Environmental Assessment of Regenerative Agriculture: A Bibliometric and Critical Review of Soil Health Indicators, Life Cycle Assessment Approaches and Methodological Gaps

Despite its increasing use, the environmental dimension of regenerative agriculture remains underexplored, leaving a gap in understanding the challenges of assessing its environmental footprint. The main objective of this study was to provide an overview of scientific publications related to this topic. This critical review combined bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer as an analytic tool with a search of the Web of Science database aiming to identify the most relevant research and review papers associated with regenerative agriculture and the environment, published in the period 2016–2026. The preliminary analysis identified 282 publications of interest, revealing three main clusters: the first was related to carbon footprint, carbon sequestration and limited environmental impacts; the second was associated with regenerative agriculture and its farming practices; and the third identified an important dimension—soil health. Most publications come from scholars in the USA, Australia, and the UK, including 11 highly cited papers. They mainly address UN SDGs #2 ‘Zero Hunger’, #13 ‘Climate Action’, and #15 ‘Life on Land’. Finally, 52 publications have been further critically reviewed, and results highlight that regenerative agriculture’s environmental performance cannot be verified by limiting the perspective to carbon footprint, carbon sequestration or soil health indicators. Meaningful comparisons require harmonized system boundaries, sampling procedures, indicators, functional units, inventories, and environmental impact categories. Therefore, this paper builds on previous knowledge by identifying a need for a methodological transition from practice-based indicators to verification of environmental outcomes.