Synergies between the agri-food sector and the cosmetic industry through circular economy: evidence from a literature review

Sustainability goals are increasingly taken into consideration in all the eco- nomic sectors. The cosmetic industry is involved in the search of sustainable solutions aimed to reduce any negative environmental, economic and social impacts regarding the entire life cycle of its products. In this context, the scientific community has started to investigate the concept of Circular Economy (CE) as a way to achieve sustainability goals. However, there is still a lack of information regarding the practical imple- mentation of CE in the cosmetic industry. Thus, an analysis of the state of the art in this field is needed for providing an overview of CE practices and strategies which are or could be implemented in the cosmetic industry. Pur- suing this aim, a systematic literature review is performed in order to iden- tify and analyse studies in which potential CE strategies are applied in the cosmetic sector, and also to understand the role of the agri-food sector in this regard. In addition, the 4Rs principles are considered in order to analyse the characteristics of the proposed CE options. Scopus and Web of Science databases have been used for searching the scientific articles to be included in the analysis. A final sample of 58 articles was identified according to spe- cific selection criteria. Results highlight that the majority of studies is fo- cused on the valorisation of waste and by-products from the agri-food sector to be used in the formulation of cosmetics. Furthermore, a predominant importance of the principles reduce and recovery has been highlighted in the application of CE in cosmetic industry through agri-food sector.