STATE OF THE ART IN Circular Economy of packaging: what does the international literature say?

In recent years, the concept of Circular Economy (EC) has renewed the enthusiasm of academics and management practitioners, mainly because it has proved to be an alternative for a real operationalization, with existing cases in public and private administration closing their production cycles and preserving resources natural. Thus, the objective of this work was to raise the state of the art of Circular Economy of packaging through a Systematic Literature Review (SLR). The use of the SLR is useful to provide scientific evidence on a given subject and to structure the search, the protocol described by Cronin, Ryan & Coughlan (2008), already tested by other authors, was used. We opted for the scientific base Web of Science and after using inclusion and exclusion criteria, 41 articles (wrote in english) were read and analyzed in depth. In addition to bibliometric analysis, the results show the growing interest of international journals on the subject, as well as the institutions and journals that most disseminate knowledge in Circular Economy of packaging are exposed. Thematic areas and the content of the articles were discussed and it was found that the waste management stage is the most widely researched. At the end, a list of questions is presented based on what the international literature found from current research gaps. In this way, it cooperates for the dissemination of the new term in Brazil, in the greater desire to realize that knowledge can lead to management practices that move towards sustainable development.