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.

The depletion of resources and the downgrading of the environment, driven by globalization and consumerism phenomena, is worldwide pushing the interest on the Circular Economy (CE) concept. Supposed to substitute the end-of-life notion with restoration and closed-loop product lifecycles, CE wants to eliminate wastes, retain the value embedded into products and materials, foster the use of renewable energies and eliminate toxic chemicals. However, the measurement and assessment of circularity performances are not yet a common practice in companies. To this aim, the paper wants to detect, through a systematic literature review, which are the existing CE performance assessment methods proposed in literature and, based on key findings, develop a positioning framework for measuring and assessing the circularity degree of a company.

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Huge depletion of raw materials, inefficient waste management practices, increasing population and consumerist lifestyles, are even more coping companies with the adoption of Circular Economy (CE) principles in their Business Models (BMs). However, benefits coming from the implementation of CE within companies are not always clear to managers. To this aim, the paper has a multiple purpose. Firstly, the work provides to academics the list of the benefits deriving from CE adoption through a systematic literature review, declined under the Triple Bottom Line (TBL) perspective of sustainability, also by validating and grounding them through four practical use cases. Secondly, the work links CE benefits with a set of CBMsbased on Product-Service Systems (PSSs)through a set of interviews with experts belonging to the Waste from Electrical and Electronic Equipment (WEEE) sector, trying to support industrials in both i) detecting benefits related with the adoption of CBMs, ii) increasing their awareness on benefits and iii) reaching them into practice. Given that PSSbased CBMs are renown both by the scientific and industrial community as the most suitable ones to achieve circularity, they were considered as the most appropriate to adopt also in this work. Finally, four use cases coming from the WEEE sector demonstrate how to link CBMs with CE benefits.