A circular commons for digital devices

Abstract

Circular economies are particularly relevant in the context of digital devices or electric and electronic equipment (EEE). Many digital devices built using scarce and potentially toxic materials have a too-short life, instead of being repaired or reused. In addition, informal recycling of electronics in the developed and developing world has emerged as a new global environmental concern. We describe the dimensions of the problem, the challenge to move to a circular economy, and the ecology for digital devices as well as how this depends on the traceability of devices and cooperation among all stakeholders locally and globally. Moreover we examine the need for support mechanisms to facilitate, standardise, and reduce the transaction cost of the processes and increase their added value. We present eReuse.org, a set of open-source tools, procedures, open data, and services organised as a common-pool resource (CPR) to reach the circular economy of electronics through promoting reuse and ensuring traceability until recycling. Further, eReuse.org envisions empowering and engaging people around the world to create local communities that bootstrap electronic reuse and to support the development of a globally recognised reuse quality and traceability standard. CCS Concepts •Human-centered computing → Social content sharing; •Networks → Location based services; •Hardware → Impact on the environment; •Social and professional topics → Governmental regulations;

Assessing relations between Circular Economy and Industry 4.0: a systematic literature review

“…x (Yeo, Pepin, and Yang 2017) x Total 13 11 8 7 3 2 1 1 approaches assessing potential value pathways for secondary materials (Davis, Aid, and Zhu 2017;Jose and Ramakrishna 2018) or discovering potential industrial symbioses (Song et al 2017), (ii) to develop open-source tools, procedures, open data, and services for promoting reuse (Franquesa, Navarro, and Bustamante 2016;Franquesa and Navarro 2018) or cloud service platforms for data collection and analytics (Lindström et al 2018), (iii) to assess innovative business models through integrative frameworks (Chiappetta Jabbour et al 2017) or for particular types of companies (Soroka et al 2017), and (iv) to gather or manage data on the lifecycle of products (J. Li et al 2015) or implementing smart manufacturing practices (Kusiak 2018) (see Table 5).…”

“…x (Unruh 2018) x (van Wijk and van Wijk 2015) x (Voet et al 2018) x (Woern et al 2018) x (Zhong and Pearce 2018) x Total 9 6 5 4 3 2 1 x (Davis, Aid, and Zhu 2017) x (Franquesa, Navarro, and Bustamante 2016) x (Franquesa and Navarro 2018) x (Ge and Jackson 2014) x (Jose and Ramakrishna 2018) x (Kache and Seuring 2017) x (Kusiak 2018) x (J. Li et al 2015) x (Lin 2018) x (Lindström et al 2018) x (Marconi et al 2018) x (Salminen, Ruohomaa, and Kantola 2017) x (Seele and Lock 2017) x (Song et al 2017) x (Soroka et al 2017) x (Tseng et al 2018) x Total 4 3 3 2 2 1 1 1 1 reduction strategies through remanufacturing (Ge and Jackson 2014), and assessing challenges and opportunities in SCM practices (Kache and Seuring 2017).…”

“…x (Gorissen, Vrancken, and Manshoven 2016) x (Jin et al 2014) x (Kölsch et al 2017) x (A. Q. Li and Found 2017) x x x (Mattos Nascimento et al 2018) x (Millard et al 2018) x x x (Panarotto, Wall, and Larsson 2017) x (Pistol, Bucea-Manea-Tonis, and Bucea-Manea-Tonis 2017) x (Prendeville et al 2016) x (Simons 2017) x (Soroka et al 2017) x (Ünal, Urbinati, and Chiaroni 2018) x Total 6 3 2 2 11 (Ashjaei and Bengtsson 2017) x (Baines 2015) x (Borangiu, Thomas, and Trentesaux 2013) x (Caggiano 2018) x (Franquesa and Navarro 2018) x (Franquesa, Navarro, and Bustamante 2016) x (Herterich, Uebernickel, and Brenner 2015a) x (Herterich, Uebernickel, and Brenner 2015b) x (Herterich et al 2015) x (Jardim-Goncalves, Romero, and Grilo 2017) x (Kowalkowski et al 2017) x (Lee, Bagheri, and Kao 2015) x (Lindström et al 2018) x (Spring and Araujo 2017) x (Verdugo Cedeño et al 2017) x (Yu, Xu, and Lu 2015) x Total 7 3 3 2 2 Millard et al 2018). BDA can be useful for assessing innovative business models through integrative frameworks (Chiappetta Jabbour et al 2017) or for particular types of companies (Soroka et al 2017).…”

“…Xu 2009) x x (Zhao, Dang, and Zhang 2011) x Total 5 2 1 1 considered as alternatives. BDA was used to develop algorithms that estimate the use value of devices (Franquesa, Navarro, and Bustamante 2016;Franquesa and Navarro 2018) or support cloud-based service platforms (Lindström et al 2018). Again, the IoT was mainly adopted for developing service-based business models (Alcayaga and Hansen 2017;Spring and Araujo 2017;Verdugo Cedeño et al 2017).…”

Development and management of collective network and cloud computing infrastructures

“…Traditional examples of artificial material commons are the woods and lumber production and commerce in north-eastern Italy, traditionally managed by the 'Magnifiche comunità' (magnificent community) [98]. In modern times, a good example of artificial material commons is the pool of digital devices deliberately shared by a community that is willing to use, reuse, repair, refurbish, and recycle [53] them for the sake of a sustainable circular economy. Community network and community cloud infrastructures are also examples that are the focus of this dissertation.…”