Circular Economy Approaches for Sustainable Energy Supply Chains: A Systematic Review of Concepts, Models and Performance Assessment

The transition from linear production and consumption models toward circular economy (CE) systems represents a key pathway for improving the sustainability and resilience of energy supply chains. This review provides a structured synthesis of circular economy approaches applied across the full lifecycle of energy systems, encompassing resource sourcing, energy generation and conversion, processing, distribution, and end-of-life recovery. The analysis integrates conceptual frameworks with system-based and analytical modelling approaches, as well as environmental, economic, and operational performance assessment methods. The results reveal that current research remains largely fragmented across material, energy, and residual flow perspectives, with limited system-level integration and persistent inconsistencies in modelling and evaluation approaches. While circular strategies such as resource recovery, energy recirculation, and industrial symbiosis demonstrate significant potential for improving resource efficiency and reducing environmental impacts, their implementation continues to be constrained by data limitations, technological maturity, and coordination complexity across stakeholders. By consolidating the dispersed literature into a coherent analytical structure, this review clarifies the critical interdependencies between circularity strategies, modelling approaches, and performance metrics, and identifies the methodological gaps that currently limit progress toward integrated circular energy supply chains. The findings offer a structured foundation for researchers and practitioners working to develop more robust evaluation frameworks and governance mechanisms in this field, and point toward the convergence of digital technologies, multi-stakeholder governance, and lifecycle thinking as a productive direction for advancing the field.