UNFOLDING THE GLOBAL BIOGAS ECONOMY: A BIBLIOMETRIC AND SCIENCE-MAPPING ANALYSIS OF BUSINESS, ACCOUNTING, AND ECONOMIC RESEARCH (1980–2025)
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Abstract
Biogas plays an increasingly important role in renewable energy transitions due to its capacity to integrate waste management, energy production, and circular economy objectives. While a substantial body of literature has examined biogas from technical and engineering perspectives, a systematic understanding of its evolution within business, economic, and accounting research remains limited. This study addresses this gap through a comprehensive bibliometric and science-mapping analysis of 182 peer-reviewed journal articles indexed in Scopus between 1980 and 2025. Using performance indicators and keyword co-occurrence network analysis, the study examines publication trends, leading contributors, geographic distribution, subject area composition, and the thematic development of the biogas economy literature. The results reveal a marked increase in research activity after the mid-2010s, accompanied by a shift in themes from waste management and technical utilization toward circular economy frameworks, market-oriented analyses, rural economic development, and value creation from biogas by-products, such as digestate. Despite this progression, accounting-related perspectives, including long-term cost–benefit assessment, sustainability reporting, ESG-aligned measurement, and investment risk evaluation, remain weakly integrated within the field. By clarifying the intellectual structure and identifying persistent gaps, this study provides an integrative foundation for future interdisciplinary research and offers policy-relevant insights to support more transparent, accountable, and economically viable biogas development strategies for policymakers, practitioners, and investors.Keywords:
Bibliometric analysis, Biogas economy, Circular economy, Renewable energy economics, Sustainability accountingReferences
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