Abstract
Since it first appeared in literature in the early nineties, the Circular Economy (CE) has grown in significance amongst academic, policymaking, and industry groups. The latest developments in the CE field have included the interrogation of CE as a paradigm, and its relationship with sustainability and other concepts, including iterative definitions. Research has also identified a significant opportunity to apply circular approaches to our rapidly changing industrial system, including manufacturing processes and Industry 4.0 (I4.0) which, with data, is enabling the latest advances in digital technologies (DT). Research which fuses these two areas has not been extensively explored. This is the first paper to provide a synergistic and integrative CE-DT framework which offers directions for policymakers and guidance for future research through a review of the integrated fields of CE and I4.0. To achieve this, a Systematic Literature Review (SLR; n = 174) of the empirical literature related to digital technologies, I4.0, and circular approaches is conducted. The SLR is based on peer-reviewed articles published between 2000 and early 2018. This paper also summarizes the current trends in CE research related to manufacturing. The findings confirm that while CE research has been on the increase, research on digital technologies to enable a CE is still relatively untouched. While the “interdisciplinarity” of CE research is well-known, the findings reveal that a substantial percentage is engineering-focused. The paper concludes by proposing a synergistic and integrative CE-DT framework for future research developed from the gaps in the current research landscape.
Highlights
While there is more that I4.0 and digital technologies can do in accelerating the transition towards a Circular Economy (CE), little research exists which proposes an integrative approach to these two emerging research areas [34]
The need for an Systematic Literature Review (SLR) in the review of data-driven circular approaches in manufacturing for digital technologies is predicated on the view that SLR can help this research identify research trends, future work in the area, and the tools used in solving the problems being addressed [68]
This paper presents a synergistic and integrative CE-digital technologies (DT) framework utilizing the technology life cycle concept based on results from a systematic literature review of 174 papers
Summary
Multiple factors have driven the need for the transition towards more sustainable, intelligent sociotechnical systems These include economic challenges and uncertainty amongst individual companies and across entire economies [1], a rising global population which has put pressure on already scarce resources [2], and environmental challenges such as biodiversity loss and the depletion of important natural resources [3,4]. At the current growth rate, the global middle class is predicted to double by 2030 [10], with the increase in population] driving demand for resource-intensive goods requiring more than two planets worth of natural resources [8]
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