Circular Economy Model Enhanced by Intelligent Assets from Industry 4.0: The Proposition of an Innovative Tool to Analyze Case Studies

Abstract

Although the circular economy (CE) is recognized as a source of value creation, there is a huge gap between the vast concept of CE and its practical applications. Particularly, the lack of information and performance indicators, in terms of economic, environmental and social aspects, does not allow for the assessment of the level of circularity of the products, processes or companies. Further development of other circular activities can be limited for this reason. In addition, intelligent assets arising with the digital transformation within the “Fourth Industrial Revolution (I4.0)” can support CE to provide these lacking aspects. Thus, the objective of this paper is to highlight how and how much the circular business models are enhanced by intelligent assets from I4.0, considering several case studies found in the literature, and through the application of an assessment tool with secondary data from the selected case studies. According to the tool, the CE principles are extended to the entire product lifecycle, from product design to product utilization, within the transition to novel business strategies. Two of the considered case studies are represented in the assessment tool, as examples, to demonstrate how intelligent assets can support circular economy in the design, assessment and comparison of circular initiatives. The visualization of existing innovative business models based on CE and enhanced by intelligent assets allows for the complete and effective evaluation of materials, products, assets and processes, due to the fact that information and indicators can be collected to measure and monitor circular efficiency.

An Overview of the Transition to a Circular Economy in Emilia-Romagna Region, Italy Considering Technological, Legal–Regulatory and Financial Points of View: A Case Study

“…The focus of interest for further projects and initiatives in the region are the Plastics and Textiles Sectors, which still needs to stimulate more efforts to make the transition towards a CE reality and, a gap remains related to the gathering of information required to the measure of the circularity of product processes and companies, as mentioned by [13,14]. The primary plastics' relevance was pointed out specifically by Reinwaste outcomes as the primary source of improvement in the agriculture and food industry, oriented to the adoption of sustainable-and economically favourable technologies to reduce the component of inorganic waste such as packaging mulch and similar materials.…”

“…Additionally, others describe a CE's progress in countries, sectors and firms [10][11][12]. More recently, some models related to the CE measurement through key performance indicators, covering the environmental, social and economic dimensions were proposed [13,14]. Although many studies are related to the CE, mostly in the previous years, these studies lack theoretical consistency [3].…”

Implementing Industrial Symbiosis Incentives: an Applied Assessment Framework for Risk Mitigation

“…This kind of incentive complements the other dimensions as they play a fundamental role in the implementation of IS on large-scale [40,70]. For instance, programs for the transition to Industry 4.0 allow the automation of the industry and consequently the control and monitoring of the production processes in an optimized manner [71][72][73]. Also, tools such as cyber-physical systems, cloud manufacturing, and the Internet of Things (IoT) have proven to be useful in this process [70,74].…”

Towards a Conceptual Development of Industry 4.0, Servitisation, and Circular Economy: A Systematic Literature Review

“…This current and rising megatrend of the BM is called servitisation [13,63,64]. Many companies have initiated models that have machines and products with intelligent digital systems to operate and communicate with other devices and systems independently [13,32,65]. As a result of this growing trend, many companies have started to use digital systems [12,66] to offer various services to their clients and customers [18].…”

“…For example, 3D printers are frequently presented as additive manufacturing (as one of the I4.0 technologies). This technology supports servitisation because firms take them on lease from a third party instead of buying them, maximising the value of exploiting and reallocating cyber-physical resources [62,65].…”