Circular Economy in Africa's Built Environment: A Conceptual Bibliometric Analysis

As an alternative to the linear economy concept, the circular economy (CE) is growing in popularity among researchers, governments, and organisations. It is a waste-elimination concept that takes, creates, uses, and regenerates materials. Although the CE concept has been adopted in a variety of industries and countries, its application in Africa, particularly in the built environment sector, is still in its early stages. A lack of adequate research on the subject could be one of the reasons for the slow uptake in the built environment. In this context, the study provides an overview of publications focusing on CE in Africa's built environment from 2001 to 2021. Through the Web of Science database, this study identifies various key topics and CE implementation methods in Africa using bibliometric analysis. The findings show that 92 publications in Africa focused on CE and the built environment over a 20-year period. Using the VOS viewer software, data analysis focused on the document type, year of publication, journal distribution, top authors, most cited publication, and keywords. In conclusion, the study suggests that vigorous research on the CE concept be conducted, with a focus on waste minimisation, in order to reduce pollution in the long run.