Introduction

Within academia and industry, the past decade has seen renewed interest both in more sustainable approaches to economic growth and in technological progress towards ‘Industry 4.0’. These interdisciplinary topics have tended to develop independently. Sustainability is of critical importance to the climate change crisis, with academic focus including economic and social sustainability of manufacturing, food production and national and local resilience in the context of supply chain disruption. Concurrently, work across social sciences and STEM has been addressing the digitisation of production and 3D printing, in terms of technological advancement and analysis impact on business models and economy and society more broadly. ‘Industry 4.0’ has received much policy focus. The digital technologies included under this umbrella term are expected to transform manufacturing and reshoring production back to advanced economies. There is also an implicit assumption that they can help to re-localise manufacturing, reducing the dependence of economies on geographically extensive supply chains.

The increased adoption of digital technologies may help to enable the transformation of existing business models, manufacturing systems, supply networks and re-localisation. This brings academic attention together with discussions around circular economies and sustainability. However, despite the potentially significant contribution of existing and emerging knowledge of technological solutions to sustainability, and circularity in particular, there is still relatively little academic work that engages and unifies across these two areas.

This network aimed to draw together researchers working on both digital manufacturing and circular economies outside the work already happening within institutions to develop wider dialogue and ensure interdisciplinary spread. It had two interrelated objectives. First, to deepen our academic understandings and integrate perspectives from across the social sciences and STEM in a truly interdisciplinary network. Second, to help meet industry and policy demand for potential solutions to social and economic problems through creating collaborations that can leverage grant funding.

The project team would like to thank GW4 for their Building Communities funding (September 2022-March 2023).

Dr Jennifer Johns, University of Bristol

Prof. Aris Syntetos, Cardiff Business School

Dr Daniel Eyers, Cardiff Business School

Dr Rick Lupton, University of Bath

Dr Okechukwu Okorie, Exeter Business School

Jess Robins, University of Bristol

Jennifer.Johns@bristol.ac.uk

SyntetosA@cardiff.ac.uk

EyersDR@cardiff.ac.uk

RCL38@bath.ac.uk

O.S.Okorie@exeter.ac.uk

JRobins@protonmail.com

The Bristol workshop brought together the core research group with the first members of the group to discuss mutual areas of interest in the intersection of digital technologies and circular economy. Introductory presentations were given by the core group, these were followed by brief presentations from some of the workshop participants: Qinglan Lui presented her work on a systematic literature review to examine the interaction of digital technology and different areas of the circular economy; Mark Goudswaard spoke about his work on the Design and Manufacturing Futures lab; Jenny Hackard joined us from the Impact Team and spoke about her involvement with the Net Zero taskforce; and Raissa Bonilla spoke about her PhD exploring reshoring supply chains in the UK and Brazil. Following the presentations there were two lively round table discussions around the potential for research in the areas of digital technology and circular economy.

Key themes from the discussion round “What is most exciting/important about the interaction between digital technologies and circular economies?”

» Reduction of fabrication scraps through near net shape production;

» Self-replicating machinery that could build net-zero into its own design and construct systems models;

» Being able to trace a specific raw material, from the source to the impact it has at different points in its lifecycle;

» Mass customisation/ mass personalisation would reduce production runs and the need for tooling;

» RISK: the energy consumption of digital manufacturing processes and data servers needs to be monitored.

» Using virtual and augmented reality to support dismantling and recycling, for example to keep copper out of steel;

» Using material passports to trace a products material composition;

» RISK: a proliferation of use of integrated 3D printing machines could lead to multiple material input composites which would make them harder to recycle.

» Businesses are experimenting with circular economy, but they’re not scalable yet, should businesses be aiming for scalability or is replicability more important;

» There is a risk of greenwashing, big data and better labelling could be used to empower consumers and investors;

» The drivers for businesses to move to a CE need to be made much clearer:

» moving to net-zero and mitigating climate change,

» increased government support,

» a balance between data availability and data abundance so as not to overwhelm,

» reducing operational costs in light of the energy crisis;

» Challenges to business and economic norms;

» Challenge the idea that consumers are becoming more or less ethical over time, how have ethical standards changed.

» AI, blockchain and RFID all produce an abundance of digital data, what can this data do for researchers, and what opportunities are there for research with business?

» Getting hold of charity shop data for example, to examine reuse patterns;

» Blockchain and product passports as areas of research, there seems to be a resistance of use in industry, why? Is there something to be learned from fairtrade and organic labelling, have these systems failed?

» Manufacturers to provide support for longer lifetimes through spare or legacy parts, this can be achieved through deployment of 3D printers to create the parts once production is finished;

» Existing products should be adapted for repair or remanufacture, allowing for flexibility in reuse and customisation;

» Support for a rise in online resale marketplaces, this creates a demand for high quality second-hand as seen in fashion subscriptions.

Smarter product use, through encouraging rethink and refuse

» Avoiding wasted products, through use of additive manufacturing which reduces the cost of design changes through rapid prototyping;

» Better predictions of suitability of products for users, for example, virtual changing rooms;

» A focus on lifetime legacy, what is the impact of long-term decisions on a product;

» An honest examination of consumption in order to forecast future needs.

The challenges identified around developing these emerging ideas and themes formed a series of questions that could be the starting point to research.

» Why have moves to methods similar to a circular economy not worked before, what were the barriers to uptake, and what lessons could be learnt?

» Does an international set of standard need to be devised? Or would these need to be sector specific?

» Who are the right groups to take ownership and responsibility for resources: government, industry, the consumer or all three?

» What are the right methods for modelling the existing systems, both linear and circular?

» An evidence base of circularity washing needs to be built up, that includes industry case studies to close the gap between industry and academia and provide an empirical knowledge base.

» How can the circular economy research keep pace with technological change and advancement?

» The problem of the existing neoliberal mindset championing short-term goals and solutions over long term circular models.

» What is the consumer appetite for non-new products?

» Where could someone find information on the full list of circular products?

A number of human barriers were also identified.

» The expectation of products to be a certain quality and have certain usability, especially as they would become more expensive as made from higher quality materials.

» In the short term we would need more manual labour and less automation while repair processes are developed.

» There is also a lack of skills when it comes to reshoring manufacturing, so how could production move closer if there are less skills?

» How to develop education and expertise to make technology accessible and usable, and build skills in areas relating to circularity?