Accelerating Circular Economy Using Digital Transformation

The book explores how digital transformation can accelerate the adoption of circular economy principles. It introduces the concept of the circular economy and its importance for sustainability. The role of digital technologies, such as IoT, big data, and blockchain, in supporting the circular economy is discussed. The book also covers circular design and product development facilitated by digital technologies, enabling easier recycling and disassembly. It explores the creation of circular supply chains and business models, such as product-as-a-service and circular leasing, that minimize waste and resource consumption while creating economic value. The book showcases the benefits of creating products that are easily disassembled and recycled, contributing to a closed-loop system. The practical insights, including case studies, provide readers with tangible examples of successful implementation. Case studies highlight successful implementation of circular economy strategies using digital technologies. The book emphasizes policy and regulatory frameworks supporting circular economy and digital transformation. This book aims to inspire business leaders, policymakers, and entrepreneurs interested in creating sustainable and circular business models. By exploring the intersection of digital transformation and the circular economy, it offers practical insights for accelerating the transition to a more sustainable future.

This book provides an overview of a circular economy. This model has profound consequences for production, employment, education, money & finance but also induces a shift in public policy and taxation. Its economic advantage lies in designing out waste and favouring radical resource productivity with the prospect of rebuilding capital & resilience.

The EU is currently engaged in two transformations that could change our economy and society for the better. If managed well, and in unison, the circular economy and the digital revolution could help the EU address its greatest challenge: to build a sustainable, green economy that is competitive on the global stage. Digitalisation will not automatically lead to greater sustainability. Nor is the inclusion of cutting-edge technologies in the circular economy a given. But with the right encouragement and incentives from the EU, data and digitally-enabled solutions can accelerate and boost the transition to a sustainable circular economy. They can enhance connectivity and information sharing; make business models, products and processes more circular; and empower citizens and consumers to contribute to the transition. They can be used to improve different segments of the circular economy, including design, production, consumption, reuse, repair, remanufacturing, and overall waste management and recycling. Combining the circular and digital agendas carries enormous potential. It would be a shame to waste it.

Systemic change is required to move to a circular economy (CE) model which can meet the demands of a growing population in a manner that is decoupled from resource use and waste generation. This book takes a deep dive into the innovation aspect of the circular economy (CE), with a specific focus on India as a geography, where the transformation to a circular economy is underway. How a developing country like India is tackling the complexities of the transformation and creating innovative solutions is showcased in this book through many practical examples and inspirational case studies. The book lays out the foundations for mainstreaming resource efficiency (RE)/CE in India, and covers innovation led by businesses and start-ups, along with the innovative policies, financing, and collaborative models required to spur and accelerate circular economy approaches, while also providing linkages to the international context. Features: Provides insight into the role of innovation in the circular economy transition Helps to develop and facilitate adoption of resource-efficiency policy and strategy with particular focus on key resource sectors and waste streams Treats the circular economy as a holistic approach across the entire lifecycle, and places emphasis on upstream interventions and systems change Examines the current context of COVID-19 and its impact on circular economy models and practices Touches upon how the EU-based approach was adapted and contextualised significantly to work in the unique Indian landscape This book is aimed at students, researchers, and professionals engaged in the domains of circular economy, sustainability, business innovation, environmental studies, natural resources management, and environmental and resource conservation policy.

Through a combination of resource efficiency, climate mitigation, carbon removal, and biodiversity protection policies, this report finds that it is feasible and possible to grow economies, increase well-being and remain within planetary boundaries. The analysis and modelling presented in this report are a first attempt to understand the impacts of our growing resource use, and to develop coherent scenario projections for resource efficiency and sustainable production and consumption that decouple economic growth from environmental degradation.

This book explores how digital technologies can be used to drive sustainable business practices and achieve long-term business success. It offers insights and practical strategies and guidance that can help businesses adapt to the digital age, optimize their operations, and create new opportunities for growth. The book further provides real-world examples that illustrate how businesses can leverage digital technologies to achieve long-term sustainability and success. The book is an essential read for business leaders, managers, academician, practitioners and entrepreneurs who are looking to drive sustainable digital transformation within their organizations. The book covers a wide range of topics, including: 1) Understanding the digital landscape: The book provides an overview of the digital technologies that are transforming business operations, such as artificial intelligence, cloud computing, and the Internet of Things. It explores how these technologies can be leveraged to create sustainable business practices that benefit both the organization and society. 2) Building a digital strategy for sustainability: The book offers guidance on how businesses can develop a digital strategy that aligns with their sustainability goals. It covers topics such as identifying digital opportunities, setting targets, and measuring performance. 3) Embedding sustainability into digital operations: The book explores how businesses can integrate sustainability into their digital operations, such as data management, supply chain management, and product design. It provides examples of companies that have successfully implemented sustainable digital practices. 4) Digital innovation for sustainability: The book discusses how businesses can use digital innovation to create new opportunities for sustainability. It covers topics such as circular economy business models, sustainable product design, and social innovation. 5) Leading for sustainable digital transformation: The book offers insights on how business leaders can drive sustainable digital transformation within their organizations. It covers topics such as leadership skills, organizational culture, and stakeholder engagement.

This book is purposefully styled as an introductory textbook on circular economy (CE) for the benefit of educators and students of universities. It provides comprehensive knowledge exemplified by practices from policy, education, R&D, innovation, design, production, waste management, business and financing around the world. The book covers sectors such as agriculture/food, packaging materials, build environment, textile, energy, and mobility to inspire the growth of circular business transformation. It aims to stimulate action among different stakeholders to drive CE transformation. It elaborates critical driving forces of CE including digital technologies; restorative innovations; business opportunities & sustainable business model; financing instruments, regulation & assessment and experiential education programs. It connects a CE transformation for reaching the SDGs2030 and highlights youth leadership and entrepreneurship at all levels in driving the sustainability transformation.

How can we design more sustainable industrial and urban systems that reduce environmental impacts while supporting a high quality of life for everyone? What progress has been made towards reducing resource use and waste, and what are the prospects for more resilient, material-efficient economies? What are the environmental and social impacts of global supply chains and how can they be measured and improved? Such questions are at the heart of the emerging discipline of industrial ecology, covered in Taking Stock of Industrial Ecology. Leading authors, researchers and practitioners review how far industrial ecology has developed and current issues and concerns, with illustrations of what the industrial ecology paradigm has achieved in public policy, corporate strategy and industrial practice. It provides an introduction for students coming to industrial ecology and for professionals who wish to understand what industrial ecology can offer, a reference for researchers and practitioners and a source of case studies for teachers.

In the current times of more frequent crises and ever shortening innovation cycles, the management of change has become a crucial task of survival. While it is not a new topic in business research, the developments of the last decade have posed many new challenges for the change management of firms and organizations and have thus also raised many new questions for academic research in business administration, which the present book turns to deepen. Its particular focus is on disruptive change including its driving forces as well as effective and sustainable management. This publication constitutes a collection of articles that discuss change and innovation processes across different sectors of the economy (industry, banking, and retail), the role of leadership and corporate governance for the effectiveness and sustainability of organizational change.

Through a series of studies, the overarching aim of this book is to investigate if and how the digitalization/digital transformation process causes (or may cause) the autonomy of various labor functions, and its impact in creating (or stymieing) various job opportunities on the labor market. This book also seeks to illuminate what actors/groups are mostly benefited by the digitalization/digital transformation and which actors/groups that are put at risk by it. This book takes its point of departure from a 2016 OECD report that contends that the impact digitalization has on the future of labor is ambiguous, as on the one hand it is suggested that technological change is labor-saving, but on the other hand, it is suggested that digital technologies have not created new jobs on a scale that it replaces old jobs. Another 2018 OECD report indicated that digitalization and automation as such does not pose a real risk of destroying any significant number of jobs for the foreseeable future, although tasks would by and large change significantly. This would affects welfare, as most of its revenue stems from taxation, and particularly so from the taxation on labor (directly or indirectly). For this reason, this book will set out to explore how the future technological and societal advancements impact labor conditions. The book seeks to provide an innovative, enriching and controversial take on how various aspects of the labor market can be (and are) affected the ongoing digitalization trend in a way that is not covered by extant literature. As such, this book intends to cater to a wider readership, from a general audience and students, to specialized professionals and academics wanting to gain a deeper understanding of the possible future developments of the labor market in light of an accelerating digitalization/digital transformation of society at large.