Promoting and applying circular strategies in the product planning stage by industrial designers have significant environmental impacts. Product design has an enormous influence on sustainable ecology. Huge amounts of data analysis in designing circular products as well as reducing human biases in testing and prototyping are the main reasons for urging digital technologies in industries. Digitalization assets in ecodesign in collaboration with humans and as a complement for human skills. This study found the circular design tools and strategies which can help organizations in their product designs and the way artificial intelligence enhances product circularity. Real-time data transformation and analysis ability can help in massive data analysis which is less time consuming and less energy consumption is needed. In addition, rapid prototyping and fast testing will reduce the waste in design process. Furthermore, AI transfers precise data and information on materials and products’ availability, condition, and accessibility which makes easy monitoring and enables remote maintenance as well as reuse, remanufacturing and repair opportunities.

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In the circular economy (CE) world, design is a vital tool to transform waste to wealth to enhance material recycling for new products (e.g., design for modularity, design for disassembly, etc.). Industry 4.0 technologies and digital innovations have recently provided positive impact towards CE transition, for instance through data-analysis of products lifecycle. In this regard, a close collaboration is required between industries, consumers and policy makers for a more detailed and precise data on product lifecycle and waste collection as well as consumer behavior. Accordingly, digitalization can help in tracking and tracing products through transferring the real-time data on products' location, condition, availability, etc., which can boost product-life extension through sensors and digital platforms. In order to have a more efficient and effective CE solution, close collaboration is required among various actors of textile circular ecosystem, where the consumers are the core of such ecosystem. In this sense, IoT plays an essential role by transferring information and data to all the actors and improving their awareness of new circular opportunities. This paper focuses on how utilizing IoT will increase the opportunities of textile circulation towards a higher effective ecosystem and maximizing products value. KeywordsIndustry 4.0 • Circular Economy • Internet-of-Thing • Textiles • Circularity • Sustainability • Sensors

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There is an increasing call for products following circular economy principles. Despite growing pressure, understanding of the current situation and development vectors is largely missing. In this study, circular economy workshops were arranged for six industrial companies manufacturing electronics and operating in Finland to obtain an empirical understanding of the current state of circular economy implementation. During the workshops, each company assessed the state of the circular economy for a chosen product using a set of 51 circular economy strategies, i.e., the circularity deck. The results indicated that circular economy principles were implemented in only 25% of the cases. This is mostly related to the production of smaller, thinner, and lighter products. The results also indicate a large improvement potential of 36% for the participating companies. This is the share of cases that are planned for implementation. Those strategies mostly relate to the use of recycled inputs, the development of products made of a single material, and the design of products suitable for primary recycling. The least relevant or even irrelevant strategies were those related to the use of information technologies and artificial intelligence, despite electronic products being the enablers of such strategies for the other companies. Therefore, to further increase the circularity of electronic products and to meet the demands and interests of the manufacturing industry, research work on the technologies and services enabling the use of waste as raw materials should be emphasized to close the loops. Finally, the results imply the necessity for a more widespread assessment of circular economy strategies among companies, with consequent development of action plans for their implementation.