The Emergent Role of Digital Technologies in the Circular Economy: A Review

By Aris Pagoropoulos, Daniela C. A. Pigosso, Tim C. McAloone. 2017

430 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Abstract Digital technologies have enabled the formulation of multiple Product Service-Systems (PSS) with considerable economic, environmental and societal benefits. One of the most promising paradigms, which is inspired by business models and value propositions that have already been described in the PSS literature, is the concept of Circular Economy. Circular Economy is characterized as an economy that is restorative and regenerative by design and is attracting significant attention from researchers and policy makers alike. In light of the recent proliferation of digital technologies such as Big Data and the Internet of Things, this article attempts to identify how can digital technologies support the transition to Circular Economy. This article conducted a systematic review of the literature based on a review protocol, in an effort to evaluate the application of key digital technologies in Circular Economy. The study concludes by identifying research gaps, reflecting on the application of digital technologies in the field of PSS and proposing suggestions for future research.

Subfields: Marketing, Strategy and Management

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/00e102c5358882de649b3516afabe7de2891d472

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Citations in the corpus

The smart circular economy: A digital-enabled circular strategies framework for manufacturing companies (2020, background): “…are real and theorized examples of information flows enabling circularity, there remains a gap between the expected, and largely unrealized, potential to use DTs to leverage circular strategies (Nobre & Tavares, 2019; Pagoropoulos et al., 2017; Rosa, Sassanelli, Urbinati, Chiaroni, & Terzi, 2020).”
Analyzing Barriers of Circular Food Supply Chains and Proposing Industry 4.0 Solutions (2021, background): “[16] has examined the role of digital technologies in adopting CE.”
Blockchain and the circular economy: potential tensions and critical reflections from practice (2020, background): “Digital technologies leverage this transition through data collection, analysis and integration (Pagoropoulos, Pigosso, and McAloone 2017).”
Industry 4.0 and Sustainability Implications: A Scenario-Based Analysis of the Impacts and Challenges (2018, background): “(viii) Promotion of intelligent learning analysis, which allows devices and machines to develop learning capacities and act in response to different situations based on previous experiences [38];”
Assessing relations between Circular Economy and Industry 4.0: a systematic literature review (2019, background): “…et al. 2018a) x (Lopes de Sousa Jabbour et al. 2018b) x (Mařík et al. 2016) x (Moreno and Charnley 2016) x (Neligan 2018) x (Okorie et al. 2018) x (Pagoropoulos, Pigosso, and McAloone 2017) x (Planing 2017) x (Prendeville et al. 2016) x (Rajala et al. 2018) x (Ruggeri et al. 2017) x (Sarkis and…”
The role of block chain technology in circular economy practices to improve organisational performance (2021, background): “According to Jabbour et al. (2019), the circular economy has multiple linkages with different components of Industry 4.0. including BCT. Pagoropoulos, Pigosso, and McAloone (2017) believe that digital technologies facilitate the redesigning of a business model which leverages the transition of the l”
A critical analysis of the impacts of COVID-19 on the global economy and ecosystems and opportunities for circular economy strategies (2020, positive): “It therefore, constitutes an ideal vehicle for circular supply chains transitioning, providing opportunities to close material loops and improve processes (Morlet et al., 2016; Pagoropoulos et al., 2017).”
Exploring How Usage-Focused Business Models Enable Circular Economy through Digital Technologies (2018, methodology): “Thus, through IoT, companies may obtain real-time remote monitoring of product usage, status, and location [12,13,23].”