Journal
JOURNAL OF CLEANER PRODUCTION
Volume 321, Issue -, Pages -Publisher
ELSEVIER SCI LTD
DOI: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2021.128944
Keywords
Industry 4; 0; Circular economy; Literature review; Case study
Categories
Funding
- Basque Autonomous Government [GIC 15/176]
- project METASTANDARDS by the Spanish Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities
- Spanish State Research Agency (AEI)
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This study investigates the influence of Industry 4.0 technologies on the main areas of action covered by the circular economy, finding that these technologies contribute mainly to reducing material and energy consumption, as well as waste and emissions. Additive manufacturing and robotics show the most evidence of positive impact, while there is a need to continue exploring the new impacts generated by the continuous development and integration of technologies.
In the last decade, both Industry 4.0 technologies and the circular economy have expanded exponentially and they have received epistemological attention. However, there is a lack of studies about the influence that each of these technologies has on the main areas of action covered by the circular economy. This study responds to this gap by investigating the influence of the major technologies: Additive Manufacturing, Artificial Intelligence, Artificial Vision, Big Data and Advanced Analytics, Cybersecurity, Internet of Things, Robotics, and Virtual and Augmented Reality on the main areas of action covered by the circular economy. Namely, reduction of inputs consumption, reuse, recovery, recycling and reduction of waste and emissions. An initial study, based on a survey of 120 project managers, and a multiple case study of 27 projects, through 31 personal interviews and review of internal and external documentation have been conducted in order to investigate the real influence of each technology on the circular economy. Overall, the results confirm the existence of a wide range of influences that Industry 4.0 technologies offer to companies for improved circularity. These improvements are mainly related to reduce material and energy consumption, and waste and emissions generation. However, there are important differences between the potential impacts of each technology. In particular, there is most evidence of the positive impact of additive manufacturing and robotics. Likewise, the results obtained suggest the need to continue exploring the new impacts generated by the continuous development and integration of technologies.
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