From Green Promotion to Circular Value Creation: Mapping the Intellectual Structure and Emerging Fronts of Circular Economy Marketing Through Bibliometric Science Mapping (2011–2026)

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@article{1722417,
      author = {Dr. Vijayakumar},
      title = {From Green Promotion to Circular Value Creation: Mapping the Intellectual Structure and Emerging Fronts of Circular Economy Marketing Through Bibliometric Science Mapping (2011–2026)},
      journal = {Iconic Research And Engineering Journals},
      year = {2026},
      volume = {10},
      number = {2},
      pages = {1686-1710},
      issn = {2456-8880},
      url = {https://www.irejournals.com/formatedpaper/1722417.pdf},
      abstract = {Circular economy (CE) research has expanded rapidly, yet the marketing dimension of circularity remains conceptually dispersed across green marketing, sustainable consumption, remanufacturing, product-service systems, circular business models, reverse logistics, and consumer behavior. This study maps the development, intellectual structure, and emerging research fronts of circular economy marketing (CEM) using bibliometric performance analysis and science-mapping techniques. A Scopus-derived corpus of 408 journal articles published between 2011 and 2026 was analyzed in R using the bibliometrix/Biblioshiny environment. The dataset spans 227 sources, 1,352 authors, 54,935 cited references, 1,431 author keywords, and 1,732 index keywords. The field exhibits a high annual growth rate (31.38%), with publication output rising from one article in 2011 to 93 in 2025; the 60 articles recorded for 2026 represent a partial publication year. Sustainability, Journal of Cleaner Production, and Resources, Conservation and Recycling are the leading publication outlets. Co-citation analysis identifies foundational intellectual anchors around circular-economy conceptualization, business-model innovation, sustainability transitions, and consumer-oriented methods. Thematic mapping positions “circular economy–marketing–sustainability” as a highly central basic theme, while consumer behavior and purchase-related research constitute a developed motor theme. Document coupling reveals three active fronts: circular/green marketing strategy, consumer purchase intention and acceptance, and broader integration of marketing with sustainability and circular value creation. International co-authorship accounts for 30.15% of the corpus, indicating meaningful but still expandable global collaboration. Building on these patterns, the study conceptualizes CEM as a market-shaping capability that aligns value proposition design, communication, consumer practice change, recovery systems, and ecosystem coordination with circular resource flows. The study contributes an integrative knowledge map and proposes a future agenda around trust and greenwashing, digital circularity, B2B ecosystem orchestration, behavioral rebound, emerging-market contexts, and outcome-based circular marketing metrics.},
      keywords = {circular economy, marketing, green marketing, sustainable consumption, consumer behavior, bibliometric analysis, science mapping, biblioshiny, circular business models},
      month = {August},
      doi = {https://doi.org/10.64388/IREV10I2-1722417}
  }