From waste to wealth: global trends in sustainable solid waste management through carbon finance – a systematic bibliometric review through TCCM based thematic framework

Carbon finance has emerged as a crucial tool in promoting sustainable solid waste management (SWM) through the commercialization of greenhouse gas reduction benefits and encouraging low-carbon waste treatment solutions. In the context of the growing amount of solid waste in cities and the significant contribution of the waste sector to the global level of methane emissions, this paper synthesizes the world literature on carbon-financed SWM. This hybrid review is based on a carefully screened dataset that includes forty-seven peer-reviewed articles found in Scopus and Web of Science. It integrates performance-based bibliometric analysis and science-mapping approaches with the Theory-Context-Characteristics-Methodology (TCCM) model to perform a systematic bibliometric review of the intellectual framework, thematic development, and methodological basis of the discipline. The bibliometric findings indicate a rapid increase in the number of publications after 2018, with research concentrated in a small number of key journals and countries. The collaboration networks suggest growing, albeit disproportionate, global collaboration between the Global North and South. Thematic evolution, factorial analyses, and keyword co-occurrence reveal that the key analytical framework that connects emissions accounting, carbon credit quantification, and technology evaluation is life cycle assessment (LCA). The TCCM analysis shows that the current literature is based largely on the LCA framework, circular economic thinking, and carbon market mechanisms, whereas socio-economic and behavioral theories are not exploited. In practice, studies have focused on urban, landfill-based, and anaerobic digestion settings. The literature on informal waste workers, distributive equity, environmental justice and the socio-economic impacts at the level of the community is still rather sparse. However, the literature remains fragmented despite the increasing analytical sophistication, technologies, carbon market pathways, and policy settings. This study intends to fill these gaps by proposing a new conceptual integrative framework that links waste treatment technologies, carbon credit pathways, circular economy strategies, carbon market mechanisms, and socio-economic dimensions. This review, through the combination of a systematic review, bibliometric analysis, and TCCM-based analysis, contributes to the theoretical synthesis. It also outlines a research agenda for the future that will help to achieve resilient, inclusive, and climate-effective solid waste management with the help of carbon finance.