications within the field of economics and business management by carrying out a descriptive analysis, and to analyse the current literature on Bioeconomy and identify possible gaps in the literature.

In the paper, a systematic literature review of the concepts Bioeconomy, Circular Economy and Green Economy in the field of economics and business management was carried out, using 449 publications selected from the Scopus database. The CE represents 47% of these publications, followed by the GE with 37% and the BE with 16%. The importance of the topics analysed has increased remarkably in recent years. Eighty-seven per cent of the selected publications have been published since 2013 and 59% of these in the last two years, 2016 and 2017.

This analysis has allowed the authors to identify  “Design or policy analysis” as the most prominent topic, represented by 24% of the publications. In second place is the category “Sectoral application/cluster” with 14% of the publications. Next, is the category “Management Styles” represented by 11% of the publications. Ferreira, Pié and Tereceño also been able to analyse the impact of other categories. This fact is significant, since the exploration of these topics, as well as government regulations and policies, will help organisations see where new opportunities lie, evaluate the impact of implementing them and move towards objectives to approach a more sustainable system. However, when carrying out this categorisation it was seen that there is still a long way to go in terms of business implementation and evaluation of the economic measurement of the impacts. Clear examples are the few works on case studies and indicators found. For these reasons sectorial applications and case studies must be investigated in greater depth, as must the analysis of their socioeconomic impact.

Valeria Ferreira is part of the Martí i Franquès COFUND Fellowship Programme which is jointly funded by the European Union.