Adopting a circular economy (CE) has rapidly emerged among policymakers and business community stakeholders to promote material circularization and ensure sustainable development. While the ...inclination for a paradigm shift away from the linear economy is evident, many challenges have been quoted in the literature regarding its implementation. Lately, it has become common to propose Information and Communication Technologies (ICT)-based approaches to address these challenges. However, they do not question the practicality of the solutions in the context of CE. This paper aims to find an appropriate digital solution for CE implementation, which is not possible without a complete understanding of the existing challenges. A thorough literature review broadly classified the challenges under five barrier categories: Technological, Financial, Infrastructural, Institutional, and Societal, which was followed up with an investigation into the failure of ICT solutions to address CE challenges. Among the various technologies, blockchain and smart contract technologies show some promise as data-driven decision-making tools; however, they are not without their limitations when applied in the context of CE. This perspective explores the role of blockchain smart contract technology-scape in overcoming CE challenges and presents a circular economy blockchain (CEB) architecture development. The findings suggest that CEB may enable CE business models that improve trust and transparency in supply-chain networks, shared and performance economy platforms, stakeholder participation, and governance and management of organizations. Ultimately, this study highlights critical areas for research and development for the blockchainification of CE.
The circular economy (CE) is a more holistic approach that advocates towards extracting the value from the waste and reaching sustainability goals. The objective of the present study is to highlight ...the prospects, impediments, and prerequisites while transiting from the linear economy (LE) to CE of SMEs. The study gathers information on prospects, impediments, and prerequisites for the transition of LE to a CE from recent studies. A semi‐structured interview questionnaire was prepared, and a survey was conducted on representatives of six SMEs. Further, six caselets were developed to understand the prospects, impediments, and prerequisites based on the findings of the interview and previous information gained from existing literature. The major prospects favoring transition from LE to CE found in the study are significance of 3R (reduce and reuse and recycling) approach, CE leads to competitive advantage, recycling attracts consumers in few cases, CE helps in achieving sustainability goals and reuse of materials are significant in resource conservation. There are certain impediments found such as issues associated with awareness, recyclability issues, financial challenges, and weak management vision of SMEs towards CE implementation. Other resource‐based impediments were found related to trained employees, lack of experience. Whereas, consumer acceptability is also a major concern towards implementing CE. The findings of the study suggest major prerequisites towards CE implementations such as strong “management will,” innovation, technology up‐gradation, training to employees, motivation, and appropriate guidelines. Government pressure to implement CE cannot be an effective step towards the transition of LE to CE.
•Analysis of Circular Economy approaches and the underlying principles is presented.•Two developed cross-referenced databases may serve as a CE implementation tools.•CE Strategies database includes ...45 strategies for different parts of the value chain.•CE Implementation database describes over 100 case studies for the 45 strategies.•Several different uses for the developed databases are suggested.
The paper provides an overview of the literature on Circular Economy (CE) theoretical approaches, strategies and implementation cases. After analyzing different CE approaches and the underlying principles the paper then proceeds with the main goal of developing tools for CE implementation. Two tools are presented. The first is a CE Strategies Database, which includes 45 CE strategies that are applicable to different parts of the value chain. The second is a CE Implementation Database, which includes over 100 case studies categorized by Scope, Parts of the Value Chain that are involved, as well as by the used Strategy and Implementation Level. An analysis of the state of the art in CE implementation is also included in the paper. One of the observations from the analysis is that while such Parts of the Value Chain as Recovery/Recycling and Consumption/Use are prominently featured, others, including Manufacturing and Distribution, are rarely involved in CE. On the other hand, the Implementation Levels of the used Strategies indicate that many market-ready solutions exist already. The Scope of current CE implementation considers selected products, materials and sectors, while system changes to economy are rarely suggested. Finally, the CE monitoring methods and suggestions for future development are also discussed in this paper. The analysis of the theoretical approaches can serve as an introduction to CE concept, while the developed tools can be instrumental for designing new CE cases.
Targets for a circular economy Morseletto, Piero
Resources, conservation and recycling,
02/2020, Letnik:
153
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
•Targets are powerful governance instruments for making the economy more circular.•There are several circular economy targets but they are limited to a few discrete cases.•Circular economy strategies ...allow identifying and systematising new and applied targets.•New targets can better reflect the multifaceted reality of a circular economy despite possible trade-offs, synergies, and complementarities.
The transition to a circular economy requires actions and policies. In the praxis of governance, a common way to steer the transition to a different state proceeds through the setting of targets. Thus far, no study has investigated circular economy targets in a systematic way. To bridge this gap, this study examines which targets can facilitate the transition towards a circular economy. The analysis focuses both on existing and new targets; the latter complement existing targets which are limited to a few discrete cases addressing only partially the goal of a more circular economy. A framework based on 10 common circular economy strategies (i.e. recover, recycling, repurpose, remanufacture, refurbish, repair, re-use, reduce, rethink, refuse) is applied to scrutinise the selected targets. The study clarifies that existing targets for recovery and recycling do not necessarily promote a circular economy, though they are the most commonly applied targets so far. Because of lack of efficacy of recovery and recycling, targets should instead favour other more powerful circular economy strategies. In relation to these, the study looks into new and existing targets showing how they can reduce waste, increase efficiency, close production loops, and maximise retention of the economic value of materials and products. In particular, the study proposes an expanded set of brand new targets for the transition to a circular economy together with a fresh view on targets aimed at scholars and decision-makers alike.
•Novel framework to align activities across information systems and the circular economy.•Digital circular economy research agenda and implications for practitioners.•Guidance for aligning digital ...and sustainable strategies.•Knowledge base of 100 theorized and real-world smart circular strategies.•Digital circular economy as a cornerstone of a sustainable society.
Digital technologies (DTs), such as the Internet of Things (IoT), big data, and data analytics, are considered essential enablers of the circular economy (CE). However, as both CE and DTs are emerging fields, there exists little systematic guidance on how DTs can be applied to capture the full potential of circular strategies for improving resource efficiency and productivity. Furthermore, there is little insight into the supporting business analytics (BA) capabilities required to accomplish this. To address this gap, this paper conducts a theory- and practice-based review, resulting in the Smart CE framework that supports translating the circular strategies central to the goals of manufacturing companies in contributing the United Nation’s (UN) 12th Sustainable Development Goal, that is, “sustainable consumption and production,” into the BA requirements of DTs. Both scholars and practitioners may find the framework useful to (1) create a common language for aligning activities across the boundaries of disciplines such as information systems and the CE body of knowledge, and (2) identify the gap between the current and entailed BA requirements and identify the strategic initiatives needed to close it. Additionally, the framework is used to organize a database of case examples to identify some best practices related to specific smart circular strategies.
Circular economy supposes a transformational and radical process of change from a linear to a circular economic model, where every production phase represents a systemic shift at all levels. ...Nevertheless, CE philosophy is easy to understand but very complex to put into practice. For that reason, using institutional entrepreneurship theory, institutional enablers to push the transition to a more CE in the European Union will be analysed. In particular, the impacts achieved by CE strategies are oriented to priority CE goals. Thus, this empirical study based on a public consultation survey uses structural equation modelling to analyse links between institutional entrepreneurship enablers and impacts on CE strategies oriented to main CE goals. The findings support the effectiveness of acting like an institutional entrepreneur to force transformational and radical changes, although differences are found between enablers and the impacts of CE. The paper concludes with some useful reflections for institutions and policymakers in order to maximise the efforts taken to effect changes at all levels.
At present, the circular economy is emerging as a strategy for sustainable development. What is important in promoting the circular economy is to assess its current level and take measures for ...assessment. This paper discusses some methodological issues in comparing and assessing the efforts for the circular economy at the international level. To this end, the authors explain the theoretical premise related to the assessment of efforts for the circular economy, establish an indicator system for assessing the efforts for the circular economy, and suggest a method for comprehensively assessing the efforts for the circular economy by country. The conclusions are that (a) the comparative evaluation of activities related to the circular economy by country requires a unified standard or category that can cover these activities, including all factors that meet sustainable development; the outcome, process, and guarantee of the circular economy, and this can be the circular economy effort and (b) the circular economy effort of a given country must synthetically be assessed by using the indicators capable of showing all aspects. These conclusions may contribute to establishing a new theoretical foundation that can include various aspects of the circular economy activities and to setting a practical and methodological foundation for evaluating each country’s various activities related to the circular economy at the international level and can serve as a policy basis for identifying the weak and strong aspects of circular economy activities at the domestic or international level and establishing technological and economic measures to strengthen the weak aspects.
Industry 4.0 (I4.0) and Circular Economy (CE) are undoubtedly two of the most debated topics of the last decades. Progressively, they gained the interest of policymakers, practitioners and scholars ...all over the world. Even if they have been usually described as two independent research fields, there are some examples presenting overlaps between these topics, represented by hybrid categories like Circular I4.0 and Digital CE. Starting from these two perspectives, an innovative framework both highlighting the links between I4.0 and CE and unveiling future research fields has been developed. Basing on one of the two perspectives, results show as it is possible to enhance a set of different relations. Depending on a dedicated area of either CE or I4.0 it is possible to see the prevalence of some I4.0 technology than others. However, the influence of I4.0 technologies on CE is always verified.
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