Product Lifecycle: Social and Political Reflections from the Digital and Sustainable Perspectives

Abstract

Digitalization and sustainability are the drivers of the global development of the future that have slowly conquered the agendas of governments and organizations on every continent. In this context, the pandemic has proved to be a powerful technological accelerator, helping to give a greater boost to these drivers, “guiding” leading the productive and economic sector throughout the world. Today the sustainability and digitalization represent the indispensable prerequisites to add economic, environmental, and social sovereignty. In fact, the scenario that the Coronavirus is leaving us foreshadows the need not to be satisfied with reaching targets for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, but to imagine “global” governance for the development of business models based on the new digital frontiers. Thus, what are the challenges for achieving the paradigms of sustainability and digitization in this new era? And what are the tools for a “digicircular” transformation? The aim of this chapter is to investigate these issues. To this end, it should be noted that, in this chapter, our aim is not to present an analysis of literature in the classical sense but rather political and social reflections.