1. Industry 4.0 as an enabler in transitioning to circular business models: A systematic literature review.
- Author
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Toth-Peter, Agnes, Torres de Oliveira, Rui, Mathews, Shane, Barner, Leonie, and Figueira, Sandra
- Subjects
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VALUE chains , *INDUSTRY 4.0 , *BUSINESS models , *CIRCULAR economy , *SUSTAINABILITY , *BUSINESS process modeling - Abstract
The current planetary crisis and the perceived urgency necessitates more sustainable production and consumption patterns. Businesses, particularly the multinationals, play a key role in transitioning to a circular economy, which provides a promising approach to achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. Industry 4.0 technologies can theoretically support this transition and enable circular economy through, for example, data-driven and smart business processes. However, merging these new technologies with a circular economy is not a straightforward and well-established process and it fundamentally changes the business value chain. Therefore, this paper provides a systematic overview to help better understand the transition process to circular business models and the enabling role of industry 4.0. Merging these concepts underlines that many factors are interrelated and should be investigated in a holistic way instead of siloes. The findings imply that changes transcend business boundaries, including new value chain characteristics and operation models and indicate the interconnected nature of certain factors along the product lifecycle, including service-based models, circular design, reverse flows, consumers and users, and collaborations. This paper proposes a conceptual transition framework to address how new circular business models can integrate digitally adaptive transformations and proposals for future research are reflected upon. • Circular economy transition goes beyond the boundaries of one company and affects many elements in a business model. • Transition to circular business models implies that technological and human changes introduce challenges and paradoxes. • Different Industry 4.0 tools can be applied across business model elements to introduce circular economy principles. • We propose a conceptual transition framework that facilitates the transition from traditional to circular models. • We underline the benefits Industry 4.0 tools offer as well as the interconnected nature of the circular economy transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]
- Published
- 2023
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