1 Introduction

Since the dawn of the industrial revolutions in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, mankind has seen an advancement in technology, food production and processing, improved medicines and healthcare, automation of manufacturing, new innovations in research and development, and a higher material standard of living (Black et al. 2021). Notwithstanding, these breakthroughs have come at a cost to the environment. We have witnessed an increased level of waste disposal problems, habitat destruction and deforestation, marine pollution, biodiversity loss, transboundary transportation of pollutants, climate change, and global warming phenomena (Ghani et al. 2023).

Many governments have and continue to encourage the use of LCA through the enactment of policies and frameworks, albeit voluntarily (Guinée et al. 2010; Udo de Haes and Heijungs 2007). Some countries in the European Union, the United States, and Japan have developed LCA methodologies and software reflecting the environmental realities of their countries. A few of these tools have also integrated the environmental realities of other countries and, hence, can find applicability elsewhere. However, countries in Africa are still lagging behind in LCA developments. Hence, research, policy guidelines, training, and application of life cycle thinking for decision-making are in their infancy on the continent.

The LCA method and software have and continue to be an invaluable method in the development of strategies for reducing the environmental impacts of human activities. Hence, there are a number of peer-reviewed papers, reviews, and reports in literature. Academic scholars have also applied bibliometric methods in the field of LCA research and development and obtained invaluable research outcomes. For instance, de Souza and Barbastefano (2011) carried out a bibliometric review on 1386 articles and found that knowledge diffusion and collaboration networks are dominated by Europeans and Americans (Hou et al. 2015). Chen et al. (2014) carried out a bibliometric investigation of LCA research using the WoS database from 1998 to 2013. Their findings show that institutions with more than 60 publications were in Europe (64%), America (29%), and Asia (4%) (Chen et al. 2014). Analysing more recent data, He and Yu (2020) provided an in-depth overview of research trends in LCA research based on a 20-year bibliometric analysis and found that between 1999 and 2018, the top publishing continents were North America, Asia, and Europe (USA, China, Italy, Spain, and Germany).

On their part, Karkour et al. (2021) carried out a review of the status of LCA in Africa over the last 20 years and found a total of 199 peer-reviewed papers on the subject matter for the whole continent, an abysmally low number compared to a developing country like Thailand. The authors acknowledged the low level of LCA research on the continent and the difficulty associated with the availability of primary data (Karkour et al. 2021).

On the country level, different review works have been carried out to assess the efforts made by the government, industrial, and academic sectors, as well as independent initiatives. Peters et al. (2010) reviewed LCA in Australia; Güereca et al. (2015) provided an overview of the development and implementation of LCA in Mexico using bibliographic information and his personal experience. In the same vein, Nie (2013) reviewed the development and application of life cycle assessment in China over the last decade; Maepa et al. (2017) and Dunmade (2019) carried out an online literature review and an exploratory survey of LCA in Nigeria, respectively. Odey et al. (2021) performed a bibliometric review of LCAs conducted in South Korea in the last 20 years and identified potential research gaps in that country. In the same vein, different authors carried out similar research in Austria (Ladenika et al. 2019), Sweden (Croft et al. 2018), Brazil (Bodunrin et al. 2018), New Zealand (Shaun et al. 2018), Portugal (Burman et al. 2018), and South Africa (Brent et al. 2002; Harding et al. 2021).

Despite this progress, there have been few systematic and chronological studies to map LCA research in Africa. Important topic areas such as current research topics and trends, collaboration and corporation networks, and the characteristics of LCA publications and manuscripts need to be further studied. Therefore, considering the rapid socioeconomic and technological change in Africa and the widespread environmental problems that come with it (Bradshaw and Di Minin 2019), there is a need to pay attention to the growth and development of LCA methodology for decision-making by government and companies. And quite often, industrial processes in Africa will be less modern than those in the industrialised nations, thereby yielding a high environmental burden per functional unit (Udo de Haes and Heijungs 2007).

The objective of this study, therefore, was to map the current state of LCA tools and research on the African continent through a bibliometric analysis and to answer the following questions.

  1. (I)

    What are the volume and publication trend, growth trajectory, and geographic distribution of LCA research on the continent?

  2. (II)

    Which researchers, institutions, and countries have emerged as thought leaders in LCA research on the African continent?

  3. (III)

    What is the level of cooperation amongst these scholars, institutions, and countries?

  4. (IV)

    What is the intellectual structure of the LCA knowledge base and what areas of research have been the focus of these scholars?

2 Materials and methods

2.1 Identification of literature sources

An initial scoping exercise was undertaken to understand the current state of research. This scoping helped in the development and implementation of suitable search strategies and ‘system boundaries’ (database to use, language restriction, time periods, keyword search, and countries to include or exclude) (Briner and Denyer 2012).

The data repository selected for the search and extraction of documents was the Scopus index. The choice of the database is premised on the fact that it is the main bibliographic database conventionally accepted as the most comprehensive data source with a wide range of published articles across different academic disciplines for various purposes (Martinez et al. 2019). The Scopus database has earned its reputation as a comprehensive data source that is reliable (Moher et al. 2009). Furthermore, it has been shown to offer more comprehensive coverage of sources than the Web of Science (WoS) for fields of study outside of the physical sciences and medicine (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020).

In recent bibliometric studies, researchers have been seen to combine data from the Scopus index and the WoS. In this research, we choose not to do that, because carrying out a bibliometric analysis by combining data from both databases has been shown not to give a broader view of knowledge and tendencies in a field (Echchakoui 2020). We adopted a broad scope as regards the document types, with the inclusion of journal articles, books, conference papers, and book chapters. In order to allow for the identification of the earliest published papers in literature, no start date was identified for the Scopus search; however, the end date was set at 2022. For countries to be selected or included in the review, they must be recognised by the African Union (AU). The preferred language is English. Using English is a limitation; however, the language makes up by far the largest component of scholarly literature. Furthermore, it ensures consistency of records and facilitates text parsing in the tools to be used (Chen et al. 2014).

The updated Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analysis (PRISMA) 2020 procedure for carrying out systematic reviews of research was adopted and applied in this review study (Page et al. 2021). The search string ‘life cycle assessment’ OR ‘life cycle assessment’ OR ‘LCA’ OR ‘life cycle analysis’ was entered into the Scopus index search engine, which yielded an initial count of 170,727 documents (see Fig. 1). For a document to be included in the study, it must fulfil the following criteria: (1) the title or methodology mentioned a location in Africa and (2) at least one author is affiliated with an institution in Africa. After the above criteria were applied, the number of documents in the database was reduced to 3666. Further screening was applied to the documents by scanning the abstract and methodology, and exclusions were made based on topical relevance. After due diligence in screening the documents, the final database included 616 documents on life cycle assessment in Africa and will answer our first and second research questions.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Flowchart of the procedure used in the search and identification of documents

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2.2 Data processing and analysis

A total of 616 Scopus-indexed documents that contained bibliographic information were analysed for this review work. The meta-data contained the authors’ names and affiliations, the titles of the documents, their publication dates, and citation information. The trend analysis and the geographical distribution of the studies were carried out using descriptive statistics.

To accurately interpret the bibliometric map, eliminate errors and bias, and present the data visually to the academic community, the obtained data was cleaned, and it was ensured that the above boundaries applied. The title, abstract, and keywords of each record were checked. In some cases, the full publications were reviewed to determine the suitability of the publication for inclusion in the review work (Linnenluecke et al. 2019). The data was then analysed using Bibliometrix and VOSviewer. For visual clarity and brevity, the descriptive statistics results focused on the most important aspects (most relevant authors, most cited papers, growth trajectory, distribution of LCA research and development within the continent, and top author production over time). After cleaning and filtering the obtained data, 616 documents were obtained from 295 sources, with an annual growth rate of 6.48%. The total number of authors was 1835, of which 32 were authors of single-authored documents, whereas the number of co-authors per document stood at 4.31. Finally, the average citation per publication was 26.2, and international co-authorship was 56.17%.

2.3 Method and software

Bibliometric analysis helps in establishing a context and delimiting a research problem; seeking theoretical support; rationalising a problem and new lines of inquiry; distinguishing what has been done from what needs to be done; identifying the main outcomes of and methodologies used in prior studies; and avoiding fruitless research (Linnenluecke et al. 2019). Bibliometrics collects a representative and comprehensive dataset of a research area in a transparent, replicable, and scientific way, thereby minimising bias that may arise from the random inclusion or exclusion of studies and providing a more reliable and objective analysis (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017; Linnenluecke et al. 2019; Tranfield et al. 2003).

Bibliometrix and VOSviewer were employed for descriptive statistics, bibliographic coupling, co-citation, and co-occurrence analysis. Author co-citation analysis is a key metric used to analyse the intellectual structure and/or research tradition that have evolved over time in a research field (White and McCain 1998). Co-citation analysis simply sums up the number of times that two researchers or authors of a paper have been cited together in the reference list of documents contained in the review database (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020; Zupic and Čarter 2014). In co-citation analysis, it is assumed that, when two scholars are cited regularly by other authors, they share a similar theoretical perspective (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020; White and McCain 1998). Author co-citation analysis in the VOSviewer and Bibliometrix software converts patterns of author co-citation into a social network map that shows similarities amongst the authors in a particular literature, thereby serving as a basis for the visualisation of similarities—a powerful approach to network mapping (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017; van Eck and Waltman 2014). Author co-citation maps have found applicability in the mapping of the intellectual structure of different research domains such as life cycle assessment (He and Yu 2020). Our final analysis to answer research questions 1 and 2 (descriptive trend) was addressed by applying keyword co-occurrence analysis, identifying the most relevant and productive author, the most cited documents, the geographical distribution, the thematic evolution, the cooperation network, and the yearly output of the six most productive journals in VOSviewer and Bibliometrix.

Bibliometrix is a popular R package that allows users to import bibliography databases from Scopus, Web of Science (WoS), PubMed, Dimensions, Lens.org, and the Cochrane Library. It has a simple function that allows for descriptive analysis such as most cited documents, most relevant authors, top author production over time, keyword co-occurrence as a network plot, co-citation analysis, coupling analysis, collaboration analysis, thematic maps, or the evolution of a function, as well as a useful function to plot Sankey diagrams (Aria and Cuccurullo 2017). In this review work, the tool was used to analyse the thematic evolution of LCA research in Africa.

VOSviewer is a software tool for creating and visualising bibliometric networks. The networks can be scientific publications, scientific journals, researchers, research organisations, countries, keywords, or terms (nodes). The connections can be co-authorship, co-occurrence, citation, bibliographic coupling, or co-citation links (edges) (van Eck and Waltman 2014). The size of each node reflects the strength of the connection to the above variables (Linnenluecke et al. 2019).

3 Results

3.1 Descriptive trends in LCA research and development in Africa

There has been a growing interest in LCA research in Africa since the first paper was published by Greenblatt et al. (1992). This is visible by the number of Scopus-indexed documents. The early 1990s to the early 2000s was the period where early interest in ‘LCA research’ emerged slowly (12 documents). However, the pace picked up from 2002 to 2012 and brought about the publication of 104 documents, whilst the rapid growth period (2013–2023) saw the publication of 500 documents. Between 2002 and 2023, 81% of the literature was published, thereby leading to the conclusion that LCA is a rapidly emerging field of study and has come to stay on the continent (see Fig. 2).

Fig. 2
figure 2

The publication trend and growth trajectory of LCA publications in Africa, 1992–2022 (n = 616)

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3.2 Geographical distribution, type of publications, and subject area

The 616 documents were distributed across 94 countries of the world, affirming the broad network of interest and collaboration in life cycle assessment. A higher proportion of the scientific publications were authored outside of Africa, with France, UK, and the United States as the top three destinations where these publications emanated from. However, when the documents were filtered to specifically focus on African countries, only 28 out of the 54 recognised African Union countries have a minimum of one (1) published paper on LCA, with South Africa (SA), Egypt, Tunisia, Nigeria, and Algeria as the top five countries on the continent (see Fig. 3).

Fig. 3
figure 3

Distribution of LCA publication within the African Continent by country

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In terms of the distribution and nature of publications; articles, conference papers and review papers represent 70%, 15% and 8% respectively whilst the other combined made up for the remaining 7%. Of the 616 published works, the field of Environmental Science, Engineering and Energy contributed 27%, 19% and 18% respectively whilst the remaining disciplines combined accounted for 36% of the research outputs (Figs. S1 and S2 in the Supplementary material).

3.3 Analysis of key authors, institutions, journals, and documents

To extract authors data, the 616 publications were analysed. The 616 publications were authored by 1835 researchers and the average number of co-authors per document was 4.31. In addition, international co-authors represent 56.17% of the authors. The percentage of single author publication was 5.2%, a total of 32 articles whilst the highest percentage of publications, 21.8% were written by 3 authors, 134 publications. This is closely followed by 126 publications with 2 authors, 20.5%, whilst publications written by 4 authors with 112 articles, 18.2% of the total completes the trio of the highest percentage of publications by authors. The remaining 34.4% was authored by five or more authors, 212 articles.

Since the conception, standardisation, elaboration, and continued improvement of the LCA tool, scholars worldwide have published academic papers on the subject matter. On the African continent, of the authors with a minimum of 5 average publications (Fig. 4) - Mbohwa, von Blottnitz, Harding, Hajjaji, and Brent is top of the list. These topmost relevant authors are affiliated to institutions based in Southern Africa (South Africa) and Northern Africa (Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, and Morocco).

Fig. 4
figure 4

The most relevant authors and their number of publications on LCA

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3.4 Cooperation network

It can be seen from Fig. 5 that, there is a stronger relationship between countries in the same colour cluster than countries in different colour clusters. Evidently, the cooperation network between South Africa and the United States, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Germany, Australia, and other countries is strong. The same can be seen between Egypt and China, Canada, and Nigeria on the one hand, and between Tunisia and the UK, France, Spain, and Portugal on the other hand. It is instructive to note that countries within Africa have a low level of cooperation amongst themselves; rather, they cooperate more with countries in Europe, America, and Asia. For instance, there is no cooperation between South Africa and Egypt, Tunisia, and Kenya, as well as between Egypt and Kenya. It is important to point out that Mauritius is one country that has a robust cooperation network outside the continent—its cooperation network is with France, United States, UK, Germany, the Netherlands, Brazil, Italy, and Japan. A look at the LCA publications with these countries shows that they are mostly based on LCIA method development and one author that was featured prominently is Ramjeeawon Toolseeram. Out of the 16 publications from the country, Ramjeeawon authored and co-authored 11 of them.

Fig. 5
figure 5

Cooperation network amongst the top 20 countries. The frame nodes stand for the country, whilst the connection represents the partnership. The thickness of the line represents the strength of the cooperation. The thicker the nodes and connections between two or more nodes, the higher the level of cooperation between two countries

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3.5 Analysis of journals

Currently, there are 3432 journals that have published papers supporting the LCA research and development theme. These journals cut across agriculture, environmental science, science and technology, engineering, material science, energy and fuel, economics, social sciences, and more. The diverse nature of journals that publish LCA-related research shows the wide use of the theory and method of the subject matter, thereby attracting the attention of scholars from different academic disciplines (He and Yu 2020). The Journal of Cleaner Production, The International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment, Sustainability (Switzerland), Science of the Total Environment, and Water SA ranked as the top five journals for LCA-related research for African Scholars (see Fig. 6). It can be noted that the distribution of LCA papers in the top journals is unbalanced, with the top two journals accounting for 20% and the others 80% of the published papers.

Fig. 6
figure 6

Journals in which African scholars publish their findings on LCA

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3.6 Keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution of LCA

The author keyword analysis was used to understand the topical areas authors are working on and to get a good grasp of how the themes have evolved over the years. Hence, a keyword co-occurrence map using a threshold of 70 keywords was generated using the VOSviewer visualisation tool. Applying the author’s keyword co-occurrence is an integral part of academic research papers. These words summarise the central theme of the research work and offer readers insight on what to expect. Therefore, readers can simply and easily understand the main content of a paper. Furthermore, the author’s keywords offer an invaluable insight into current research topics and hotspots (He and Yu 2020; Shen et al. 2017). The map in Fig. 7 shows the three central themes of built environment and construction industry, alternative energy and agriculture, and waste management and recycling. The map is a representation of the school of thought through a co-word co-occurrence. From these three schools of thought, it is evident that the alternative energy and agriculture sectors are the number one area of concentration for LCA researchers in Africa. The focus on alternative energy is not a surprise, as the edge of this research theme lies in finding alternative sources of energy as a means of moving away from the fossil fuel industry and enhancing sustainability. The number of blue and violet nodes on the upper left and right sides of the map clearly establishes the dominance of this theme. The word greenhouse gases is linked with life cycle assessment, agriculture, carbon footprint, fossil fuels, biofuels, biogas, biodiesel, and biomass. Therefore, innovations and technologies such as sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) and maritime vessel propulsion biofuels have concentrated on cutting down on the amount of CO2 and other greenhouse gases emitted into the atmosphere. The SAF and other renewable energy development have brought about a paradigm shift in the design, building, use, and operation of aircraft, energy sources, and resources, thus, culminating in the development of theories and tools for the assessment of the environmental impacts of human activities.

Fig. 7
figure 7

Keyword co-occurrence and the different themes

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The second theme is the built environment and the construction industry. Sustainable construction, architectural design, construction materials, and eco-design feature prominently are words that are increasingly being used and linked to green construction and intelligent buildings (Ghaffarianhoseini and Berardi 2016; Kibert 2016). In the build environment, building information modelling (BIM) has emerged as a tool for the enhancement and integration of the design and construction processes, thus saving money, time, and enhancing the quality of the building whilst reducing environmental impacts (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020). In addition, the application and use of smart technologies in the design, building, operation, and management processes of the built environment have huge environmental and economic benefits for all concerned (Inyim et al. 2014; Rawai et al. 2013). With the proliferation of data-driven approaches and innovations in ICT, better modelling and decision-making can be made for a sustainable built environment (Chokor and El Amsar 2016; Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020).

The third theme or cluster is the waste management and recycling sector, with waste management, municipal solid waste (MSW), recycling, waste disposal, waste treatment, and incineration featured prominently. Even though the volume of waste generated in African countries is small in comparison to other regions of the world, the continent has a waste management problem owing to poor waste disposal practises that may be attributed to a lack of proper planning and infrastructure to handle domestic, farm, commercial, industrial, and construction waste (Godfrey et al. 2020; Parrot et al. 2009). However, in recent times, the innovative, forward-looking, and system-thinking circular economy (CE) concept has gained traction. Governments are enacting CE laws that promote and encourage the elimination of waste from the design stage of a product, circulate products and materials at their highest level, and regenerate nature (Ellen MacArthur Foundation 2014). Furthermore, the informal waste reclaimers are now being integrated into present and future waste management planning, thus unlocking the opportunities that are available in the sector. On the social and technological sides, a lot of innovative waste collection models have emerged. Typical examples include Wecyclers and Packag-ching in Nigeria and South Africa, respectively. In addition, PET recycling and waste-to-energy plants have been built and delivered and are now working at optimum capacity to reduce the number of plastics on the street. All of these have led to positive environmental and health impacts, as well as significant socioeconomic opportunities for the continent (Godfrey et al. 2020).

In the final analysis, we map the evolution of the themes over the years (See Fig. 8). We divided the time period into three, thereby allowing us to trace the evolution of LCA research and development on the continent. It can be seen that the niche themes are plant-based meat substitutes, hydropower, and environmental product declarations (EPD), whilst the motor themes are human health, global warming, and eutrophication. The quartet of circular economy, carbon footprinting, water footprinting, and greenhouse gases are the basic themes. On the other hand, wastewater, biofuel, green chemistry, bagasse, and trash are some of the emerging or declining themes. Generally, agroforestry, eco-design, sustainable development, social LCA, bioenergy, and circular bioeconomy are the most central themes when it comes to LCA research on the continent of Africa.

Fig. 8
figure 8

Thematic evolution of LCA studies in Africa

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4 Discussion

4.1 Interpretations of the review findings

This research work identified an appreciable amount of knowledge in the life cycle assessment discipline, comprising 616 Scopus-indexed documents that were published between 1992 and 2022. From our results, there was a slow pattern of growth in the first period (1992–2002) and a flurry of publications in the subsequent years. The periods between 2003 and 2012 and 2013 and 2022 were responsible for 98% of the published documents on LCA on the continent. From the foregoing, there is a growing knowledge of LCA within the continent and it would play a key role in the industrialization of Africa in the coming decades. Despite the modest progress that has been made, it is important to point out that the output of LCA publications on the continent is abysmally low compared to countries in Europe, America, and Asia. In their paper, He and Yu (2020) found that, with the exception of China, the field of LCA has few papers published by developing countries. In addition, not a single country or university in Africa made the list of the top 20 most prolific countries, the top ten countries with the most prolific authors, five countries with the most extensive cooperation networks, the most productive authors, and the top 15 most productive institutions of LCA research in the world.

LCA research and development need to feature prominently in academic institution research, in company research and development (R&D), and in government laws. Curiously, despite ‘fossil fuel’ appearing in the keyword co-occurrence analysis, it was one of the weakest links in the alternative energy/agriculture cluster. In addition, words like oil, gas, and even mining (representing the extractive industries) were entirely missing. This is important because keyword co-occurrence is based on the contents extracted from the Scopus-indexed documents (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020; Zupic and Čarter 2014). This means that research on the extractive industry is not a key area of focus for LCA researchers on the continent, despite the fact that a lot of the countries within it rely on money from these industries to fund their budgets and provide critical infrastructure. Our finding is supported by other research that found that most LCA studies on mining activities were based on two countries: Australia and China (Farjana et al. 2019). The lack of a global LCA method and life cycle inventory dataset was further identified as some of the factors militating against LCA research in the mining industry (Pascal et al. 2008; Segura-Salazar et al. 2019). According to Ramjeawon et al. (2005), LCA has not been used as a major decision support tool in developing countries due to two reasons: (1) LCA is a new tool for the academic community, private sector players, and government, and the level of awareness of its potential to support environmental design, policies, and strategies is low; and (2) universities do not have the technical capacity and technological know-how to carry out LCA (Ramjeawon et al. 2005). There is a need for academics and researchers in the developing world to be exposed to and trained on the working principles and proper use of the LCA tool, giving them the knowledge needed to leapfrog other developed nations by leveraging the proliferation of ICT.

The use of bibliometrics in analysing academic publications in a certain field of research helps researchers grasp the research frontiers of the subject areas and identify the core authors, countries, institutions, and journals in which they publish (He and Yu 2020). In Africa, our research has unravelled those authors and institutions in Southern and Northern African countries, notably, South Africa and Egypt, which are at the forefront of LCA research and development, which may be attributed to the advanced level of their economies and institutions. For instance, Egypt has some of the best and oldest universities in Africa and is part of what has been called ‘the cradle of civilization’ globally. In terms of research collaboration, it is worth noting that LCA researchers in Africa tend to collaborate more with researchers outside the continent than within. The historical colonial ties can be seen reflected in the collaboration network, with countries like Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia, and the Republic of Côte d’Ivoire collaborating with France rather than within the continent. The same thing can be seen with Egypt, despite the country’s collaborations with Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Uganda. On the other hand, South Africa has an appreciable level of collaboration with Nigeria, Botswana, Kenya, Zimbabwe, Morocco, and Uganda. Generally, countries tend to collaborate more with each other if they share similar history, culture, language, and areas of research interest. There is a need for more research collaboration between LCA researchers on the continent, as this would afford them the opportunity to have an appreciation of some of the common challenges; hence, they can work in concert to offer solutions to identified problems.

Science mapping has provided a unique pathway to visualising the conceptual structure of scientific fields of research (Det Udomsap and Hallinger 2020; He and Yu 2020; Zupic and Čarter 2014). Using the keyword co-occurrence and thematic evolution, three key conceptual themes have been identified: the built environment/construction industry, alternative energy/agriculture, and waste management and recycling. Although LCA research and development on the continent started relatively late, the research trend has been somewhat consistent with what countries in the developed world are doing. For example, Chen et al. (2014), He and Yu (2020), and Det Udomsap and Hallinger (2020) also highlighted these research themes and clusters in their bibliometric reviews of LCA globally and at different time periods.

4.2 Limitations of the review

This work is not without limitations. First, we relied on the Scopus index database and may have missed some publications that cannot be found on Scopus but are available in other databases such as Web of Science (WoS) and Google Scholar. In addition, the data retrieved from Scopus has zero information on the number of cited references and science categories. Second, non-English texts were not considered. All of these, when combined, have the tendency to affect the outcome of our results. Third, limiting the keyword search to ‘life cycle assessment’ OR ‘life cycle assessment’ OR ‘LCA’ OR ‘life cycle analysis’ means that several works that used word such as ‘life cycle thinking’ and studies that consider single impact indicators such as water footprinting may have been missed. Therefore, we recommend that future research includes such terminologies used interchangeably to characterise LCA. Finally, for reasons of visual clarity and brevity, the analysis was restricted in the selection of, say, authors, countries, and journals.

5 Conclusion

This review work has tried to document the emergence of LCA research and development in Africa using bibliometric methods of co-citation, co-occurrence, thematic evolution, productive journals, countries, authors, and papers. The cooperation network, developments, trends, and areas of key interest have also been studied.

LCA research is gaining more traction in Africa, albeit slowly compared to other parts of the world. However, the growth trajectory in the last 10 years shows that the output of publications will grow exponentially in the coming decades. This suggests that LCA will play a key role as the continent tries to solve the paradox of needing more resources to meet the growing population and market but less carbon to protect people and the planet. The study represents an unprecedented effort to recognise the critical research features of LCA in Africa, thus elucidating the current and potential areas of interest for research and practise in the future.