A new productive model of circular economy enhanced by digital transformation in the Fourth Industrial Revolution - An integrated framework and real case studies

The socio-economic trends in the last decades (population growth, rapid industrialization and urbanization) have accelerated the transition from the old linear material flow to the more sustainable circular economy (CE). CE is recognized as a clear value creation opportunity, which can bring the lasting benefits of a more innovative, resilient and productive economy. Nevertheless, there is a huge gap between the big concept of CE and the practical actions. In particular, the research and the implementation of circular models to date have mainly focused on the product end-of-life, in order to reduce, reuse and recycle waste, but the lack of feedback information and performance indexes does not allow the measurement of how a product, a process or a company is really transiting from linear to circular models. This critical issue limits the further development of other circular activities. The impending digital transformation within the ‘Fourth Industrial Revolution’ can support CE to provide these missing aspects. Starting from the consolidated CE model, the paper describes how the application of intelligent assets, Internet-of-Things and big data, could be the basis to create a more promising circular model, where CE principles are extended to the entire product life-cycle, from product design to product utilization, considering also production assets and business strategies. Some case studies, described in literature, are presented to demonstrate how smart assets can interact with circular economy to create a new and more productive model of CE, characterized by a complete and effective circular platform for materials, products, assets and processes, where information and indicators are collected to measure circular efficiency.