Circular Economy and Supply Chain Management 4.0

Dear Colleagues,

Circular Economy (CE) is a concept of production, consumption, and recycling that aims to balance environmental conservation and economic growth by (re)using produced materials and devices for as long as possible. The main goal is to tackle global challenges such as waste, pollution, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Typical ways of CE involve recycling, reusing, repairing, refurbishing, leasing, and sharing existing products and following three base principles: eliminating waste and pollution, circulating products and materials, and the regeneration of nature.

‘Industry 4.0’ is a very popular term marking the fourth industrial revolution that assumes a much higher level of automation in the production and manufacturing environment using autonomous cyberphysical systems and Internet of Things (IoT) concepts. The high level of automation and connectivity allows for the creation of global networks of machines capable of autonomously exchanging information, controlling each other, and allowing for a greater controllability and transparency of the production processes. The ‘Industry 4.0’ paradigm also can be applied to Supply Chain Management, forming the Supply Chain Management 4.0 (or SCM 4.0) concept, where the same principles and technologies are used to increase the controllability and transparency of the supply processes: IoT devices help to trace flows of goods and materials; autonomous cyber-physical systems are used for transportation and warehouse management; data exchange provides a better predictability and control of the material flow, etc.

This Special Issue seeks to contribute to the Circular Economy and Supply Chain Management 4.0 agenda by enriching scientific knowledge on using the described concepts. In this context, we invite papers on innovative technical developments, reviews, case studies, and analytical and assessment papers from different disciplines which are relevant to all the different aspects related to the usage of Supply Chain Management 4.0 concepts for the Circular Economy. Indicatively, the following CE and SCM 4.0-related topics are welcomed (but are not limited) in the contributions to the present Special Issue: circularity in retail, reverse logistics, closed-loop supply chains, circularity of construction, circularity in service parts supply, refurbishing, recycling, sharing economy, traceability of materials flows, life cycle analysis, reusability–recyclability–repairability–traceability, automation and minimization of resource use, multi-mode transportation in reverse logistics. 

We look forward to receiving your contributions.

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• circularity in retail
• circularity in manufacturing
• reverse logistics
• closed-loop supply chains
• circularity of construction
• circularity in service parts supply
• refurbishing
• recycling
• sharing economy
• traceability of materials flows
• life cycle analysis
• reusability–recyclability–repairability–traceability
• automation and minimization of resource use
• multi-mode transportation in reverse logistics