Circularity issues and blockchain technology in the auto industry

Abstract

ABSTRACT The integration of circular economy and Industry 4.0 components like blockchain technology results in a faster induction of ‘circularity’ and leads to new strategies on resource utilization, making the world more sustainable. It is a ‘key-enabler’ in meeting tomorrow’s circularity challenges. Literature revealed research gaps in a yet unexplored area of how ‘circularity’ building gets impacted by blockchain, especially in the Indian auto sector. Moreover, the nonavailability of its evaluation tool also necessitated present research. The main objective was to explore, from the auto stakeholders’ perception viewpoints, the potential of the application of blockchain technology with special reference to the issue of ‘sustainability and circularity’ in the Indian context. The study involved a literature search, building a new circular economy-based blockchain model for the auto industry, and, finally, a case study in which the hypotheses about circularity and blockchain technology nexus impacts on the Indian auto industry were structured and tested through a research instrument, designed and sent to 45 auto stakeholders for evaluation of the said nexus. The data analyzed through the Best-Worst method revealed the ‘potential’ (weight: 0.393) and ‘application’ (weight: 0.262) impacts on CE are the most important yardsticks. The proposed model appears to be more reliable and secure and might help the managers of auto firms in forging new circularity-based strategies to exploit I4.0 efficiently.