Digital infrastructure for a more circular future.

The growing need for sustainable ways of producing and consuming globally is driving more people and organisations towards the circular economy (CE). A recent analysis of 221 CE definitions codified the results into 30 dimensions and was summarised into the following sentence.

“The circular economy is a regenerative economic system which necessitates a paradigm shift to replace the ‘end-of-life’ concept with reducing, alternatively reusing, recycling, and recovering materials throughout the supply chain, with the aim to promote value maintenance and sustainable development, creating environmental quality, economic development, and social equity, to the benefit of current and future generations. It is enabled by an alliance of stakeholders (industry, consumers, policymakers, academia) and their technological innovations and capabilities.” (Kirchherr et al., 2023).

Businesses looking to support the sustainable development goals, and transition towards circularity, need to set their sights at achieving some level of transition within their operations (Kovacic et al. 2021). Fortuitously, at the very moment in human development when resource productivity is of the upmost importance, both the availability and rate of change of a range of advanced digital technologies has never been higher.

This article explores how organisations can use digital technologies to make progress towards decoupling within two areas of their business models: product design and manufacturing.

Digital Infrastructure for Circular Product Design

Product design should take a whole-of-lifecycle approach ensuring that the product reflects a clear logic to how environmental impact is decoupled from economic value during throughout its lifecycle. There are numerous circular product design philosophies that promote circularity. A few key ones include: design for simplicity - that aims to minimise the material inputs required for manufacturing; design for durability - that aims to increase the usable lifetime of a product; and design for multipurpose - that aims to increase the intensity of the product use phase thereby increasing productivity.

Digital design and prototyping software helps organisations to iterate and test designs with minimal material inputs. These technologies include computer aided design (CAD), 3D modelling, virtual reality, and augmented reality. Designers and engineers are able to work closer together to simulate real world scenarios that can be used to iteratively improve product design before physical prototypes are made. This helps to reduce the resources used within the design phase of the product lifecycle.

Online life-cycle-analysis (LCA) databases and platforms are technologies that can help organisations to make better material specifications within their designs. These databases are made up of vast datasets and algorithms that are constantly updated to provide up-to-date environmental impact scores for a wide range of materials and processes. Materials with high environmental footprints can be substituted or designed out entirely.

Digital Infrastructure for Circular Manufacturing

Manufacturing, including infrastructure construction, has undergone four distinct industrial revolutions over the past 250 years. Each industrial revolution has coincided with the emergence of one or more general purpose technologies, which are technologies that have a wide range of applications across numerous sectors and can drastically alter how economies and societies function. Examples of general purpose technologies include steam power, the production line, electricity, computers, and the internet.

Global manufacturing is currently undergoing its fourth industrial revolution, or Industry 4.0, which is being driven by the internet and a range of connectable software and hardware that can be arranged into a range of complex cyber-physical systems. These cyber-physical systems extract and analyse real-world data sourced from the actions of equipment, products, and people to improve productivity. Industry 4.0 technologies include internet-of-things (IoT) networks, big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and automation.

Online platforms help organisations to visualise this data flow through business intelligence dashboards, and more recently, fully functional digital twins of production facilities. This allows organisations to run simulations and make operational adjustments to improve productivity in real time, resulting in lower material inputs and higher resulting outputs. Operational data from equipment can also be monitored in real time to ensure preventative maintenance that extends equipment life, as well as help operations managers and equipment manufacturers to increase the productivity of production lines.

The relationship between digital transformation and the transition towards a more circular economy is clear. As this relationship strengthens in practice, and the exponential adoption of digital technologies persists in the coming years, the European Commission predicts that we will enter the fifth industrial  revolution (Dixson-Decleve et al. 2022), where human needs and planetary boundaries are put at the heart of cyber-physical systems.

The need for systemic change is clear, and the pathway has been set. What is needed now is the rapid scaling of physical and digital infrastructure that helps organisations around the world realise the promise of a more circular economy.

References

Dixson-Decleve, S. et al. 2022. Industry 5.0: A Transformative Vision for Europe.  European Commission. ESIR Policy Brief No. 3.

Kirchherr, J., et al. 2023. Conceptualizing the Circular Economy (Revisited): An Analysis of 221 Definitions. Resources, Conservation & Recycling, 194.

Kovacic, Z., et al. 2021. Growth without Economic Growth. European Environment Agency, Briefing no. 28/2020.