Resumo

Circular economy (CE) and industry 4.0 (I4.0) are recent themes and have been studied together. Some research has been developed to demonstrate, for example, how I4.0 can boost the development of the circular economy in different organizations (Dantas et al. 2021; Rajput and Singh 2020). However, how such themes can influence organizational performance is still a topic that has been little explored.

This paper answers the following research question: How does the integration between these two constructs (I4.0-CE) influence environmental, operational, and social performance? To answer this question, we applied a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) to present (i) an overview of the literature over time and (ii) to identify I4.0 technologies and CE practices that are related to organizational performance. The paper ends by proposing a conceptual framework that links I4.0 technologies and CE practices to variables of organizational performance.

This paper presents concepts regarding I4.0 technologies, CE practices and levels of CE, and organizational performance and applies a systematic literature review (SLR), which is developed in three stages: planning, conducting, reporting, and dissemination of the review. The final process of selecting papers resulted in 115 papers that were analyzed by applying content analyses, making it possible to present an overview of the literature, identify I4.0 technologies and CE practices that are related to organizational performance, and propose the framework.

An overview of the literature regarding the distribution of articles in journals, research methods, theories, countries and sectors where the research was conducted, I4.0 technologies and CE practices and their relations with variables of organizational performance were presented. We extracted the performance criteria, obtaining 13 criteria, indicating the I4.0 technologies and CE practices associated with each criterion, making it possible to propose the conceptual framework. I4.0 technologies influence organizational performance, mainly when related to CE practices.

This paper analyzes the knowledge of the integration between I4.0 and CE and its influence on performance. An SLR was conducted to identify how this integration occurs over time. We identified a growth in publications in this area, with the Journal of Cleaner Production receiving most of the publications. Most of the papers consisted of reviews and case studies. Still, there has also been an increase in the use of mixed methods. The results also show the necessity of more studies on the macro level of CE, as well as studies that consider the influence of I.40-CE on social performance.

Dantas, T. E. T., E. D. De-Souza, I. R. Destro, G. Hammes, C. M. T. Rodriguez, and S. R. Soares. 2021. “How the Combination of Circular Economy and Industry 4.0 Can Contribute towards Achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.” Sustainable Production and Consumption 26:213–27. doi: 10.1016/j.spc.2020.10.005. Rajput, Shubhangini, and Surya Prakash Singh. 2020. “Industry 4.0 Model for Circular Economy and Cleaner Production.” Journal of Cleaner Production 277:123853. doi: 10.1016/j.jclepro.2020.123853.