The concept of circular economy (CE) has become one of the most important pillars of climate change mitigation efforts as its implementation seeks to decouple economic growth from resource use.
Despite this key role in decarbonisation, research on CE is still fragmented across various disciplines.
This paper, first in a series of publications on circular economy, reviews the growing literature on CE with the aim of improving the understanding of the concept based on an overview of its various definitions and meanings.
There is a pressing need to develop a more holistic and comprehensive understanding of the concept and the principles that fundament CE as legislation, national strategies and public policies are being formulated and will be later implemented based on this apprehension.