4.8 Review

Linking circular economy and digitalisation technologies: A systematic literature review of past achievements and future promises

Journal

Publisher

ELSEVIER SCIENCE INC
DOI: 10.1016/j.techfore.2022.121508

Keywords

Circular economy; Sustainability; Product-service system (PSS); Circular business model; Artificial intelligence; Internet of things

Funding

  1. Research Council of Norway
  2. Handelsbanken Foundation
  3. Formas

Ask authors/readers for more resources

In recent years, there has been a significant increase in academic research in the fields of circular economy and digital technologies, with digital technologies such as IoT and AI playing crucial roles in implementing circular economy. Studies have shown that the digitalization-driven transition towards circular economy faces various barriers, including policy-related issues, lack of predictability, psychological issues, and information vulnerability.
The circular economy (CE) has the potential to capitalise upon emerging digital technologies, such as big data, artificial intelligence (AI), blockchain and the Internet of things (IoT), amongst others. These digital technologies combined with business model innovation are deemed to provide solutions to myriad problems in the world, including those related to circular economy transformation. Given the societal and practical importance of CE and digitalisation, last decade has witnessed a significant increase in academic publication on these topics. Therefore, this study aims to capture the essence of the scholarly work at the intersection of the CE and digital technologies. A detailed analysis of the literature based on emerging themes was conducted with a focus on illuminating the path of CE implementation. The results reveal that IoT and AI play a key role in the transition towards the CE. A multitude of studies focus on barriers to digitalisation-led CE transition and highlight policy-related issues, the lack of predictability, psychological issues and information vulnerability as some important barriers. In addition, product-service system (PSS) has been acknowledged as an important business model innovation for achieving the digitalisation enabled CE. Through a detailed assessment of the existing literature, a viable systems-based framework for digitalisation enabled CE has been developed which show the literature linkages amongst the emerging research streams and provide novel insights regarding the realisation of CE benefits.

Authors

I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.

Reviews

Primary Rating

4.8
Not enough ratings

Secondary Ratings

Novelty
-
Significance
-
Scientific rigor
-
Rate this paper

Recommended

No Data Available
No Data Available